One of China's solar biggies scores with FC Bayern.Okay, now the Chinese are really throwing down the solar gauntlet. President Obama mentioned China's rise as a cleantech power in his State of the Union speech Tuesday evening, but he failed to mention this development: Yingli Green Energy, the Chinese photovoltaic module maker that is the No. 1 supplier of solar panels to the California market, has become an "Official Premium Partner" of FC Bayern München, one of Germany's most famous soccer teams. Germany, of course, is the world's biggest solar market -- and the irony of one of the German …

If solar panels work in the French Alps, the Northeast U.S. should be no problem at all.Photo: now picnicWe write quite a bit about solar power here at Grist's Green State, and given that this is a California-focused column, that's no surprise. Solar, to large degree, has been a West Coast thing -- thanks to abundant sunshine, generous incentives, and a populace that leans green. Now California's biggest solar installers are heading east, making bids to persuade homeowners in the not-so-sunny Northeast and mid-Atlantic states to shovel the snow off their roofs and install photovoltaic panels. On Monday, Silicon Valley's …

BrightSource plans to build a 38-megawatt solar plant on Crete.Photo: SimonaAs policy wonks worry about United States green tech industry's ability to compete against China and other countries with aggressive renewable energy policies, California's BrightSource Energy said Thursday that it has signed a deal to supply the technology for a solar thermal power plant to be built in Greece. The 38-megawatt project, to be developed on the island of Crete by a British-Greek joint venture, is the first time BrightSource's power tower technology has been exported to Europe. BrightSource, which has contracts to supply 2,610 megawatts of electricity to California …

California green jobs are bringing in the green.A new report offers more ammunition in the never-ending debate over green jobs. Next 10, a San Francisco nonprofit, published a survey Wednesday that shows that California's "core green economy" grew more than three times as fast as the state's old brown economy between 2008 and 2009. It's a trend that resembles the boom in software jobs since 2005. "The green job data is significant because these jobs are growing in every region across the state, outpacing other vital sectors, and generating business across the supply chain," F. Noel Perry, Next 10's founder, said …

Photo: Christopher CozierAs Chinese President Hu Jintao arrives in Washington on Tuesday for a state visit, China's growing dominance of the global solar industry has become a contentious issue. The Obama administration is reviewing a complaint from the United States Steelworkers union that China has violated free trade rules through its subsidization of renewable energy companies. Meanwhile, one American photovoltaic module maker, Evergreen Solar, is shutting down its Massachusetts factory and relocating manufacturing operations to China, lured by incentives offered the Chinese government. But to see just how successful Chinese solar companies have been on U.S. turf, it's worth taking …

Are prospects dimming for solar thermal?Photo: WikipediaAre those big solar thermal power plants now under construction in California destined to become technological white elephants? That's the tentative conclusion of a new report from GTM Research, which predicts declining costs for photovoltaic panels may crush the competitiveness of solar thermal, also known as concentrating solar power, or CSP. "Paradoxically, CSP is simultaneously experiencing unprecedented growth and facing extinction," Brett Prior, a GTM Research senior analyst and the report's author, said in a statement Photovoltaic panels, like those found on residential rooftops, produce electricity by converting photons that strike semiconducting materials into …

The numbers are in and 2010 proved a record year for green energy, investment with venture capitalists, corporations, and governments worldwide pouring $243 billion into wind farms, solar power, electric cars, and other technologies, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. That's a 30 percent spike from 2009 and nearly five times the money invested in 2004, the research firm said. "It flies in the face of skepticism about the clean energy sector among public market investors, who have been concerned about the sustainability of subsidy programs in Europe, the failure of the Obama administration to deliver …

A solar station in Vacaville, California.Photo: PG&EIn another sign that photovoltaic power is poised to become a significant source of greenhouse gas-free electricity, California utility Southern California Edison on Monday announced it had signed deals to generate 831 megawatts from solar panel farms. To put that in perspective, that's nearly a third of the electricity to be generated by California's decade-long program to install 3,000 megawatts' worth of solar panels on residential and commercial rooftops by 2017.  Silicon Valley solar powerhouse SunPower will build three photovoltaic power plants in Southern California to produce 711 megawatts while Spain's Fotowatio Renewable Ventures …

Methane from the BP oil spill was consumed by bacterial blooms.Photo: Greenpeace InternationalTwo months after the BP oil spill, scientists discovered methane concentrations in the Gulf of Mexico were a million times greater than background levels. "Based on past data and research, we thought the methane would persist in those deeper plumes for years," Dr. John Kessler, an assistant professor of oceanography at Texas A&M, said in an interview. In June, Kessler and scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara, led a research expedition to the Gulf to measure methane. In a paper to be published today in Science …

A First Solar plant in El Dorado, Nev.Photo: Sempra EnergyThe world's largest photovoltaic project is finally moving forward in China. Back in September 2009, First Solar, the Tempe, Ariz., thin-film solar module maker and developer, announced that it had struck a deal to build a massive 2,000-megawatt solar power plant complex in the Ordos region of Inner Mongolia. Then, as often is the case when such big projects are unveiled with great fanfare, nothing much happened for a long while as the nitty-gritty financial details were worked out and First Solar grappled with Chinese bureaucracy. But on Monday, First Solar …