OPEC announced Friday it will reduce oil production by 1.5 million barrels a day because of the global slowdown of oil demand. This could drive gas prices back up, but that might not be such a bad thing.

The New York Times reported that the emergency meeting ended with the decision to reduce OPEC output by 5 percent, which is 2 percent of the overall global consumption of oil, starting Nov.1.

Oil prices are trading below $64 a barrel, down from $145 a barrel in July.

The U.S. is the world’s largest oil consumer, but demand in the U.S. for oil is down and the lowest in five years. Last month it fell to 18.6 million barrels a day according to the Department of Energy.

As of Monday, gas now averages $2.66 a gallon, down from $4.11 on July 17. OPEC seems desperate to keep gas prices up.

Although this might seem bad for the economy to raise gas prices, it might be the best thing for the environment and green energy movement. When gas prices were high Americans started limiting their gasoline consumption and went to more earth-friendly forms of transportation such as biking, carpooling, taking the bus, walking, or even planning their trips more efficiently. Hopefully the fall of gas prices won’t revert those who now think more about their gasoline consumption.   

A couple weeks ago, we told you about a new, funky kind of solar panel that’s about to hit the market (Solar Panels Get a Make-over). A few months ago, we told you about a completely different kind of solar energy with gobs and gobs of potential — utility scale CSP, or concentrating solar power (Solar Thermal Power Coming to a Boil). We’ve also recently sung the praises of solar power potential in Solar Power Could Provide 10 Percent of U.S. Electricity by 2025. Clearly, we’re crazy for solar around here!

But can you handle even more good solar news?

A team of researchers at MIT has invented an award-winning solar electric system that is vastly more efficient than typical solar panels. And believe it or not, it should be vastly more affordable, too. Props go to associate professor of electrical engineering Marc A. Baldo, graduate students in electrical engineering Michael Currie, Jon Mapel and Timothy Heidel, and postdoctoral associate in the Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, Shalom Goffri. (Mad props also to the National Science Foundation, for supporting the research!)

The team’s “solar concentrator” collects the sun’s energy over a large dye-coated glass or plastic surface, such as a window, and gathers it at the edges. Therefore, expensive photovoltaic cells are only necessary around the glass panel’s edges. And the concentrated light actually multiplies the electrical output of each cell by up to 40 times. The best news may be for homeowners who already operate a solar electric system, because they’ll be able to boost their system efficiency significantly with even an inexpensive retrofit. Covalent Solar, the company founded by Currie, Mapel and Goffri, expects to be able to bring this technology to market within three years.

Watch professor Marc Baldo explain how these solar concentrators work:

New whiz-bang technologies are always cool, but the best news behind this development is about affordability. Says the research team: “Unsubsidized solar electricity is over three times as expensive as the average grid prices for electricity derived from conventional energy sources, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Dramatic cost reductions are needed. Clean, renewable electricity at affordable prices would be an attractive alternative to conventional electricity and the related fossil-fuel dependence, greenhouse-gas emissions and peak-time grid constraints.”

Further Resources:

* You can read the full report about the team's solar concentrator technology in the July 2008 issue of Science magazine: High-Efficiency Organic Solar Concentrators for Photovoltaics.

* Wish you were smarter? Catch more cool videos at MIT TechTV or participate in MIT classes through their free service, MITOpenCourseWare.

* Check out the January/February 2009 issue of our sister magazine, Natural Home, for more about solar concentrators.

Here are answers to some FAQs about our Escape from Berkeley experience:

How did you get fuel?

The competition was a simulation of a Mad Max-like future — no petroleum and no money. Other teams had different techniques, but we got our fuel through a combination of begging and bartering. Enough people thought our mission was worth supporting, or wanted to read the latest Mother Earth News, or liked our t-shirts to keep us oiled all the way.

Here's Julie (on the left), a camp store manager on the way to Tioga Pass, giving MAX's navigator Sharon (right) her entire stock of cooking oil. As a small token of our appreciation, we gave her a copy of Mother Earth News and an “I helped the Prisoners of Petroleum Escape from Berkeley” t-shirt.

Isn't barter the same as buying?

Not hardly. We had to engage people in our project; nobody gave us oil because they needed a shirt or it was easier than subscribing to the magazine. Sadly, bartering clothes for fuel is not without precedent; it happened during the Great Depression.

But mostly we wanted to scatter memorabilia along our path. By the way, if you ever see one of those t-shirts, it's on somebody who helped us on this trip — there's no other way to get one and we aren't going to do a second printing. For those who say our giveaways were worth more than the oil we got, well, that last pint of oil was worth $5,000, so I think we did all right.

How was your mileage?  

Am I spoiled, or what? I was going to say “horrible” because the mid-50s are way under MAX's potential (we got about 55 mpg), but there were some special circumstances at work:

1) Vegetable oil has fewer Btus per gallon than dino diesel. It takes a little extra veggie oil to make a horsepower, 5 percent to 10 percent more.

2) We were running late in a timed event. We were pushing hard. Not the best scenario for fuel economy.

3) We had hills and headwinds. We climbed about 20,000 feet total on that trip, and while we got some of that energy back driving down the backside of the passes, you lose more than you gain driving in the mountains. And man, the wind in the desert was brutal. There were rivers of sand blowing across the road. Some of the whitecaps were tall enough to blow into our car; we're lucky the judging didn't include points for neatness.

4) Those fenders, though stylish, are draggy as the dickens, and that's only an estimate. Next week I'll get started on aerodynamic testing and we'll see what it takes to get MAX's mileage up where it belongs.

Photo by Jack McCornack

T. Boone Pickens has seen enough of his ads on TV; now he wants to see some of yours.

Last Thursday, Pickens posted a video describing a Citizens Video Contest, calling for Americans to record a one-minute video conveying the need for renewable energy initiatives and environment conservation. Pickens asks for creativity, but the crux of the video needs to be directed toward politicians, who have told Pickens that in order for renewable energy to become a priority in the minds of elected officials, they have to see how much it means to American citizens.

Pickens’ addressed the video to his “Army,” which is a 1 million-strong group of people who have signed a petition on Pickens' Web site, calling for the end of America’s dependency on foreign oil and a new focus on alternative fuels.

The contest runs from Friday, Oct. 17, until midnight on Oct. 25. The winning video will be selected by the entire Army and announced one week before the election. The video will then be sent directly to the candidates and run on Pickens’ BooneCam.

It won’t take a lot of time to make your voice heard, and this is a pretty unique opportunity to reach your politicians. It’s at least worth a shot!

A new mayors’ alliance hopes to help K-12 students read Green Eggs and Ham in green buildings and classrooms.

Two mayors from opposite ends of the country announced Thursday the formation of the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools — an initiative to support the construction and modification of K-12 schools to reduce carbon emissions and increase their commitment to conservation.

The United States Green Building Council (USGBC) is supporting the initiative by providing 79 local USGBC chapters to help the Alliance’s cause.

Click here to read more the Mayors’ Alliance for Green Building.

The final presidential debate of the 2008 Election took place last night in Hempstead, N.Y. The domestic-policy-themed debate was maybe the most interesting of the three, since they’ve all been surprisingly dull.

What might have been ever more surprising was the fact that out of the 90 minute debate, less than 10 minutes was spent on energy policy. Granted we are in an economic crisis and that should take up most of the debate questioning, but during the debate Obama said that energy independence, “is the most important issue that our future economy is going to face.”

If that’s true, maybe it should have been discussed a little more.

Even during the scanty 10 minutes on energy policy, the candidates were sidetracked by each others’ positions on NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Both agreed it could take a minimum of 7 to 10 years before America would be free from the use of foreign oil, and that domestic oil production should be increased.

Most of the time McCain actually spent discussing energy policy was specific to increasing the number of nuclear power plants in America; Obama’s focus was on more domestically made fuel-efficient cars.

Bottom-line, neither went into enough depth on America’s energy policy problems and their solutions.

If case you missed the debate, it can be viewed in its entirety on The New York Times Web site or C-SPAN’s Web site.

Woohoo! We won Escape from Berkeley! What a great competition debut for MAX. 

This was a challenging race, and I'm not going to beat around the bush, this event turned out to be a race, not a “competition event,” as I had earlier described it. I doubt anybody on the road could tell, but because all the competitors had problems along the way, nobody had to slow down so they wouldn't get to the checkpoint too early. It was solve the problem and hurry to the next checkpoint — or the next problem, whichever came first. You'll read all the thrilling details in an early 2009 issue of Mother Earth News. 

I think we've proven the MAX concept with this run. Disguising MAX to look like the Prisoner car sure paid off — to anybody who stopped and said, "Oooh, The Prisoner, that was a great show," we'd counter with "Yes it was, but do you have any vegetable oil?" 

The concept of having to scrounge fuel made for an exciting race (I mean competition event, Officer), but it would have been exciting if we'd been allowed to dash into grocery stores and buy it ourselves. 

I have praises to sing, and first on the list is Plant Drive. A couple months back, I got a message from the company. They had read the MAX article in Mother Earth News and wondered if we'd like to try converting to veggie oil. I said I'd think about it. Well, I thought about it until the last minute (yes, Dad, I do my best work under pressure), and while Plant Drive doesn't make a conversion kit for a MAX, we exchanged e-mails and figured out what would go in one if they did. In Berkeley the day before the race, I primed the lines with canola oil and started MAX. Then Sharon flipped the switch on the dash from D (diesel) to SVO (straight vegetable oil), and we stood around until we felt the urge to order French fries. 

Other than the improved exhaust scent, there was no difference. Then we went out driving, and no difference. It just worked. 

I am sure there are other good conversion kit manufacturers out there, but we've been raving about Plant Drive for three days now. I'm really glad I didn't follow my original plan and get bits and pieces from various sources and concoct my own system. It would have made a better story, maybe, but it would have been a long story. We were racing, after all, and it was nice to be able to answer "How did you get it to run on vegetable oil?" with "We got a Plant Drive conversion kit, we followed the instructions, and we flipped that switch there. Gotta go."

We had some problems, but they were all of our own making. (They mostly related to how we fit our fuel lines — we had an air leak at the fuel tank fitting, and when bubbles got in the line the motor conked out and we had to purge it and prime it.) But the short form of the story is we were victorious, because we had one fewer fuel problem than anybody else.

By the last day, it was just us and the Green Team (a biomass-driven Dodge Dakota) at the start line. Our only problem the last day was getting fuel. Good thing MAX gets such great mileage, because we were literally in sight of Vegas when we couldn't go any farther. We pulled into a convenience store on figurative fumes and mooched their last three pints of cooking oil off the rack. It’s kind of a long story — I'll tell you later — but those 3 pints got us down the Strip and into the Sahara Casino parking lot. That was enough to win.

Photo by Jack McCornack

It’s easy to get excited about the potential of solar and wind power. For one thing, generating electricity from the sun and wind is a great alternative to burning fossil fuels because it does not produce carbon dioxide emissions or other air pollutants. But did you know these renewable technologies can help fight poverty, too?

That’s because solar panels and wind turbines can bring power to parts of the world where people don’t have electricity. In fact, an estimated 1.6 billion people — a quarter of the world’s population — do not have electricity at home, according to the Energy for Development report from REN21 (the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21^st Century). Installing small-scale solar panels and wind turbines can be an especially effective way to bring electricity to these areas, because it doesn’t require the enormous investment of, say, building a coal-fired electric plant and transmission lines.

The REN21 report mentioned above was published by the Worldwatch Institute, and it’s full of good information on renewable energy and poverty. You also can find more information on this subject on the Worldwatch Web site. For example, here’s one interesting article about a successful pilot project in rural India. The project brought solar power to 100,000 people who previously did not have reliable electricity. By providing electricity for lighting it reduced local reliance on kerosene, a fuel that was often unavailable or unaffordable — and that can cause serious problems with indoor air pollution.

Do you know of other projects where renewable energy is being used to alleviate poverty? You can share your thoughts by posting them in the comments field below.

Cool Earth Solar has designed a mechanism for harnessing solar energy that looks like something more out of the Jetson’s than something that can catch the sun’s power.

Rather than flat panels, Cool Earth Solar’s model looks like an elongated bubble. According to this article, each unit is 8 feet in diameter, weighs 20 pounds when inflated and can produce 1 kilowatts. The article said these units can produce 300 to 400 times that of a standard solar-power generator.

The installation of these new solar panels is a little bit stickier. As I read the article, it seemed like these “solar concentrators” are suspended in the air by a wire attached to two wooden polls. But if you read something different want to correct me, by all means please do.

Cool Earth Solar’s first prototype plant is set to open in California within the next few weeks.

Don’t celebrate the low prices at the pump just yet.

In a Time article, economists say the cause for the decrease in crude oil prices comes as a result of the economic slowdown experienced worldwide. This happened the last time there was a large-scale economic downswing (in the 1980s), though crude oil prices won’t dip nearly as much as back then given the worldwide increase in gas consumption since then, particularly over the last several years.

The demand for crude oil declined partly because of the increase of unemployment. The Time article said 60 percent of American drivers use their cars to go to work. If fewer people have jobs, fewer people need gas to drive to work.

The low gas prices aren’t necessarily because more oil is being produced; the dip in prices is caused by the worldwide economic downturn. So while it may feel great to finally pay less than $3.00 a gallon, it comes with its own implicit costs, which may be more threatening to our pocketbook in the long run than paying extra for gas.

MAX won the Escape from Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means possible) race! Huzzah!! 

I may be 1,300 miles away from the Sahara Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas, where the race ended, but my heart is beaming with pride. Jack and his trusty sidekick Sharon Westcott were the first to complete the 800+ mile race, arriving at the finish line last night. Jack tells me MAX performed admirably throughout the trip. He sounded exhausted, but ecstatic nonetheless. He's probably wind-whipped and quite hungry. That's Jack and Sharon in the photo below.

According to this morning's New York Times article on the subject, With Little Fuel, Eco-Racers Arrive in Las Vegas, MAX finished the race in 1,418 minutes. The Times article has a great photo of Jack and Sharon and MAX, shortly after they arrived at the Sahara. You can see it large here.

Jack had close competition up to the last day of the three-day race from Wayne Keith, who drove a Dodge Dakota that runs on oxygen, hydrogen and methane converted from wood and biomass burned in a large device in the truck's bed. Mother Earth News readers are familiar with that idea; it's good to see the idea live on.

In the end, Keith finished three hours behind MAX after problems from a flat tire and dead wood that didn't burn correctly.

MAX made the journey on veggie oil. Per the rules of the race, each contestant was allowed 1 gallon of non-petroleum fuel with which to start their engines. For the rest of the journey, your power source of choice had to be scavenged. Jack made a smart choice by using veggie oil in MAX's diesel engine, and was able to get oil all along the way from kind folks.

For more on MAX and the Escape from Berkeley race, read our MAX updates and Here Comes the 100-mpg Car.

And check back soon for an update directly from Jack — he promised me he'll send a new blog post as soon as he can find an Internet connection.

Congrats to Jack, Sharon and the whole Kinetic Vehicles team!

Photo courtesy of Jake Haskell

Sept. 30, The U.S. Department of Energy launched the 2008 Clean Cities National Alternative Fuel Vehicle Day Odyssey, also known as Odyssey Day. The day was celebrated in Washington D.C., and embarked a nationwide symposium of 80 events dedicated to promoting the use of petroleum-free fuel that will take place over the next few months. Events are happening in over 60 locations and range from ride-and-drive events to public forums.

The Clean Cities partnership consists of 86 coalitions working with 5,700 local stakeholder programs. Clean Cities has helped reduce the use of petroleum-fuel by 2 billion gallons; put more than half a million alternative-fuel vehicles on the road; and contributed to the construction of more than 3,000 alternative refueling stations across the country.

I couldn’t find where the events will be, but with 86 coalitions, chances are good there will be one in your state.

Friday early a.m.: for the first time ever, MAX got upstaged. Escape from Berkeley is going to be quite an event. I'm so used to being “that weirdo,” but at Shipyard Labs, I'm practically the white sheep of the family.

Here are Shannon O'Hare (foreground) and Kimric Smythe (hiding in the back), lighting up their vegetable oil fired steam carriage. They made their engine out of an old old (1920 or so) air compressor, and they've carried the antique theme all the way from the suspension (none to speak of) to the smokestack (topped with a 19th century spitoon).

That's MAX in the background, looking ordinary and forlorn. Tomorrow (later today, actually) we have lots of work to do, and lucky for me, Sharon slept Thursday night, so she can do it. And lucky for MAX she's not fickle — Kimeric gave her a ride in the steam carriage and she came back with a happy laugh and gleeful smile.

I'm hitting the hay, lulled by the soothing pockata pockata of an idling steam carriage.

Come to the party tonight (Friday), Shipyard Labs, 1010 Murray in Berkeley.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Sharon (that's her in the brown jacket) and I got to Shipyard Labs about sundown (Thursday) for the  Escape from Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means possible) event. It was just getting dark enough to need flash for this photo. MAX performed admirably — and on short notice, to boot.

I'd given MAX a 90.38 mile test drive (ain't GPS wonderful?), had a bunch of errands to do anyway, and nothing fell off so we hit the road. Got to Eureka that night, about 10:00, went to Curtis Unlimited (a name to remember if you drive a vintage Lotus race car) and got a pair of '60s-style fenders mounted. Got three hours of sleep (6 a.m. to 9 a.m.) and drove to Berkeley down back roads. It was a beautiful drive and great fun, but I'm getting too old for these hours.

Now we just have to paint the fenders and ... oh yeah, we got the Plant Drive system installed before we left Oregon, but in order to get to the Curtis' at a reasonable hour (hey, they're night owls) we're going to do our veggie oil testing and debugging today (Friday, October 10). Then there's the party Friday night, then the race — I mean competition event — Saturday.

When I was 15, I brought home an “A” on a term paper I'd written the night before, and I told my dad, “Hey, I do my best work under pressure.” He smiled and said, ”Jack, you do your only work under pressure.” Smart guy, that dad.

PS: Those errands I ran on Tuesday? It was 19 stops (auto parts shops, a dive shop, a costume shop) in two towns. The driving was a good city/highway mix, and MAX got 60 mpg. That’s better than a Prius, and we haven't done any streamlining yet.

PPS: If you're around, you gotta come to the party Friday night. Shipyard Labs is at 1010 Murray in Berkeley. Festivities begin at 8.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Let’s all stop and applaud California. This year, the state ranks first on the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy’s (ACEEE) list of U.S. states that use energy efficiency policies, programs and practices as the first step in improving their economies. Among the top 10 — along with the golden state — are Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont.

ACEEE first started ranking states in 2006 as a way to encourage each state to promote energy independence and efficiency. The 2008 scorecard rates and ranks each state on a 50-point scale for their energy efficiency policy initiatives, including:

• Utility-sector and public benefits efficiency programs and policies
• Transportation and land use policies
• Building energy codes
• Combined heat and power (CHP)
• Appliance efficiency standards
• Energy efficiency in public buildings and fleets
• Research, development, and deployment (RD&D)
• Financial incentives for efficient technologies

Watch the Scorecard Webcast and see how your state ranks. And let us know what you think of your state’s performance by posting a comment below.

It’s that time of year again, that weekend in October we all look forward to – no, keep the candy hidden and the lights in storage – I’m talking about The National Solar Tour.

Check out homes and buildings in your area featuring the latest in solar technology and pick up some tidbits on how to make your life naturally brighter.

This year, the nationwide event expects up to 150,000 people to turn out in 49 participating states – making it the largest solar event in history.

And the timing of this national Sun-recognition day couldn't have come at a more exciting time for solar power. Earlier today, President Bush signed into law some eagerly awaited tax credits that will provide substantial support for renewable energy. They include support for commercial and residential solar power, as well as other forms of renewable energy including wind power, tidal and wave power, and geothermal energy. You can read more about the tax credits here from Renewable Energy World.

The tax credits were tacked onto the bailout plan, so maybe some good will come of it after all.

"This action will create over one hundred new U.S. jobs..., cut U.S. energy imports and slash greenhouse gas emissions, says Scott Sklar, President of The Stella Group, Ltd.

At this rate, the Sun may become more of a star than it already is!

So get out there this weekend and find out something you didn’t know about your community. And hey, let us know what you found out too.

PHOTO BY ISTOCKPHOTO

... but it's too late in the season to go to Montana and throw the hoolihan. Time flies when you're having fun.

In the photo below, you'll see Dave Levison driving the freshly painted MAX out of the loft. Note that Dave is a pretty big boy; he doesn't rattle around in the cockpit much. In preparation for Escape from Berkeley (by any non-petroleum means possible), we invested $39.90 in 10 rattlecans of Rustoleum and painted MAX to match No. Six's green and yellow Lotus Seven sports car in the opening credits of The Prisoner. It's a long story, but the short form is The Prisoner was a BBC action/adventure/paranoia/social commentary TV series of the '60s, in which a secret agent resigns and is whisked off to a surreal penal colony run by who knows who. For 17 episodes whoever they were tried to extract his secret (why did he quit the spy biz?) and “No. 6” tries to escape. Forty years later, the show still has cult status. Can you believe it?

Anyway, since MAX already looks a lot like a Lotus Seven, we named our team The Prisoners of Petroleum and painted MAX in homage. It looks pretty good in this photo, doesn't it? That's because I know the secret to making a $39 paint job look as good as a $2,000 paint job.

The trick is to take your photo from some distance away, and then compress the photo really small so it'll fit in a blog column. MAX has what is known in the car racing industry (I'm not making this up) as a 50/50 Paint Job. That's one that looks decent from 50 feet away at 50 mph.

Well hey, that's plenty good enough for the Escape from Berkeley. It's the only event where MAX will look like this. We're doing quite extensive bodywork development. Soon, all those green and yellow bits are going to be replaced with a slippery new body. We'll probably get the next body painted by somebody who knows what he's doing, but this one got painted in record time by Dave and me — a couple of guys who've never had a lesson and had a lot of other work to do.

We have less than a week to get our Plant Drive vegetable oil conversion kit installed, plus figure out some front fenders so we can keep driving if it starts raining. And if we're going to be competitive in this event, we're going to need to install some rally-style instrumentation. Then we have to drive from Oregon to Berkeley in time for the send-off party Friday night, October 10.

If you're in the neighborhood, we'd love to have you there to wish us well. MAX should be looking pretty good because it's gong to be dark. Just don't touch the front fenders because the paint will still be wet.

Photo by Jack McCornack

Democrats recently caved to the Republican Party’s demands for drilling in the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) — their seemingly favorite solution to high gas prices after they reached $4 earlier this summer. As a result, the offshore drilling moratorium expired at midnight on Sept. 30, even though it had been renewed every year since 1982. The moratorium banned drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but now some see drilling as the only answer to our energy problems.

This marks the first of many battles-to-come between the two political parties involving offshore drilling. And it’s not looking pretty.

The Interior Department claims there are 18 billion barrels of oil to be retrieved from the Outer Continental Shelf, mainly around California. The House already passed legislation last month to allow oil and gas drilling off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts as long as it was at least 50 miles from the shore. But the Republicans wanted to drill closer, claiming that almost 90 percent of oil reserves would than be off-limits.

According to the Energy Information Administration, any coastal drilling — whether or not it’s 50 miles away — would take time and money, neither of which the government has. The oil rigs, alone, would take at least five years to set up, and it would take at least another 15 until any drilling would show significant changes in gas prices. Many states may not even allow coastal drilling because of the chances that it could destroy public beaches. All of these reasons give Democrats the opportunity to create a broader legislation that could stop oil companies from drilling before any rigs are ever even built.

Of course, a large part of what will happen depends on who our next president will be. John McCain’s energy plan depends heavily on offshore drilling, while Barack Obama’s plan sees it as a small part to a bigger solution. To make your own opinion about the two, read The Candidates Discuss Energy Issues or watch the presidential debates on Oct. 7 and Oct. 15, airing at 9 p.m. Eastern time on all major broadcast networks. Or post a comment below if you already have an opinion.

The small state of Rhode Island will become a big producer of wind power, and it won’t lose any of the state's limited landmass to do it.

The Ocean State is installing a $1 billion, 1.3 million annual megawatt hour wind farm in the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. The farm would supply 15 percent of all electricity used in the entire state.

Deepwater Wind was commissioned to develop the project, which will begin after a study determines the area of lowest impact to install the turbines. The study will be conducted by the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council and URI’s Gradate School of Oceanography.

Deepwater pledged to invest $1.5 billion in the project and create up to 800 direct jobs with annual wages of $60 million.

And people say renewable energy won’t create many jobs…

Toyota, hailed as the top hybrid manufacturer, has more green footprints than just its tread marks from the Prius.

This month, Toyota, in partnership with the SunPower Corporation and GE Energy Financial Services, will begin operation of one of the largest, single-roof solar power installations in the country.

The system, installed in Ontario, Calif., stretches 242,000 square feet (the length of four football fields) of the roof of Toyota’s North America Parts Center California (NAPCC) and produces 2.3 megawatts of electricity, which will provide almost 60 percent of the facility's power. If the company wasn't using this system, it would produce 6.4 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions.

SunPower installed the system; GE Energy Finance footed the bill; and Toyota received RECs and protection from rising energy prices.

Toyota also installed a 53,000 square foot roof system on its headquarters building, located in Torrance, Calif., in 2003.