By Karrie Jacobs
Travel + Leisure

San Francisco is green, clean, and organic—the architecture is high-tech and eco-friendly, and the food is excruciatingly fresh and local. Is this the world's first true 21st-century city? I've prepared for my appointment with Mayor Gavin Newsom by stopping at Citizen Cake, a Hayes Valley restaurant where my iced coffee is made with organic milk and my chocolate cream-filled cookies, a sophisticated take on the Oreo, are spiked with fleur de sel. But even the infusion of sugar, caffeine, and sea salt can't help me keep up with the mayor who, despite being trapped behind his enormous traditional wooden desk, is a bundle of nervous energy as he rattles off the ways in which San Francisco is becoming America's premier green city.

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By Lisa Leff
Time Magazine

It doesn't seem like an ideal place to promote solar energy, but foggy San Francisco has come up with an ambitious plan to encourage businesses and homeowners to tap the sun's power for their energy needs. The program announced Tuesday would offer companies and residents government-funded loans and rebates to offset the costs of installing solar panels, city officials said. "There is a perception, a myth in our city, that because of our climate we are not ideally situated for solar," Mayor Gavin Newsom said. "The reality is the climate in the Bay Area, the climate in San Francisco specifically, is ideally situated for solar." Read more »

By Bernadette Del Chiaro
Clean Energy Advocate, Environment California

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) is forecasting a potential electricity shortage this afternoon of 290 megawatts (MW) due to heavy use of air conditioners throughout the state. This shortfall – the difference between the amount of peak electricity resources the state has on hand and the predicted demand - is roughly the equivalent to the amount of solar power California has installed throughout the state. This narrow but critical gap between supply and demand highlights how even a relative small amount of solar power can play a huge role in keeping the lights, and doing so without air pollution.

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By Bernadette Del Chiaro
Clean Energy Advocate, Environment California

This past Wednesday the California General Assembly approved a measure to create the nation’s largest solar water heating program, promising to again expand the state’s market for clean, renewable energy.  The bill, The Solar Water Heating and Efficiency Act of 2007 (AB 1470), authored by Assembly member Jared Huffman, sponsored by Environment California, and supported by hundreds of organizations and businesses, would create a $250 million ten-year program to provide consumer rebates for solar water heating systems, a form of solar power that is currently underutilized in the United States but is thriving in European and Asian countries. Read more »