A quick summary of a talk by PG&E: Utilities tend to be portrayed as Mr. Burns rather than Mother Theresa. People often display a knee-jerk reaction to the idea of a utility -- distrust and suspicion. And that reputation might have some root in reality; most people think of a blackout or a rate hike or a poor customer service experience.  But U.S. utilities manage to keep the grid up and running 99.8 percent of the time. The electrical grid has been called one of mankind’s greatest inventions, akin to stuff like the transistor or space travel and deservedly so -- it animates our society just as the Web connects our world. Without being too obsequious or sycophantic here -- the utility-people I encounter, admittedly most of them on the renewable side, are good people motivated to change the world for the better. Which brings us to Chuck Hornbrook of Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and the talk he gave at PARC last night for the Silicon Valley Photovoltaic Society.  Hornbrook is the Senior Manager, Solar and Customer Generation at this renewable energy-friendly Northern California utility. Hornbrook understands PG&E’s mission.  The key thing it has to do is to: “Make sure that beer stays cold, and homes stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer.� PG&E provides electrical and gas services to 15 million Californians and while doing that it has also managed to connect more solar customers than any other utility in the country.  It is expecting 500 MW of cumulative installed solar by early 2011 and is responsible for something like 50 percent of the grid-tied solar in the U.S. But reality intrudes here. “Even thought solar exists, the peak in the PG&E service territory is between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.," Hornbrook said. " Solar helps but it doesn’t meet the peak. And those last few megawatts are really expensive.� And that’s why energy efficiency is at the top of PG&E’s loading order. While energy usage has steadily climbed in the U.S, California’s energy per capita has remained flat over the last 30 years.  What that means, and it’s important, is that California has avoided building 20 natural gas plants. This has been achieved through policies like “de-coupling� (giving utilities a fixed rate of return on equity and not allowing them to profit by selling more power or building more plants), and through regulations, codes and standards. “Energy Efficiency is the thing to do first,� according to Hornbrook and that’s why an energy audit is required before PG&E provides incentives for a solar roof.  Duct work, insulation, efficient furnaces have to be installed and are the low hanging fruit in the energy equation. PG&E is easily one of the more progressive utilities with regards to renewable energy.  In solar alone it is working with almost every available solar technology -- crystalline silicon from SunPower, amorphous silicon from Optisolar (maybe), CdTe from First Solar, and solar thermal in a variety of formats from Brightsource  Energy, Greenvolts, and Ausra (maybe). Definitely more Mother Teresa than Mr. Burns.

What do oil, beer and cars have in common? Cellulosic ethanol, according to a research consortium of Japanese companies including Toyota, Nippon Oil Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Sapporo Breweries. The group plans to team up to make low-cost fuel from non-food feedstocks, according to Reuters. They've set a goal of producing 1.6 million barrels of ethanol by 2014, and selling it for about $70 a barrel — or $1.67 a gallon — by 2015. That's a higher price than many U.S.-based developers of cellulosic ethanol are promising, but then, none have hit full-scale commercial production yet (see Verenium Plans Cellulosic Ethanol Plant in Florida). As it does with oil, Japan imports almost all of its ethanol, four-fifths of it from Brazil, which has a thriving sugarcane-to-ethanol industry. Japan's government wants to replace 0.6 percent of the crude oil it uses for gasoline with biofuels by 2010. As for cellulosic ethanol, Bioethanol Japan started up a plant in 2007 that makes the fuel from wood construction waste, Green Car Congress reported. (Sapporo Breweries was a partner on that project too.) Three plants aimed at making ethanol from "non-food rice" are also underway, with the first expected to start production of about 220,000 gallons a year by next month, Reuters reports.

It’s official: It wasn’t a UFO that caused a wind turbine blade to come loose on a farm in the United Kingdom.

The 65-foot blade fell off because the bolts that fixed it to the hub no longer worked, according to a preliminary assessment by the manufacturer Enercon, reported the Daily Telegraph Wednesday. Enercon said “material fatigue� was the cause.

Some nearby residents said they had seen a flying saucer with “tentacles� on the night the blade came undone last month (check out this YouTube video). Dale Vince, a co-founder of Ecotricity, which operates the wind project, said he wasn’t surprised that aliens weren’t to blame.

“But there was part of me that did hope it was a UFO as it was a lovely story,� Vince said. “My favourite theory was that some alien race was trying to steal our turbine technology. They crossed galaxies to get here and when they arrive all they want is our wind technology. Wind power may be the holy grail of energy on Earth but not for stellar space travel.�

The UFO theory has garnered a lot of press for Ecotricity, which created a Web page called “ 'UFO' damage mystery roundup.�

Sierra Solar Power, a quiet thin-film solar startup in Fremont, Calif., has reportedly raised $40 million, said VentureBeat, which didn't cite sources. Sierra Power declined to comment on the story.

Sierra Solar Power previously raised $7.1 million for Series A from GSR Ventures and Mayfield China for developing silicon thin films (see Green Light post).

The solar cells being developed by Sierra Solar Power could convert 16 percent to 17 percent of the sunlight that hits the cells into electricity, according to VentureBeat. That would make Solar Solar Power’s cells more efficient than those being developed by many competing thin-film companies.

VentureBeat seems to have confused another company with Sierra Solar Power. Its story also referred to a company called Sierra Solar Systems, in Grass Valley, Calif., that sells solar panels, solar hot water heaters, solar ovens and batteries.

I first thought this was a piece of architecture rescued from a minature golf course. Something like the old troll's house on the 16th fairway.

It's actually from an old wind turbine, says Barry Johnston, CEO of ScotRenewables, a tidal power company in the Orkney Islands. ScotRenewables is building an unusual tidal turbine that sits on the surface of the water. It is somewhat of a can-do company. The employees -- mostly mechanical engineers and hydrodynamic specialists -- built their own office building and 40 meter wave tank, along with this wind hub room. Johnston first tried to use it as a conference room but each time the speakerphone was used it echoed like crazy.

It's right there in the picture. These are oil tankers in Scapa Flow, the deep harbor formed by the Orkney Islands in the North of Scotland. These tankers -- we counted four -- have been sitting here for weeks waiting for the price of oil to rise. The Scapa Flow, which covers about 250 square miles, is also where the German Navy scuttled its fleet rather than give it to the British after the end of World War I.

Why stop at regenerative braking when there are so many potholes and speed bumps to harness for power? That's the idea behind shock absorbers that can generate electricity — and two separate versions of the same concept are now looking for commercial potential. The first is from Levant Power Corp., a Massachusetts Institute of Technology spinout formed by students who developed a shock absorber hydraulic system that pushes fluid through a turbine that powers a generator. They're testing a prototype on a Humvee provided by AM General, the company that makes the vehicles for the U.S. military. Levant reports that its shock absorbers can generate about 1 kilowatt each on regular roads in a six-shock heavy truck, enough to power alternator loads. The students-turned-entrepreneurs hope their invention will find a home in vehicles like the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. AM General is one of several contractors competing for the $20-billion-plus contract to develop the proposed replacement for the Humvee for the U.S. military. But the idea of using shock absorbers to generate power isn't new — in fact, it's been around since at least 2001. That's when two professors from Tufts University first proposed their alternative method of getting power out of bumpy roads (via Green Car Congress). The Tufts shock absorbers don't use a hydraulic system. Instead, they use an electromagnetic linear generator to generate power from the up-and-down motion the shocks undergo — an average of 1 to 6 kilowatts on typical roads and as much as 16 kilowatts of average power on rough roads, according to its inventors. Electric Truck LLC optioned the rights to the technology in November. The company is "working diligently to develop commercial prototypes," according to Martin Son, associate director of Tufts' technology licensing office. Perhaps a race to the finish line is in order.