Miami Herald: Donations Pour In to Utility-Backed Solar Initiative

The money race for two dueling solar power groups is getting hot.

In October alone, the supporters of one constitutional amendment aiming to protect the status quo in solar power raised $2.3 million, about half from the state’s largest utility companies, including Florida Power and Light.

That’s more money in one month than a rival initiative pushing for competition in solar energy has raised all year.

Climate Progress: Coal Is Dying, But Hillary Clinton Has a Plan to Save Coal Communities

Coal is dying. Pushed out by natural gas, improvements in renewable energy, or pressure from climate change regulation, the fact is that coal use has fallen 25 percent in the United States since 2005. This is really good news for our climate, but it’s really bad news for miners and the people who live in places that depend on mining for the bulk of their economy.

Several Republican candidates have released energy plans that call for increasing coal production, but now Democratic presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has unveiled a plan to revitalize coal country -- one that doesn’t rely on digging more fossil fuels out of the ground.

Green Car Reports: Expect a 500-Mile Electric Car by 2025, Says Tesla's Elon Musk

It was a relatively brief projection of the future from a man who's juggling a lot of balls in the present, but even Elon Musk's quick hits can be newsworthy.

The CEO of electric-car maker Tesla Motors told attendees at the Barron's Investment Conference that he expects 500-mile electric cars to be available in just 10 years.

His remarks, last Friday, included cautions that more assembly plants and more battery gigafactories would be needed to achieve that goal.

ABC: Company Aims to Capture Australian Sunlight in Hydrogen, Ship It to Japan

Renewable Hydrogen is planning to establish a small 10-megawatt-hour PV solar farm near Karratha.

As part of the pilot program, the company is proposing to purify seawater before separating hydrogen from oxygen via electrolysis, a process powered by solar energy.

The hydrogen becomes a vehicle for storing renewable energy and is converted into transportable forms for export.

Renewable Hydrogen's initial plan is to export the hydrogen to Japan as ammonia, but executive director Andrew Want said the hydrogen could also be converted into other forms such as synthetic methane or LNG.

Biofuels Digest: Joule and Red Rock Biofuels to Merge

In Massachusetts, Joule and Red Rock Biofuels said that they plan to merge. The transaction is expected to close during the coming 30 days. Terms were not disclosed.

In association with this merger, after a year of important service at a critical transition phase for the company, Joule also announced that CEO Serge Tchuruk will return to his previous board role. Dr. Brian Baynes, a current board member of both Joule and Red Rock and partner at Flagship Ventures, will succeed Tchuruk and will lead Joule as it enters a commercial deployment phase.

It’s another November surprise for the Bedford-based sultans of stealth, who last November edged out longtime CEO Bill Sims for then-board member Tchuruk, former CEO of Alcatel and Total.