CleanTech OC Daily - 1/18/13

Report: Energy Secretary Steven Chu to leave, end of a green era
U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, will be leaving his post as the head of the Department of Energy. A formal announcement is said to be made next week. It is clear that Chu will be missed as he was highly respected as a scientist, Nobel Prize winner, and advocate for the cleantech industry.

California Solar Program Hits Another Milestone

California’s solar program is chugging along and has surpassed the 1,000 megawatts/1 gigawatt of installed solar before the close of 2012. That makes the California Solar Initiative (CSI) program more than halfway toward its goal of getting 1,940 MW of solar power on homes and businesses around the state by 2016. One gigawatt is equivalent to the output of a standard single-unit nuclear power plant.

US Missing the Boat on Clean Tech, Pew Study Finds

It is possible for the world’s clean energy sector to generate nearly $2 trillion in revenue from 2012 to 2018. According to a new report from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Innovate, Manufacture, Compete: A Clean Energy Action Plan, the U.S. does not play a significant role and is barely keeping up with the rest of the globe. Though, Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program, believes there is hope if the U.S. can put the right policies in place and Congress delivers a degree of certainty for businesses and investors.