Alternative Energy

A Massachusetts alternative energy start-up will announce Monday that it has finalized a $1.25 billion deal to build a plant in Western China to convert coal into synthetic natural gas, an agreement that underscores China's growing hunger for power and the state's position as a global center for energy technology. The deal, one of the biggest yet for the state's alternative energy industry, creates a partnership between GreatPoint Energy, a seven-year-old Cambridge company with just 30 employees, and China Wanxiang Holdings, an industrial conglomerate.

A Massachusetts alternative energy start-up will announce Monday that it has finalized a $1.25 billion deal to build a plant in Western China to convert coal into synthetic natural gas, an agreement that underscores China's growing hunger for power and the state's position as a global center for energy technology. The deal, one of the biggest yet for the state's alternative energy industry, creates a partnership between GreatPoint Energy, a seven-year-old Cambridge company with just 30 employees, and China Wanxiang Holdings, an industrial conglomerate.

A Cambridge company developing technology to make ethanol more efficiently said it has been granted two key US patents. Joule Unlimited Technologies has made significant progress toward its goal of finding a way to produce 25,000 gallons of ethanol per acre, spokeswoman Felicia Spagnoli said yesterday. The alternative energy fuel is made from various sources, including corn. The company uses microorganisms that capture carbon dioxide from industrial sources, such as factories, and manipulates them to create ethanol as a product of photosynthesis.

The Massachusetts Senate is proposing to cap rate increases and require utilities to buy more power from small-scale producers as part of an effort to control the high cost of electricity in the state. The bill, which was unveiled today, would also allow hydroelectric power to count towards the Commonwealth's renewable and alternative energy generation goals as measured by the Green Communities Act of 2008. The legislation, which has over 25 provisions, contains both short- and long-term proposals.

SAN JOSE, Calif. - As the economy sheds jobs, community colleges are reporting a surge of unemployed workers enrolling in courses that offer training for "green-collar" jobs. Students are learning how to install solar panels, repair wind turbines, produce biofuels, and do other work related to renewable energy. "I think the opportunities in this field are going to be huge," said Rudy Gastelo, who left the construction industry two years ago. To meet growing demand, two-year colleges are launching or expanding green job training with money from the federal stimulus package.

Greater Boston ranks in the top 10 among the nation’s largest metropolitan areas for employment in the alternative energy industry, boosted by state policies that require utilities to purchase electricity generated by solar, wind, and other nonpolluting power sources, according to a new study. The study, by the Washington think tank Brookings Institution, found that Boston ranks seventh among the 100 largest metro areas with nearly 4,300 alternative energy jobs, accounting for the vast majority of the state’s employment in this emerging industry.

ROCKLAND, Maine — Matthew Simmons, an energy investment banker who espoused the peak oil theory, became an advocate for alternative energy, and served as energy adviser to President George W. Bush, has died at his North Haven island home, officials said yesterday. He was 67. Mr. Simmons, the founder of Houston-based Simmons & Co. International, wrote the 2005 book “Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy,’’ raising concerns about Saudi Arabia’s oil reserves and laying out his theory that the world...

Excerpts from the Globe’s environmental blog. There is a major obstacle to alternative energy: people. Public acceptance of new energy technologies and individual behavioral changes are needed to ensure the nation moves toward cleaner energy, but many obstacles block the way. To spark a broader discussion — and figure out what incentives would be most effective — the American Academy of Arts and Sciences recently held a...

NEW YORK -- Investors' appetites for new alternative energy companies remain robust but tastes have shifted: while ethanol makers seem to have exhausted their favor, Chinese solar cell makers continue to pull in fresh capital. According to IPOHome.com, 115 companies went public in the United States during the first half of the year. Of those, eight were in the alternative energy sector, compared with nine offerings for all of 2006. "What we're seeing is a very strong pipeline" of renewable energy IPOs, both in the United States and overseas, said Michael Liebreich,...

In June, an American Superconductor Corp. field crew in China doing routine inspections of wind turbines for the company's biggest customer noticed something was not right. The blades were spinning on a turbine thought to be out of operation. Once they opened the machine, the team from the Devens-based company made a startling find. Someone had replicated American Superconductor's electrical control system software almost perfectly. Only an identification number was off. This discovery culminated last week with American Superconductor accusing its largest customer, wind...

United Technologies Corp. said Thursday that it will sell its rocket engine and wind power businesses to help finance its $16.5 billion purchase of aerospace supplier Goodrich Corp. The Hartford, Conn.-based industrial conglomerate, seeing a murky future in space travel and alternative energy, said it will sell Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne, Clipper Windpower and its three industrial businesses at its Hamilton Sundstrand aerospace components manufacturer. It expects to raise $3 billion from the sales to finance its biggest acquisition ever.

President Barack Obama is drawing attention to the nation's parks and open spaces, saying conservation of American attractions and resources creates jobs, assists the recovery and even contributes to less foreign oil dependence. Obama says there is no need to choose between clean water or clean air and a strong economy. He calls that's "a false choice. " The president spoke at the Interior Department the same day the administration held a conservation conference. Obama said parks and public lands help make the United States a major tourist...

WILMINGTON, Del. - A Delaware bankruptcy judge yesterday approved a private equity firm's $30 million offer for an alternative energy company in Tyngsborough, Mass., that failed despite a $39 million government loan. Rockland Capital was the winning bidder for assets of Beacon Power Corp., which makes flywheel energy storage systems that keep power frequency steady on electrical grids. Rockland's offer, including a 20-megawatt flywheel energy storage plant in New York, combined $5.5 million in cash with a promissory note of $25 million payable to the Department of Energy.

High profile bankruptcies, plunging sales, and canceled acquisitions are raising questions of whether alternative energy can fulfill its promise as the next great growth industry for Massachusetts and the nation. Struggling with dwindling subsidies, a weak economy, and fierce competition from China, the US alternative energy industry appears to be entering a period of consolidation that is challenging the survival of some firms and claiming others. The failure of the Solyndra LLC, the heavily subsidized California solar company that is now the subject of federal investigations, is perhaps the best...

The Rhode Island attorney general's office has cleared Charlestown of any wrongdoing in a complaint by residents that town officials violated the state's Open Meetings Act by meeting secretly in 2009 with the head of an alternative energy company. The Westerly Sun reports ( http://bit.ly/ulf24r) that a group of residents accused Councilor Gregory Avedisian and former councilors Forrester Safford and Charlene Dunn of holding a private and unadvertised meeting at the South County Wind Forum in 2009.

In June, an American Superconductor Corp. field crew in China doing routine inspections of wind turbines for the company's biggest customer noticed something was not right. The blades were spinning on a turbine thought to be out of operation. Once they opened the machine, the team from the Devens-based company made a startling find. Someone had replicated American Superconductor's electrical control system software almost perfectly. Only an identification number was off. This discovery culminated last week with American Superconductor accusing its largest customer, wind turbine maker...

President Obama laid out an ambitious goal in his latest State of the Union address: By 2035, America will get 80 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources. Achievable? Maybe, if you consider that Obama’s expansive definition of clean energy includes nuclear and emerging clean coal technologies, which many environmentalists don’t embrace as ways to combat greenhouse gases. A less obvious question is whether mutual fund investors will have the patience to stick with green investing principles that have recently left them in the red. The stocks of renewable...

WHAT EXACTLY IS clean energy? In Massachusetts - one of the leaders in alternative energy policy - it is far from monolithic. The state counts at least 1,200 companies spread across several industries, from new-age batteries, to fuel made from plant waste, to technologies that help business and households use electricity more efficiently. That diversity has been promoted by state and federal leaders offering subsidies to alternative technologies of all kinds, and pushing mandates to encourage their adoption.