photo: rymdborje
The U.S. Department of Energy has named 13 "Solar America Cities" to receive up to $2.5 million in funding to further the adoption of solar technologies. Among them are Green Wombat’s stomping grounds in San Francisco and Berkeley. To qualify, a city had to be large, have a high electricity demand, and a "mature solar infrastructure."
The other cities are:
- Ann Arbor
- Austin
- Boston
- Madison
- New Orleans
- New York
- Pittsburgh
- Portland, Oregon
- Salt Lake City
- San Diego
- Tucson
DOE also handed out $30 million in university grants for research to lower the cost of solar energy and improve its efficiency as well as $27 million to companies for "photovoltaic module incubator projects." Half of the 10 companies selected are Silicon Valley startups: CaliSolar, EnFocus Engineering, Solaria, SolFocus, and SoloPower.
Green Wombat 
All I gotta say is props to New Orleans(represent!) Seriously, it’s nice to see some good news for my home town.
The state’s also pushing biofuels, mostly electricity generated from rice hulls and burning bagasse (the fibrous stuff in sugarcane) that’s leftover after ethanol processing. It’s a growing industry here and I’m hoping we see more green collar jobs down here in the dirty-dirty.