For the last several years I have been very interested in clean technology, specifically solar. The solar calculators I saw in elementary school really set me off and since then I’ve watched the industry grow and marveled at the latest and greatest.

A year and a half ago I founded Solar Power Authority, a blog designed to share actionable information about solar while providing me with an outlet to process my findings. These days I have several writers working with me on the project and a few interns at Stanford and the University of Colorado. Solar isn’t the only technology I’m interested in and thus my blogging network has expanded to include Biomass, Wind and Electric Vehicles as well as a job board called Green Job Feed.

Having moved to Northern California in 2006 just after graduating from CU Boulder so I could work in high tech and surf, my interest in cleantech has inspired me to jump back into the world of academics. Several months back I took a course by the Clean Tech Institute and earned a CNCP Certification. Since then I’ve taken an energy resource engineering class at Stanford and am currently enrolled in a course there called Cleantech Entrepreneurship.

The Stanford classes have been great, and fairly affordable. I’ve met several new friends and learned about quite a few up and coming ventures by former students. Yesterday some of the students from the first cohort (my class is the second one ever) came in and shared their companies. I’ll be keeping my eye on Amber Kinetics as they work to store off peak electricity in the form of kinetic energy for use during high load hours. The Green Resource Network is a consulting startup that helps existing companies approach sustainability in an organized way.

Shout out to Rashmi, I love your grn logo, the r with the leaf is awesome! I also like the way you cite all of your images at the bottom of your site and borrow from flickr friends. The last company we heard about doesn’t have a name yet but the founder is quite smart and dedicated in her approach – she’s doing research into micropower and microloans in developing countries and plans to travel abroad in the coming months.

The Stanford classes have required a bit of reading and I want to take a moment to review and recommend the books. First off is Oil 101 by Morgan Downey. This book really opened my eyes to oil production, use, and how it has shaped our world. It’s really quite amazing to discover the origins of oil, having come from a shortage in whale oil karosene became a new focus and as it was excavated the crude that came up with it was just dumped. Today in most of the underdeveloped areas in Africa karosene is still the number one fuel. This book taught me that just because diesel is becoming popular or can achieve higher MPG’s doesn’t mean that we can just switch to using only diesel, oil comes up in many different forms not just one that can be converted. Also, did you know that all around the world there are underground coal fires burning that can’t be stopped? These natural coal fires emit as much CO2 as the US in a year (based on 2008 numbers), that’s quite amazing.

The second book I’m reading right now is called the Clean Tech Revolution by Ron Pernick and Clint Wilder. Clint will actually be visiting our class so I’m very excited to meet him and ask a few questions about how the recent Obama election has reshaped his projections for the cleantech movement. His most current second edition book (pictured at right) was published in late 2008 and is missing a few major changes in the world so I expect to see an updated version soon, the image is linked to their site. That said, this book is a fantastic resource and thorough introduction to each of the major clean tech verticals. Right now I’m on the section about solar and it feels exceedingly relevant because many of the companies are within a one hour drive from where I’m living!

The professor for my Cleantech Entrepreneurship class was the cofounder of BPL Global which is a smart grid company and he has since moved on to work in the biofuels space. One of the first things he said to everyone was “you probably aren’t going to start a solar company” and I have to agree. It seems like there are supporting innovations that can be made, one student had found a way to make existing solar panels more efficient (by focusing light I assume?) but the solar industry is just so old and well developed that it will be a challenge. It’s hard to compete with companies offering 10 year warranties on their products when you are still in year one.

In all of my cleantech studies the most exciting and motivating point is that the cleantech industry is definitely growing, even in this time of economic downturn (investments in cleantech dropped 44% in Q109) investments are still relatively high and the stimulus package is poised to kick in soon. One friend I made in the CNCP course is actually returning to China as a “sea turtle” under a special government sponsorship to start a new nanotech/cleantech company. As you can see from my job board there are still plenty of jobs to go around so I think the key is education and initiative here. The source for the image above was here but it can be found many places on the web and I believe it first came from Clean Edge.