The Cupertino computer and popular electronics business is just one of several businesses, including Nike Inc. and PG&E Corp., that have criticized the chamber’s stance. Nike resigned from the chamber’s board of directors but stayed as a member of the group. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized proposed “cap-and-trade” legislation passed by the House of Representatives and due to come before the Senate. Apple’s vice president of worldwide government affairs, Catherine Novelli, sent a letter to Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the chamber, in which she said, “We would prefer that the Chamber take a more progressive stance on this critical issue.”

Solar power’s explosive growth in California may have been stunted by the credit crisis and the recession, but the boom isn’t over yet.  In what could be the world’s largest solar deal to date, BrightSource Energy of Oakland announced Wednesday that it will sell Southern California Edison 1,300 megawatts of electricity from seven large solar plants planned for the California desert. That’s enough juice to light 845,000 homes, and it easily eclipses other recent deals signed by utilities here and abroad that are trying to expand their use of renewable power.  “It’s a significant statement by Southern California Edison in their commitment to renewable energy and BrightSource’s technology,” said John Woolard, BrightSource’s chief executive officer. “America and California have long called for clean renewable energy, and we look forward to working with Southern California Edison to meet this need.”  Full story here

The institute will expand Stanford’s role in energy research and national energy policy. It will consolidate Stanford’s existing energy-focused efforts onto one site — and allow the hiring of new faculty, support additional graduate students and offer seed money for major research projects
The donations came from three alumni who said they were motivated by the desire to protect the environment from greenhouse gases, improve energy efficiency and reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.  Oil and gas executive Jay Precourt donated $50 million to create what will be called the Precourt Institute for Energy. Farallon Capital Management partner Thomas Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, gave $40 million to create a new research center within that institute, the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy. The final $10 million came from other donors.

“These generous gifts will help us overcome the enormous challenges that we are facing in energy research,” Stanford President John Hennessy said at a Monday news conference. “It will create an independent institute for researchers on campus and around the world.” The new institute will be directed Lynn Orr, professor of energy resources engineering and director of Stanford’s Global Climate and Energy Project. He plans to pull together 136 faculty members in 21 departments to create interdisciplinary projects. Other recent gifts from alumni include a $75 million pledge in 2007 by Jerry Yang, co-founder and a director of the Internet search engine Yahoo and his wife, Akiko Yamazaki. Of that, $50 million was used to build the Environment and Energy Building, which will house the new Precourt Institute for Energy. In 2006, Stanford University trustee Ward Woods and his wife, Priscilla, committed $30 million for what is now named the Woods Institute for the Environment. The energy institute will work in tandem with Woods’ environmental researchers; the two are in the same building.

The initiative would make the Bay Area the first region in the U.S. to create an electric car network.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Thursday supported the deal, which the company hopes to someday take statewide. “This type of public-private partnership is exactly what I envisioned when we created the first-ever low carbon fuel standard and when the state enacted the zero emissions vehicle program,” Schwarzenegger said in statement. “This partnership is proof that by working together, we can achieve our goals of creating a healthier planet while boosting our economy at the same time.”

The company also unveiled a prototype electric Nissan Rogue SUV, the second prototype developed
under Better Place’s partnership with automakers. Better Place has already struck similar deals with Israel, Denmark and Australia to create electric vehicle infrastructure in those countries.

“We put in the infrastructure, and the big carmakers make the electric cars for us,” said Joe Paluska, the company’s head of policy and communications. “This is an opportunity for California to apply its strength in technology and innovation to Michigan’s manufacturing might,” he said. “We now
need a strong national policy set by the new administration to help the U.S. revive its auto industry and it’s economy.” Until now, the knock on most electric vehicles is that they were prohibitively
expensive because the batteries cost $10,000 or more. Paluska said the new prototype vehicles solve that problem — the replaceable batteries in the prototype cars would be owned by the company, not the consumer. Better Place would charge drivers a subscription fee to use its recharging facilities.

As their part of the deal, the mayors vowed to help streamline local permitting and regulations to hasten the installation of hookups in the region, and to provide incentives for local businesses to install charging outlets for employees. “Our goal is to make the Bay Area — and eventually California — the electric-vehicle capital of the world,” Newsom said.

Chevron agreed to sell the businesses to Ultrapar Participações S.A., based in São Paulo. The deal requires separating out Chevron’s lubricant and oil exploration businesses, which aren’t included in the deal. The separation will take until early 2009, according to Ultrapar. Pedro Wongtschowski is CEO of Ultrapar. The company will pay the price, which is subject to a working capital adjustment, out of its cash reserves.

Ultrapar is licensing the Texaco brand name for up to five years, during which time it will phase in the use of its own Ipiranga brand name. In this deal it will also get some equity in terminal operations. Texaco is the No. 4 fuel brand in Brazil by sales volume, with sales of about 120,000 barrels per day.

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.

Texans are even turning tapped-out oil fields into wind farms, and no less an oilman than Boone Pickens is getting into alternative energy. “I have the same feelings about wind,” Mr. Pickens said in an interview, “as I had about the best oil field I ever found.” He is planning to build the biggest wind farm in the world, a $10 billion behemoth that could power a small city by itself….

Much of the boom in the United States is being driven by foreign power companies with experience developing wind projects, including Iberdrola of Spain, Energias de Portugal and Windkraft Nord of Germany. Foreign companies own two-thirds of the wind projects under construction in Texas.