Standing on his roof, Ed Begley, Jr. supports solar energy.

Breaking the $1/watt Barrier
The $1 per watt price point has been a goal of the solar industry for a long time: First Solar announced that "it reduced its manufacturing cost for solar modules in the fourth quarter to 98 cents per watt".

I just read a story, linked from GreenBiz.com, about a new gas station in Dover, NH that sell only biofuels (blended) and has a "congreenience" store. The store pledged that 75% of its products will come from within 100 miles. The store is also powered by solar panels.

We at TreeHugger want to make finding green gifts easy. Which is why we put together our holiday gift guides. One of these guides is for the green geeks in your life, and it features great techy gadgets that leave a lighter footprint.

But if you're on the prowl for even more suggestions, we've found a resource for you.

utt73

Mark Roper at Triple Pundit asks: With all the hype over green collar jobs, where are all the green collar workers?

Solar-powered rickshaw photo: Cleantech

While it is easily possible to argue about the human rights aspect of pedal-powered rickshaws (there’s certainly a bit of difference in the type of people involved in the biz in India compared to their limited use in the United States...), there’s no denying that from an environmental perspective they’re a better form of transport than burning fossil fuels.

photo: Maury Landsman

While I’m not sure that the claims by the owners of Castello Monte Vibiano Vecchio olive oil farm that they will be the first farm anywhere to reduce their net carbon emissions to zero, without using offsite carbon offsetting projects, are be entirely true—I’d be surprised that some small farm hasn’t tried to do the same thing, just not publicized it as well—the efforts by the owners of this Umbrian farm are pretty interesting: ...

Bioneers is a pretty huge conference, and we know what kind of carbon footprint conferences can make, what with energy use, waste, water use and so on.

image: Trinifar

In case you’re new to the “new energy economy” debate—in short, figuring out how to transition the entire energy infrastructure of the world away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy—and want as about brief a summary as could be created of the progress made in the last year as well as some of the challenges ahead, this one’s for you.

photo: Chandra Marsono

Now that the legislative dust seems to have settled and the issue of renewable energy tax incentives resolved, at least for the time being, in the United States it might be tempting to overlook the following announcement coming out of Gainesville, Florida, but you shouldn’t.

image: Vote Solar

Though renewable energy in general, and solar power in particular, has really planted itself firmly in public consciousness over the past year, that doesn’t mean that individuals can rest on their laurels. One of the most interesting booths at Solar Power International wasn’t even on the exhibit floor, and wasn’t even staffed by anyone.

Cool 8-seat solar powered bike/car. This Flinstone-like car would be perfect for tours around town.