Obama budget: We cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire

Continue »

Obama Education: We are a country where a skinny kid named Barak Obama can grow up to be President

Continue »

$$$ flowing into California's small-business loan programs

Money from the federal government is flowing into California's small-business loan programs. The state received about $56 million by last month as a first payment. Eventually, under the federal Small Business Jobs Act passed in September, the programs could get a total of $168 million.

The funds will be used to help back loans to small businesses that don't qualify for conventional loans. The state loan programs — California Capital Access Program (CalCAP) and Small Business Loan Guarantee Program (SBLGP) — were slowed in recent years by budget cuts.

Continue »

Google Invests $100M in (Another!) Wind Farm

By Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech 

Google’s investments in clean power are now rivaling that of stand alone clean energy investors. Monday morning, the search engine giant said it has invested $100 million in the world’s largest wind farm, the 845 MW Shepherds Flat project under construction in Oregon. With this investment, Google has put more than $350 million (a jaw-dropping amount for an Internet company) into clean power.

The investment in the Shepherds Flat project follows on a $168 million investment announced last week into a solar thermal project being built by startup BrightSource Energy in California’s Mojave Desert, as well as a planned $38.8 million investment into 169.5 MW worth of wind projects developed by NextEra Energy Resources in North Dakota, and a €3.5 million ($5 million USD) investment in a solar photovoltaic farm in Brandenburg an der Havel, Germany, which is near Berlin. In addition to its investments, Google’s subsidiary Google Energy — which can buy and sell electricity on the wholesale markets — plans to buy 114 MW of wind power from an Iowa wind farm owned by NextEra Energy resources.

Continue »