Here's what's going on in the nation's capital, the source of green technology funding:

Vice President Joe Biden said that the Department of Energy will start to give out $3.375 billion in smart grid deployment grants. The grants range from $500,000 to $20 million. It will also give out grants for smart grid monitoring. Smart grid is everyone's favorite topic this year, which we began to predict in 2008. Why? There's a lot of power that gets wasted. Improving the grid's efficiency by 5 percent could save 41 gigawatts of power, according to GE's Steve Fludder. And it's all hardware, software and networking -- you don't have to invest in an expensive solar factory to get into business, so investors love it.

For those of you interested in selling smart grid technologies in the Golden State, the California Public Utilities Commission is holding an all-day symposium on April 21. More details here. It's going to be packed.

President Obama wants to study the feasibility of high-speed rail networks that could connect cities in the Northeast, California and/or Seattle.

"My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America. We must start developing clean, energy-efficient transportation that will define our regions for centuries to come," he said. And how. I've ridden these rail systems in Europe and Japan. There is far more room than in a plane, you are dropped off in a central location (versus miles out of town at the airport) and you can eat ham sandwiches without running the risk of creating a cataclysmic accident as in a car.

The EPA, meanwhile, is slated to say it will regulate greenhouse gases, a reversal of what happened in the last Presidential administration. More on that later.

The EPA is also sending out letters to utilities to inspect and improve their ash storage ponds. Lead, chromium and other bad things are in these ponds. Many established companies and startups like Cal-Star Cement want to use some of this waste product to make bricks or cement.