It was announced on April 16th that the fuel cell markets will get a funding boost courtesy of the Recovery Act (i.e. American Recovery and Reinvestment Act).
U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE)
http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=160

As noted on the government's site, "Recovery Act Announcement: Secretary Chu Announces $41.9 million to Spur Growth of Fuel Cell Market" - there will be millions of dollars made available to help increase the commercialization of fuel cells as well as to create jobs related to the installation, maintenance, and support services required for the fuel cell systems that will be deployed.

In addition to the funds provided by the government, the industry participates will invest $72.4 million as their part of the cost-sharing arrangement under the Act.

As noted on the EERE web site, "the new funding will improve the potential of fuel cells to provide power in stationary, portable and specialty vehicle applications, while cutting carbon emissions and broadening our nation's clean energy technology portfolio."

It will be interesting to follow this initiative and the participates as they ramp up the manufacturing and diversification of the fuel cell systems.

As posted on their site, "the Solar Living Institute and the San Diego Renewable Energy Society are teaming up to help environmentally conscious workers explore and secure green career opportunities."

This first of two conferences is scheduled to take place on April 25, 2009, with the Green Career Conference being held at San Diego State University.  http://www.solarliving.org/display.asp?catid=13&pageid=166

The second Green Career Conference will be held in Los Angeles on June 7, 2009:
http://www.solarliving.org/store/product.asp?catid=13&pid=2172

www.greencareerconference.org

San Diego Renewable Energy Society

GREEN COLLAR JOBS Training

The Solar Living Institute will be participating in a green jobs training program in Richmond Virginia  along with Solar Richmond...

http://www.solarliving.org/store/default.asp?catid=13&pageid=125

From Solar Living Institute's website, "Established in 1998 as a spin-off from Real Goods Trading Company, the Solar Living Institute in Hopland, CA, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational organization whose mission is to promote sustainable living through inspirational environmental education. The Institute provides practical, education by example and hands-on workshops on renewable energy, green building, sustainable living, permaculture, organic gardening and alternative, environmental, construction methods."

Solar Richmond
...from SolarRichmond.org's website, "Solar Richmond promotes and inspires the use of solar power and energy efficiency in order to bring the economic benefits of the green economy to Richmond, and serves the community through solar installation training, empowering a new "green-collar" workforce and opening doors to employment."

If you are like many folks around the world and you want to help move the world towards alternative energy, you'll probably want to add this URL to your Favorities list: AlternativeEnergy.com

Explaining what the AlternativeEnergy.com site is all about, here' s information from their Web site, " AlternativeEnergy.com is about living up to its name. It is a portal to a tremendous amount of news, green collar jobs, products, widgets, and embedded RSS resources."

This alternative energy portal includes a daily blog, links to other blogs and their latest alternative energy entries, an energy-related radio program, information on green collar jobs, and a section for all you social networkers who have the same interest - helping move the world towards alternative energy!

Speaking of the energy-related radio program -- if you are able to pull together information on alternative energy and you would like to host your own alternative energy radio program, you'll definitely want to check out their offer to produce it for for you!! http://alternativeenergy.com/notes/Host_and_Sponsor_Radio_Shows

The article on Ethanolproducer.com titled "Stimulus bill includes renewable fuel provisions" gives a good overview and important links to information on the stimulus bill and the renewable fuel provisions: http://www.ethanolproducer.com/article.jsp?article_id=5397

"Economic Stimulus Act Provides $16.8 Billion for EERE Programs" - this posting on the EERE web site, http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/news/news_detail.html?news_id=12243 provides details on the additional funding that the U.S. Dept of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy organization is slated to receive as part of the Economic Stimulus Act - the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Here's a link to the economic stimulus act announcement by the White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/02/17/Signed-sealed-delivered-ARRA/

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (economic stimulus act - pdf) & the accompanying joint explanatory statement of the conference committee (pdf file)

The government website set up to help us track the spending from the recovery act: http://www.recovery.gov/


http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Recovery_Act_Energy_2-17.pdf

As noted on the EERE's Web site, "Clean Cities is a government-industry partnership sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Vehicle Technologies Program. The U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy department has partnerships in place with nearly 90 state and local level organizations, private organizations, companies, fuel providers, local fleets, and concerned citizens. "Clean Cities works to harness collective resources to displace petroleum."

Here's a link to a map of all the Clean Cities coalition locations: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/cleancities/progs/coalition_locations.php
And, here's a link to the alphabetical listing of the Clean Cities coalition members: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/cleancities/progs/coalition_locations.php

The Clean Cities mission and background: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/cleancities/mission.html

Clean Cities fact sheet - (this link will open a pdf): http://www1.eere.energy.gov/cleancities/pdfs/43890.pdf

What energy-related projects are in the works for your state? The U.S. Dept. of Energy helps track those for you:

http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/states/

As noted on the EERE Website, these are some of the topics they provided information on:

EERE-sponsored projects in the states

EERE's cooperative projects and grants to the states

Breaking news about state involvement in energy projects

State energy statistics

State maps of renewable energy resources

Case studies and state publication

Here's a link to the EERE's section on biomass: http://www1.eere.energy.gov/biomass/

EERE's Alternative Fuels & Advanced Vehicles Data Center http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/

EERE's Alternative Fueling Station Locator

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels biodiesel coverage: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/biodiesel.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - hydrogen:http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/hydrogen.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - methanol: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/methanol.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - natural gas: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/natural_gas.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - propane: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/propane.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - ultra-low sulfur diesel: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/emerging_sulfur_diesel.html

EERE"s Alternative & Advanced fuels - emerging fuels (including biobutanol, biogas, biomass to liquids, coal to liquids, Fischer-Tropsch Diesel and more: http://www.afdc.energy.gov/afdc/fuels/emerging.html

U.S. Dept of Energy, Energy Information Administration has career postings that may be of interest.

As noted in the EIA careers section of their Web site, "Join our team of professionals who provide comprehensive, reliable data, analysis and forecasts to industry, government, media, academia, and the American public."

http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/jobs/jobs3.asp

Here are the job categories they have listed (you'll find a pdf file for each along with a list of the job openings). Much success to you in landing your next job opportunity!

• Mathematical Statisticians
• Survey Statisticians
• Industry Economists
• Operations Research Analysts
• Engineers

If you are interested in learning more about the direction energy is taking, you may want to attend this conference:

Energy Information Administration 2009 Energy Conference: A New Climate of Energy

April 7th & 8th at the Washington D.C. Convention Center

http://www.eia.doe.gov/eia_conference_2009.html

You will find a registration box on this page to sign-up for emails related to this 2009 Energy Conference.

Repeating our post from last week...

As stated by the Energy Information Administration, "EIA, the Nation's clearinghouse for energy statistics" ... listed below are several of the weekly EIA energy reports that you might find helpful to keep yourself abreast of existing fuel and energy-related products and services:

Listed below are links for the latest weekly reports which you may want to record in your Favorites for your weekly review of the latest reports from the Energy Information Adminstration (EIA).

Retail Gasoline Prices
As recently noted by the EIA, "This report presents average retail gasoline prices at the national and regional levels, and for selected cities and States, based on an EIA survey conducted each Monday of approximately 900 retail outlets."
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/fwd/wrgp.html

Highway Diesel Prices
This report contains a 53-week history of weekly retail on-highway diesel fuel prices for the U.S., 8 regions, and the State of California.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/wohdp/diesel.asp

Coal News & Markets Report
(week's info & spot prices)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/page/coalnews/coalmar.html

Petroleum  - for the week
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/twip/twip.asp

Petroleum Status Report for the week
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/fwd/wpsr.html

Natural Gas Storage Report
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/natural_gas/ngs/ngs.html

Natural Gas Weekly Update
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/oog/info/ngw/ngupdate.asp

Coal Production for the week
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/coal/weekly/weekly_html/wcppage.html

Also, reference our more recent posting for Renewable Fuels information and reports from the EIA

http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelrenewable.html

Rnewable Fuels information and reports from the EIA

http://www.eia.doe.gov/fuelrenewable.html

RENEWABLE FUELS

Comparing Renewable Fuels

• Total Consumption

• Electricity Capacity

• Electricity Generation

Biomass

• Wood Waste & Wood

• Municipal Solid Waste

• Landfill Gas

Geothermal

• Geothermal Heat Pumps

Hydro

• (unavailable)

Solar

• Thermal - solar energy converted to heat

• Photovoltaic - solar energy converted to electricity

Wind

• (unavailable)

Alternative Transportation Fuels

Alternative Fueled Vehicles (AFVs)

·       Fuel Consumption

• Vehicles in Use

• Vehicles Supplied (made available)

Ethanol

• Ethanol & MTBE production/stocks