In 2003 President Bush announced a $1.2 billion initiative to make fuel cells commercially viable over a 16-year period. Five years later, a new report issued by the National Research Council says that fuel cells are still at least 15 years away from being commercially feasible. The release says that despite “impressive progress toward commercialization,” some $200 billion is needed over the next decade and half — $55 billion from the government and $145 billion from the private sector. The report says that in the short term, fuel efficiency and biofuel research would be a more cost-effective way to reduce transportation emissions.

The biggest obstacles for fuel cells, the report says, are high vehicle costs and a lack of fueling infrastructure. At most, there will be only 2 million fuel cell-powered cars on American roads by 2020, representing less than 1 percent of the fleet, the NRC estimates.

The report’s best case scenario estimates fuel cell vehicles, including cell and refueling costs, will be cost competitive on the passenger car level by 2023. From there, fuel cell adoption could explode, hitting 60 million in 2035 and 200 million by 2050.

The report makes crystal clear just how complicated clean technology is. Cleantech projects have been plagued by delays and increasing expenses, especially in the automotive realm. But such is the nature of research in the areas of hard science and engineering and these risks should not be a surprise to investors.

The National Resource Council is an independent non-profit organization.

Toyota might be considering solar for the rooftop of its next Prius, but that add-on is reported to only power part of the air conditioning system. What about powering the basic driving of the vehicle via the sun? Well, you’ll need something more like the 6-square-meter solar panel trailer that’s being pulled by the Solartaxi, a sun-powered vehicle that is making an around-the-world road trip to promote clean energy.

This week the Solartaxi made its way through the Bay Area, visiting UC Berkeley, and San Francisco city sites like the cable car and Lombard street, along with Tesla Motors HQ in San Carlos (see photo below the jump) and Google headquarters in Mountain View. By now the sun-driven vehicle is on its way down south to UC Merced. The Solartaxi started its trip on July 3, 2007, and has a goal of driving 50,000 kilometers across 40 countries and 5 continents in 18 months. Getting close!

So what are the specs? The Solartaxi’s solar panels are made by German solar maker Q-cells, and the solar-covered trailer can provide enough power to run the car up to 100 km a day. If the driver needs to go farther than that, the car can power up via the grid and that non-clean electricity can be offset by a 9-square-meter rooftop power plant in Berne, Switzerland that will feed that same amount of solar energy into the grid. The Solartaxi also uses a Zebra battery (which they say is not lead-acid or nickel cadmium) to store energy and enable night and non-sunny day driving.

The idea for the Solartaxi was dreamed up by Swiss free-spirit traveler and aid worker Louis Palmer several years ago. Palmer enlisted help from a variety of engineering students at the Technical University Lucerne, the HTA Lucerne, the Schindler Apprenticeship, and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland. Many of the parts came from various local Swiss auto companies.

In June 2006 the Solartaxi received its road driving certificate, and a year later left on its around-the-world road trip. If you’re interested in traveling with the Solartaxi they accept roadtrippers for 3-week trips, particularly if you’ve got mechanic, engineering, or journalism (sweet!) skills. They say a sense of humor is required.

So the first North American Intersolar, the San Francisco-based version of the massive European solar conference, is over. And the Earth2Tech crew sent these 9 stories from the show your way. Send us over your thoughts on our conference coverage — more stories/less stories, more photos? We’ll deliver what you want to read:

• News From 5 Solar Startups, including Wakonda, Fat Spaniel, Recurrent Energy, Sopogy, and Ausra.
• Germany’s 40MW Solar PV Project More Than Halfway Done
• SunPower to Cut Solar Power Costs In Half by 2012
• 5 Thoughts on U.S. Solar Thermal from Abengoa Solar’s Fred Morse
• Credit Crunch Hitting Residential Solar
• Chip Industry Will Drive Down Solar Costs
• Big Solar Conference Kicks Off in San Francisco
• A Funny Use for Solar-Powered Steam: Oil Recovery
• Solar Startup GreenVolts to Raise Sizable Funding This Year

Funding thin-film solar isn’t just a popular idea among VCs; public funds have been financing research for years. Xunlight is the latest, announcing yesterday that it has received $4.9 million from the Ohio Research Commercialization Program. When we heard from the Toledo, Ohio-based Xunlight last April, it had just closed a $22 million Series B round and was looking for a location for a commercial-sized manufacturing plant. With this public grant, the Buckeye state has secured in-state thin-film solar jobs, as the money will be used for “Ohio-based manufacturing lines and bringing new products to market.”

Xunlight has already built a pilot plant for its roll-to-roll, thin-film solar technology with a 100 kW capacity to print its silicon-based cells. And the company has some bright minds — its founder and CEO, Xunming Deng, holds a world record for an efficient, single-junction amorphous silicon cell, Xunlight says.

Xunlight received $1 million in public funds earlier this year from Ohio’s Alternative Energy Program to develop and commercialize building-integrated cadmium telluride thin-film technology as part of its Xunlight 26 Solar (X26) venture. (hat tip VentureBeat).

Picture of Ohio Governor Ted Strickland courtesy of Xunlight.

Solar stocks have been down across the board this week, thanks to reports that Spain is considering cutting solar subsidies. Even a bright earnings report from SunPower couldn’t clear those clouds. So when Evergreen Solar said its second-quarter loss widened over the same period last year, investors were in no mood to be forgiving.

Marlboro, Mass.-based Evergreen Solar lost $8.9 million in the latest three-month period, the company said after Thursday’s closing bell, compared with a $7.5 million loss in the second quarter of 2007. Revenues came in at $22.8 million, slightly ahead of analysts estimates, and up $15.4 million the year before.

But it was the company’s third-quarter forecast that prompted investors to send shares of the company down as much as 12 percent in early Friday trading. Evergreen Solar said it expects to post a loss of 10 cents per share on revenue of between $24.5 million and $25.5 million. That was below prior expectations of a loss of 8 cents per share on revenue of $26.5 million.

At last check, shares of the solar firm, which is a joint venture between German solar maker Q-Cells A.G. and Renewable Energy Corp, were down $1.20 to $9.12.

SeaGen Tidal Turbine Delivering Power to Grid: Marine Current Turbines, a British tidal energy startup, says their SeaGen turbine located off the coast of Ireland has delivered its first power to the grid making it the first commercial-scale tidal turbine to power the grid - Press Release.

Clean Energy Gets $3.6M for Natural Gas Fuel Pumps: Clean Energy Fuels Corp. has been granted $3.6 million to install 9 natural gas fuel pumps in southern California. The South Coast Air Quality Management District has also granted $7.7 million to Clean Energy’s customers to help buy vehicles that burn natural gas - Press Release.

Nissan, GM and Ford Building Hybrid Taxis for NYC: Starting in October, all New York City taxis must get 25 mpg. Nissan will be providing the city with 200 hybrid Altimas, GM will ship 50 hybrid Malibus and Ford will put in 50 hybrid Escapes. Notice the domestic automakers are still lagging - Autoblog Green.

“Cleantech Investing For EcoGeeks”: Tom Konrad advises ecogeeks to invest in what you know but warns that you shouldn’t just invest in what excites you. A green business plan might not put the company in the black - EcoGeek.

Fresno Airport Going Solar: The Fresno airport will hire a private company to design and install a 11,000 panel array on 9.5 miles of land to power 40 percent of the airport. Officials say it’ll save $11 million over the next decade - KMPH.

CarbonFlow, a startup that makes software for carbon markets, has apparently raised its first round of funding, a source close to the company tells us. We’re not sure how much it’s raised, but Clean Pacific Ventures led the round, and OVP Venture Partners participated. Both Clean Pacific and OVP name CarbonFlow as a portfolio company on their web sites.

CarbonFlow is a two-year-old company based in San Francisco that was founded by Neal Dikeman — well-known cleantech writer and Jane Capital partner — and Karla Bell, who has been “greening” the Olympics for years and pens the blog GHGblog. Jane Capital provided seed financing for the startup.

The company’s software is meant to bring transparency and efficiency in a low-cost way to the carbon markets, which desperately need this kind of help. The software enables carbon market participants to collaborate on projects, keeps a record of the work completed, and helps with validating carbon-reducing projects. The company says the software is designed to meet Kyoto standards including registration, verification, certification and monitoring.

For the organizations trying to validate carbon reduction projects, CarbonFlow’s software could be a low-cost, easy and automated alternative. The startup has also partnered with a well-known leader in this area: Norwegian firm DNV, which was one of the first companies to be accredited by the UN to verify greenhouse gas reductions from projects in the developing world.

Al Gore has just called for an aggressive, if not unattainable, solution to America’s economic, environmental and national security woes: Generate 100 percent of our electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. The Nobel laureate laid out the challenge to America in a speech today at Washington’s Constitution Hall.

Saying this is an ambitious goal is an understatement. Renewable sources made up 9.5 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2006, according to the Energy Information Administration. That excludes nuclear, but includes hydroelectric, which accounts for the majority of clean production. And the EIA estimates that renewables will only increase to 12.5 percent by 2030. So that prediction estimates that it will take twice the time to achieve a little more than one-tenth of Gore’s goal.

Don’t get us wrong, we applaud setting strong goals, so we are fully supporting Gore’s call to action. We’re just skeptical that it’s possible.

We should also point out that Gore, as a partner at Kleiner Perkins and his own investment firm Generation Investment Management, does have a vested interesting in changing the current system. Kleiner Perkins has investments in solar with Ausra and Miasole, and geothermal with Altarock Energy.

While it will be the entrepreneurs who “drive this revolution,” Gore sees an important roll for policy and it involves a dirty three-letter word: tax. Gore called for a cut in payroll taxes and the creation of a carbon tax. “We should tax what we burn, not what we earn,” Gore said. “This is the single most important policy change we can make.”

Regardless of how achievable or not this goal is, let’s aim for it. Setting an aggressive goal like this could put billions more into clean energy. Greening the grid will make electrifying our cars better for the environment. Taxing carbon will give businesses a definitive cost. While we might not hit Gore’s goal within 10 years, the idea of aiming high is a critical mindset that a complacent nation needs.

Chalk up one more for our coal power deathwatch list and this one was even going to be “clean coal.” The New York Power Authority has informed NRG Energy that it doesn’t have the financing for a planned $1.5 billion coal power plant in western New York that would have used an integrated gasification combined cycle system to convert coal into much cleaner burning syngas.

The state will be letting its partnership with the energy provider expire at the end of the month. A New York Power Authority spokeswoman told Reuters: “The economic, technical and regulatory obstacles are too great to warrant further efforts at this time.” So the only things holding clean coal back are the minor details - money, technology and policy. No wonder clean coal has gone nowhere.

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The Feds and banks have both scaled back loans for coal plants with carbon regulation likely to become a reality with the next administration. And clean coal projects are proving prohibitively expensive with their early stage technologies. David Crane, NRG President and CEO, admitted in a statement: “The Huntley IGCC project was, in many ways, ahead of its time.” Many scientists agree and don’t think it’ll be clean coal’s time for a decade.

With clean coal projects getting scuttled and few large-scale test projects scheduled, especially in the U.S. since the cancellation of the DOE’s FutureGen project, there doesn’t seem to be much progress in demonstrating the technology of carbon capture and sequestration. (Although, EPA earlier this week proposed a framework for regulating underground carbon sequestration projects.)

This isn’t the first time NRG has had the kibosh put on its plans for a clean coal plant. Last year, a court ordered Delaware utility Delmarva to buy power from Bluewater Wind’s offshore wind farm instead of from a 600MW clean coal plant NRG had proposed to build at its Indian River site.

You’d think with a second quarter that saw a significant jump in revenue, a swing to profitability, and raised guidance, solar cell and module maker SunPower (SPWR) would catch a break from Wall Street. Not so much: SunPower’s shares traded down 7 percent to $74.54 (one of the morning’s biggest decliners according to MarketWatch).

Here are the numbers: The company announced that it had revenues of $382.8 million, up 120 percent from the second quarter a year ago. Net income came in at $28.6 million, compared to last year’s second quarter when it posted a loss of $5.3 million. And the company also raised its fiscal year guidance to revenues of $1.39 billion to $1.44 billion.

SunPower CEO Tom Werner did mention one dark spot for the U.S. solar market — the risk of the ITC not being extended. “In 2008, SunPower has achieved the geographic and market segment diversity that provides us with tremendous flexibility to respond to new opportunities and minimize risk, such as the uncertainty our industry currently faces in the U.S. and Spanish markets,” Werner said.

Werner has previously said SunPower will focus on markets outside the United States if the ITC isn’t passed (No U.S. Solar Incentives? No Solar For You.) Abengoa’s US advisor Fred Morse expressed similar sentiments in an interview with us earlier this week.

Update: The stock drop can likely thank reports that Spain could cut solar subsidies, which Eric Savitz of Barron’s sums up well:

The country has been debating changes for the last few weeks, and it appears that it may choose to cap its current subsidy program at 300 megawatts, a level which Collins Stewart analyst Daniel Ries this morning describes in a research note as “the worst case scenario.

Canadian Solar, JA Solar, Yingli Green Energy, Suntech, Solarfun and First Solar have all been trading down.

If you want to go solar you better have a good credit score. While power purchase agreements and lease programs are starting to gain traction in the residential market, that trend could be moving faster without the recent credit crunch, said David Arfin, SolarCity’s VP of customer finance on a panel at the solar conference Intersolar on Wednesday.

“Consumer credit markets are very important to the growth of this entire industry,” said Arfin, and explained that his startup and their financial partner Morgan Stanley have set a minimum FICO score of 720 for customers seeking financing. Akeena Solar’s EVP of Sales and Marketing Steve Daniel has seen a similar situation. Akeena had sold many of its systems to rich customers for cash but now Daniel says “the equity is gone . . . The game has changed radically in the last 12 months.”

SunPower’s Eric Schmidt brought up home equity loans as the “the forgotten step child of financing solar.” But of course the home equity loan market isn’t so hot right now and many potential applicants have already over-extended their home equity. Additionally, Schmidt pointed out that lenders like Key Bank and GE have gotten out of this lending market altogether.

CleanTech Biofuels Merging With Biomass North America: CleanTech has announced the signing of an agreement to acquire Biomass North America Licensing which will bring together IP around cellulosic ethanol production and sites with municipal waste as a feedstock - MarketWatch.

“High Oil Prices? Blame Ethanol, OPEC Says”: Ethanol can’t get a break. OPEC president Chakib Khelil says that about 40% of the run up in oil prices is caused by ethanol, which makes up 1 percent of the world’s transportation fuel - WSJ Environmental Capital.

Dow and NREL Partner for Thermochemical Ethanol Production: Dow Chemical and the National Renewable Energy Lab are jointly developing a process to gasify non-food biomass into syngas which will be converted by Dow’s catalysts into ethanol - Green Car Congress.

France to Update Its Tidal Power: State-owned Electricite de France is planning on putting three to six tidal turbines off the northern coast of Brittany. The project is expected to cost between $36.4 million and $42.8 million and generate 4 to 6 megawatts - Cleantech Group.

Note to the president, senators, representatives and governors: There’s a long-term energy crisis brewing, and your energy strategy has to be your top priority.

So goes the warning in an open letter sent today to the White House, Congress, 50 governors and the campaigns of both presidential hopefuls, and picked up by the Associated Press.

The letter was signed by 27 elder statesmen, including former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director-turned-VC James Woolsey, as well as six other former Secretaries of State or Defense, senators and senior White House advisers and Cabinet officers for past presidents, both Republican and Democrat.

“Technology is the cornerstone of a new energy policy,” the letter reads. It lists 13 steps that must be undertaken now to ensure our energy security in the future, including a gamut of clean energy technologies ranging from energy efficiency to renewables to nuclear to clean coal. Current efforts, the letter asserts, are not enough:

“The United States is currently spending 50 percent less on energy research and development than during the 1970s’ oil embargo. We spend less than four billion dollars a year on clean energy R&D, which is less than we spend in three days on imported oil today.”

And the current energy crisis is so great that Marine General James Jones, the President of the Institute for 21st Century Energy, which drafted the letter, told the AP that the coming problem is an “energy tsunami,” that we “better get on top of” or we’ll “get crushed.” If you’d like to add your own esteemed name to the letter, sign up on the institute’s web site.

And you thought the U.S. was getting big solar photovoltaic projects (like the one being built by SunPower for FPL, or SunEdison for Duke). But those will deliver just a little more than half of what a Godzilla-like solar PV project in Germany will soon provide. The managing director of solar builder Juwi Solar, Michael Martin, said Juwi has already built over half — or 26 MW — of what, at 40 MW, he claims will be the world’s largest solar PV project, which could be completed as soon as the end of the year.

Martin gave the update about the PV project called Waldpolenz at the solar conference Intersolar on Wednesday. The massive project is being built at a military airfield in Leipzig, Germany, and will consist of 550,000 thin-film modules made by First Solar. Martin also says the company has other projects of equal size in its pipeline.

While not well known in the U.S., the 12-year-old, privately held builder of solar, wind and biogas projects is already bringing in sizable revenues — around 200 million euros ($317 million) in 2007, says Martin. For the same period, its subsidiary Juwi Solar delivered 100 million euros in revenue. Both are based in Mainz, Germany.

The company also has a North American subsidiary, Juwi Solar Inc., which it hopes will help it expand considerably in the U.S. market. So will we get bigger PV projects now that the German solar builders with years of experience are moving in? Likely, though interestingly, Juwi’s big partner in Germany, First Solar, is looking to build its own thin-film PV projects in the U.S. with the acquisition of installer Turner Renewable Energy.

Algae-to-biofuel processing is set to move to commercial scale in Hawaii with plans for a new algae plant on Maui. HR BioPetroleum, a biofuel startup focused on growing marine algae using industrial emissions, announced Tuesday it has signed a memoranda of understanding with Alexander & Baldwin and the Hawaiian Electric and Maui Electric Cos. to build a commercial-scale algae facility on Maui that will produce biodiesel using emissions from a nearby power plant.

Under the terms of the agreement, HR BioPetroleum will own and operate the facility as well as find financing. Alexander & Baldwin will provide the land, and Maui Electric will take care of the permitting and construction of a CO2 pipeline from their Ma’alaea power plant to the proposed adjacent algae farm.

Assuming all the paperwork and funding come through, HR BioPetroleum estimates that the first phase of production could start as soon as 2011. No details with regards to cost or output were given, and HR BioPetroleum has been unavailable for comment.

Founded in 2004, HR BioPetroleum’s process uses both closed photobioreactors and open ponds to quickly grow algae in a process it calls ALDUO. While many other algae companies are pursuing either the closed or open system, HR BioPetroluem is currently seeking a patent for their dual system. The startup has licensed an unmodified strain of algae from the University of Hawaii.

This will be HR BioPetroleum’s first commercial-scale plant. The company, through a joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell called Cellena, built a demonstration facility last year on the Kona coast of Hawaii. Separately, HR BioPetroleum says it has validated its process at a pilot facility also located in Kona.

The San Diego, Calif.-based startup says it has raised $2.5 million from the National Defense Center of Excellence for Research in Ocean Sciences, the Department of Energy and the University of Hawaii. The company expects to raise additional funds via a Series A round in 2008.

Grain-based biofuels are costing governments billions in subsidies and achieving almost no emissions reductions, the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development said today in a new report. The report estimates that the U.S., EU and Brazil will spend about $25 billion a year by 2015 on biofuel supports, up from $11 billion in 2006, to reduce emissions by no more than 0.8 percent. Talk about your long-term ROIs.

The report adds to the growing chorus calling for serious reform in global biofuels policies. The OECD’s Economic Assessment of Biofuel Support Policies recommends an end to the current subsidy system and an opening up of global markets to allow the most efficient biofuels to find new markets. Specifically, the U.S. and EU should rethink their own biofuel subsidies and mandates and the U.S. should drop its 54-cent tariff on imported biofuels, a measure that blocks Brazilian ethanol.

Here’s a breakdown of the report’s big numbers:

• Per distance driven, U.S. corn ethanol reduces emissions 10 to 30 percent as compared to gasoline.
• Per distance driven, Brazilian sugar ethanol reduces emissions by at least 80 percent as compared to gasoline.
• Biofuel support costs between $950 and $1,700 for every ton of CO2 emissions reductions.
• Current biofuel support will increase wheat prices by about 5 percent, maize by around 7 percent and vegetable oil by about 19 percent over the next 10 years.

The report adds to the growing food-vs.-fuel debate, an issue that has pitted the West’s thirst for fuel against the developing world’s starving masses, but the two sides can’t agree on the scope of biofuel’s impact. The U.S. National Biofuels Board said this week that “[B]iofuels-related feedstock demand has limited impact on global food supply and pricing.”

And the world’s poor aren’t the only ones paying more. High fuel prices have caused a surge in consumer prices in the U.S. Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis published a paper this week that says reducing America’s tariff on ethanol could not only reduce fuel costs but also alleviate the ethanol’s effect on global food prices.