After decades of instability and uncertainty, the United States suddenly finds itself in a peculiar position: In the driver’s seat as a net-supplier of energy, potentially the world’s largest.

Driven entirely by the rapid progress of advanced energy technologies, oil and gas extraction is increasing; wind, solar and geothermal energy sources are booming; and energy efficiency is allowing us to do more and more with less energy.

For some, this is validation that the “old way” – oil and gas – are making a comeback; for others it’s about “clean” sources of energy reshaping our economy and protecting our environment.

The truth is that it’s not a zero sum game. Advancements in technology in all types of energy are leading to cleaner solutions, making the “clean vs. dirty” energy debate irrelevant to the opportunity that lies ahead. This technical synergy across the various energy markets is also leading to an accelerated transformation of the overall sector to advanced energy, which was a $1.1 trillion global market in 2011, making it larger than pharmaceutical manufacturing worldwide.

By focusing on making all forms of energy affordable, secure and clean, this technological revolution is succeeding because it provides an economic imperative that “clean” alone could never accomplish. Clean lacked the power of the invisible hand to align the incentives of the individual energy consumer with that of society’s energy needs. Advanced energy is different because it couples two important things: the ability to prosper and increase economic competitiveness while simultaneously improving the health and wellness of the United States.

Corporations embrace diverse energy sources

The retailer Kohl’s, the nation’s largest corporate solar panel owner, offers a good example of a large company that’s embraced advanced energy technologies for economic reasons. Kohl’s has made an effort to strategically diversify their energy mix, installing solar where there are strong renewable energy incentives on the books. Kohl’s has also implemented a range of energy efficiency programs, such as sophisticated lighting and energy management technologies, that deliver significant cost savings and emission reductions.

Intel and Google also actively deploy advanced energy technologies, including innovative energy-saving data center designs and an energy mix that features “traditional” energy sources, renewables and fuel cells.

General Electric, a long time supplier to the oil and gas industry, has similarly embraced an “all of the above” strategy in its product portfolio. In addition to its traditional offerings, GE now supplies a whole range of advanced energy products and services, including wind turbines, smart grid solutions, reciprocating engines that run on biogas, and some of the world’s largest and most efficient gas turbines, not to mention Energy Star appliances and LED light bulbs.

Advanced energy is a growth industry

It’s unlikely these successful companies would have embraced advanced energy so wholeheartedly if it offered no economic benefits.  Indeed, research indicates the United States as a whole is following suit:

• The U.S. advanced energy market reached $132 billion in 2011, representing nearly 12 percent of the global market. This market is expected to grow to an estimated $157 billion in 2012, with the U.S. share of the global market expected to rise to 15 percent.
• Patents for advanced energy related technologies granted to U.S entities in 2011 exceeded the 1,000 mark for the first time.
• Wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and hydropower projects accounted for 46.2 percent of new electrical generating capacity for the first ten months of 2012, a 47.7 percent increase over the level recorded for the same period in 2011.
• All this is occurring while oil and natural gas suppliers enjoy robust, and in some cases, record profits.

From a macroeconomic perspective, with global energy demand expected to grow 40 percent over the next few decades, the economic opportunity is so vast that the growth in new energy markets like solar, wind and geothermal doesn’t interfere with the ability of traditional oil and gas businesses to grow their markets. That is why you now see unlikely combinations – small, innovative start-ups working hand-in-hand with traditional legacy companies – because it ties together scale with science to create economic opportunity in all markets.

That’s also why you see industry leaders like Arno Harris, CEO of solar PV developer Recurrent Energy, arguing that “stability can be found in a portfolio of both renewables and gas [that offers] more predictable prices and greater energy security.”

Energy is not a zero-sum game anymore. So let’s end the polarizing focus on “clean vs. dirty” energy and focus on migrating to an advanced energy future. Let’s ensure that we continue to invest in technology to drive down the costs of using all of our domestic sources of energy and make them healthier for consumption.

With an advanced energy mindset, the United States can be both prosperous and healthy as a nation.

Hemant Taneja is a managing director at General Catalyst, a venture capital firm focusing on early stage and growth equity investments. In addition, Taneja co-founded Advanced Energy Economy, a business organization focused on catalyzing regional energy innovation clusters across America. The creation of AEE is modeled after the work he did in founding the New England Clean Energy Council, which received an award from the Department of Energy. He is also an entrepreneur in his own right; before joining General Catalyst in 2002, Taneja was founder and CEO of a mobile software company that was acquired. He is a graduate of MIT.

Rooftop solar panel photo: Shutterstock

Through his company Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett has acquired two solar power plant projects from solar panel manufacturer and developer SunPower for between $2 billion and $2.5 billion.

Berkshire Hathaway’s energy subsidiary, MidAmerican Energy, has a stake in many of the largest US solar power plants, including two First Solar plants. Buffett has increasingly become an important ally for the renewable energy industry, which is struggling to survive without government financial support.

Read our analysis of Buffett’s efforts to spearhead billion-dollar clean-tech initiatives. 

The newly acquired plants are located in California, and they are the world’s largest photovoltaic solar developments, meaning they use solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity. SunPower will retain the three-year contract to build and maintain them in the counties of Los Angeles and Kern. The Antelope Valley projects will generate 579 megawatts for Southern California Edison, which is not far off the output of a large fossil fuel power plant.

SunPower, based in Silicon Valley, will operate the projects for MidAmerican Renewables, a division of MidAmerican Energy.

“We are excited about these projects because they support our core business principle of environmental respect,” Bill Fehrman, president of MidAmerican Renewables, said in a statement. “We are very proud to add SunPower technology to our portfolio of projects.”

As The Street reports, market leaders like SunPower and First Solar are winning contracts to maintain large plants with multi-decade purchase agreements over their lifespan. By acquiring the plants, MidAmerican Energy has become one of the biggest backers of such projects.

Three years ago, Danielle Fong, a PhD student at Princeton, hit on an idea for a better way to store clean energy.

Today, her clean-tech company LightSail has earned some heavyweight support from both venture capital firms and angel investors, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

The startup pulled in $37.3 million to deliver a better system to store energy generated through the wind and the sun. Holding energy for commercial use has been tricky — makeshift solutions include electrochemical batteries, mechanical devices, and liquefied air.

“The overall problem of how to store large amounts of energy is one we’ve been working on for a century without a lot of success,” co-founder and CEO Steve Crane told the Wall Street Journal.

“Since there is little capacity to store energy, green power is sold when available, instead of at the highest price,” the company’s website explains. To simplify the problem, the founders use the example of a “hot day in Texas.” Electricity prices typically sour — but what about green power? If solar farms could store energy cheaply, they could deliver it when needed.

The method that was dreamed up by Fong, LightSail’s young co-founder (she subsequently dropped out of her PhD program, which she enrolled in at the age of 17) involves a combination of water and compressed air. The technique is known as ”isothermal compression.” To test the idea, the founders built a system that stores and releases energy by compressing and expanding air in an old warehouse in Oakland.

Competitors include General Compression and SustainX, which are working on a similar technology and have pulled in government funding.

The challenge for all these companies will be to overcome investors’ reluctance to fund clean-tech startups. Return on investment (ROI) is choppy, if not a complete disaster. Many investors will point to solar company Solyndra, which raised close to $1 billion before declaring bankruptcy, as an example of what the clean tech sector can do to good money. Tax payer losses on that investment may be as high as $849 million. Last month, high-tech battery-maker A123 Systems, which under the Obama administration received almost $250 million in federal energy grants (note: it drew down $132 million of that grant), followed Solyndra into bankruptcy.

Investors include Bill Gates and Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, as well as Khosla Ventures. The three-year-old company has raised a total of $52.3 million in funding.

Image via Shutterstock

AutoGrid, a Bay Area-based startup founded in 2011, pulled in $9 million to further the development of its software to help utilities and businesses control their energy usage.

Its technology works by analyzing data collected by smart meters to allow operators to adjust to meet supply and demand. Its major customers include the City of Palo Alto Utilities and Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and it is reaching out to municipalities on the East Coast.

The data is collected from smart meters through sensors that are placed on the electric grid. By incorporating machine learning, which gets smarter over time, it can make predictions about energy consumption patterns inside buildings and across service regions. When enough data has been processed, it can forecast how much electricity might be needed in the coming hours or days.

“The capacity of the [smart] grid is not deployed efficiently,” said founder and chief executive, Dr. Amit Narayan (pictured, left). Smartgrids are the computer-based remote control and automation mechanisms that are used today to deliver electricity. In the past, workers had to manually gather data by reading meters and measuring voltage, and keeping an eye out for flawed equipment.

With the advent of analytics tools, we can begin to make predictions about the future and further optimize energy usage. “Up to 20 percent of the power-generating assets in some regions only get deployed ten or fewer days a year,” said Dr. Narayan.

Prior to founding AutoGrid, he taught on the topic of electronic design automation software at Berkeley and Stanford. He founded Berkeley Design Automation, which is used by more than 20 of the top 25 chip developers.

“AutoGrid is creating the brains for the smart grid. If you can analyze all of the data, you can predict what the electrical parameters of the grid will be under any situation and use that to remove inefficiencies from the electricity supply chain.” said Dan Ahn, managing director at Voyager Capital in a statement.

What’s interesting from a competitive standpoint is the company’s focus on pattern-recognition and predictive analysis. It faces competition from Enernoc, a real-time energy-management tool, and Silver Spring Networks, an energy networking supplier that is used by over 15 utilities across the U.S.

The company’s investors include Foundation Capital,  Voyager Capital and Stanford University. Last year, it won a $5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy program to devote to improving the product.

Image via Shutterstock

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Clean Power Finance connects solar panel providers and installers with investors looking to drop money into residential solar providers. Those investors provide financing to home owners, who are then able to purchase or lease out solar panels at a more reasonable cost. There are some major companies that provide financing options, but Clean Power Finance could be more attractive for smaller installers that don’t have a large market share and can’t price their systems as competitively as companies like SolarCity and SunRun.

It’s a web-based interface that streamlines the connection process between installers and investors. The installer builds the photovoltaic panel system, the investor owns that system, and homeowners make monthly payments to the investor until they completely own it.

Google made the announcement at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum in San Francisco, Calif., today. This is the company’s second investment in a residential solar provider. The search giant recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t have the cash to buy panels outright.

So far, Google has skirted around tying up with SunRun, another large provider of residential solar panels. SunRun has a market share of around 28 percent, though it fluctuates between 26 and 28 percent depending on the month, SunRun founder Ed Fenster told VentureBeat. That means that 28 of every 100 homes installing solar panels on their roofs are leasing panels from SunRun.

“We certainly think residential solar financing is compelling and are interested in good investments — in residential solar, or elsewhere in renewable energy,” Google clean energy spokesperson Parag Chokshi told VentureBeat.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house.

Google’s $75 million investment today brings its total residential solar investment to $355 million and its total clean energy investments — which includes investments in wind power — to $850 million.

SolarCity leases residential solar panels for a 15-year period, handling all the maintenance during the life of the lease. The electricity generated by the panels powers homes directly, taking some load off the electric grid. The company works in the “distributed solar” space, which is designed to help reduce some of the strain on power grids during peak usage hours when homes are drawing more electricity for air conditioning or, in the future, electric car charging.

Google recently created a $280 million fund for residential solar power projects run by SolarCity. The fund gives SolarCity the capital it needs to create more reasonable financing options for homeowners who are interested in installing solar panels on their roofs but don’t necessarily have the cash to buy panels outright.

SolarCity is currently the second-largest provider of residential solar panels behind SunRun. SolarCity has a market share of around 14 percent of the leasable solar panel market, while SunRun has a market share of around 28 percent.

A study done by the University of California at Berkeley found that home values increase when solar panels are installed. The study found that homes with solar panels sold for an extra $5.50 per watt of solar power installed, for an average of $17,000 more per house. That goes against a lot of not-in-my-backyard arguments that have been plaguing clean energy providers because some homeowners see solar panels and wind turbines as an eyesore.

SoloPower manufactures photovoltaic cells, which capture sunlight and convert it to electricity on a flexible surface that can be bent and placed just about anywhere. They’re called thin-film solar panels, but they are typically less efficient at capturing sunlight and converting it to electricity than hard wafer-style photovoltaic cells. Thin-film solar panels are usually able to convert about 15 to 20 percent of the light shining on the panel into energy.

The company filed a form with the SEC that indicated it has raised $13.5 million but only planned to raise around $20 million in March. The new filing indicates a much higher target for fundraising in its fifth round of funding.

SoloPower recently snagged a $197 million loan from the U.S. Department of Energy to build a thin-film solar panel factory in Wilsonville, Ore. It also raised $51 million in its fourth round of funding and a $20 million loan from Oregon’s state government.

Crosslink Capital and Hudson Clean Energy Partner participated in this round of funding, according to the filing.

Aggressive spending and expansion in clean technology would generate 1.1 million new jobs by 2030 and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 13 percent, according to a new report by Google. If the U.S. employs more federal mandates and provides funding for clean technology projects, those projects will generate 1.9 million jobs and reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 21 percent, the report states.

By 2050, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would be cut by 55 percent without federal mandates and funding for clean technology projects. The U.S. will cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 63 percent if the government introduces aggressive clean technology policies.

Google’s report focuses on two ways to increase the funding for clean technology projects. The first is a model in which the U.S. government aggressively expands its clean technology policies and increases the amount of nuclear power deployed. That model also assumes that there are additional carbon-capture projects deployed in the U.S.

The second model, which would have less of an impact than government intervention, involves taxing carbon emissions at $30 per ton. That would bring up the cost of power produced by plants that use coal, natural gas and other types of fossil fuels. It would bring the cost of electricity and power from those plants to something comparable with renewable energy sources like wind power and solar power.

With government intervention, clean technology spending would increase the United States’ GDP by around $244 billion per year and reduce household costs by $995 annually. With carbon taxes, the United States’ GDP would increase by $155 billion per year and U.S. consumers would save $942 annually.

Google has thus far invested $780 million in clean energy projects, $700 million this year alone. Google’s clean energy investments don’t come out of the company’s traditional investment arm, Google Ventures. Instead, the money comes from the company’s main treasury and is invested by the company’s Green Business Operations team. Google typically makes financial investments in clean energy projects that will generate some kind of return, but it has also made investments that have resulted in power purchase agreements — meaning Google uses the renewable energy to power its own data centers.

Diesel engines, the second line of defense in a long line of safety precautions at the Brown’s Ferry plant, were not disabled by the severe weather. The reactors kicked in and provided emergency power to the plant after its main power lines were cut.

Dozens of tornadoes ripped through the midwest and southeast yesterday, killing 248 people and dealing leveling entire neighborhoods. The storms spawned the deadliest outbreak of tornadoes in nearly 40 years, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The situation at the Browns Ferry plant illustrates the effectiveness of standard nuclear safety features in severe weather. Most nuclear reactors will never face the tragic combination of circumstances that struck Fukushima.

Despite the Fukushima situation, the US government plans to continue funding nuclear power projects as part of a push to promote energy that is cleaner than that produced by fossil-fuel-burning plants. President Barack Obama and U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu have also lobbied hard to bring nuclear power to the forefront as a potential alternative to fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.

[Photo: Argonne National Laboratory]

The new project doesn’t rely on photovoltaic cells that capture sunlight and convert it electricity. Instead, if uses a large array of mirrors that focus sunlight onto a single point on a tower. The heat from the focused sunlight is used to boil water, creating steam that moves conventional turbines to generate electricity. (The idea is reminiscent of the Archimedes Death Ray, an oft-used trope in popular culture.)

The new plant will generate 392 megawatts of power — enough to take around 90,000 cars off the road over 25 years, according to Google. The average home in the U.S. uses around 920 kilowatt-hours of electricity each month.

Google also invested $5 million in a German solar power plant last week and has invested about $250 million in clean energy sources to date. The search giant has already been pushing clean technology stateside and its investment arm, Google Ventures, has invested in several clean technology companies.

BrightSource Energy’s power tower will be around 450 feet tall and use 173,000 heliostats — devices that mount two mirrors and move them to direct sunlight to the top of the tower. The project should be finished in 2013, and is also funded by NRG Energy — which also just unveiled the first of its line of electric vehicle charging stations Friday.

In a press call yesterday, Energy Secretary Steven Chu reiterated Obama’s message, giving sign of how the administration will position the president’s clean energy plans politically.

“This is wealth creation,” Chu said.

In his speech, Obama made no mention of climate change. Instead, he couched energy goals in terms of making America competitive globally in a market that attracted $243 billion in investment worldwide last year.

Obama’s plan entails eliminating oil subsidies, a measure that has failed in the past. Major energy legislation has also struggled, but Chu pushed for a uniting theme that sidestepped the skepticism on global warming and environmental impact.

“This is the future of our economic prosperity… the driving reason can be any reason you choose,” Chu said, pointing to jobs, making money, saving money and saving the environment as a few of many motivators.

The repositioning of alternative energy also touched on a keystone of American anxiety about competing globally as countries like China rise (and are investing in major ways in cleantech).

“Around the world, countries are moving aggressively to lead the clean energy race,” Chu said. “We cannot take leadership and innovation for granted. This is a race.”

If the rebranding of clean energy as wealth and jobs creation goes off successfully, it could help push forward political support on measures that have been difficult to pass. Of course, execution is everything, but the state of the union speech has repositioned energy legislation into a more hopeful place than it was before.

Augmented Reality: The Next generation because Terminator‘s augmented reality vision was as science fiction as it got when I was growing up in the 80s.

Two startups say they can keep your phone charged wherever you are and Coming soon.. a green laptop which runs on water. Because power is sexy.

Sproxil takes on Africa’s drug counterfeiters and M-health application emerge at mobile world congress. Mobile technology can save lives.

Afraid the clothes you buy online won’t fit? Get help from a robotic mannequin. Finally! Clothes shopping and robots in one package. What more could a tech girl want?

New book says we relate to computers like humans because our social lives with machines is so fascinating.

Women in tech: What to do now because even though I am sick of the whole subject, it’s an important one (and Arrington asked for it).

The SolSource solar oven wins 500K EU in the Green Challenge. The two winning entrepreneurs in the Green Challenge (both in their mid-20s) are among the most impressive I have encountered. And they let me share their champagne.

Can clean energy close India’s energy gap? Newsflash! Green products can have major social benefits and be good business, even when the customers are among the poorest people on the planet.

32 companies charging the supergrid. Power got even sexier.

Return of the celtic tiger: Can renewables refuel the Irish economy? My home country may currently be a byword for economic disaster but it’s not all bad news. Plus I got to compare Ireland to Amy Winehouse.

Abeo thinks BIG for its superlight structures. A big idea from a small company. Could revolutionalize the construction of concrete buildings.

ZenRobotics robot recyclers go for green in the CleanTech Open. More robots, this time replacing manual recycling.

Smart grid in Europe is all about renewables. Energy and food will be crucial resources of the 21st century. Europe leads the way in renewables.

The data center should take around 18 months to build and will generate 250 jobs during the construction process. Facebook will then hire between 35 and 45 people to run the beast. Facebook will get around $17 million in tax breaks as a result, according to a report by the New York Times.

Facebook’s new data center will also have to meet some pretty strict environmental standards that North Carolina imposes on its residing corporations. That means it will have to meet a number of energy efficiency and cooling standards to keep the facility moving along. About 40 percent of the data center’s energy will be nuclear powered, according to reports.

Granted, just about any state would kill to have a data center run by Facebook — including Oregon, which is allowing Facebook to run an upcoming data center in that state with coal power rather than cleaner energy sources. The Prineville, Ore.-based data center will cost only half of the upcoming data center, valued at $200 million. Only time will tell if Facebook is able to meet the energy standards that the state government has requested.

Facebook’s is the second major data center the Tar Heel state has managed to snag in the past year. Just last year, governor Bev Perdue and company were able to negotiate their way to bringing a $1 billion Apple data center to the state that’s scheduled to open in the near future.

[Photo: taberandrew]

SolFocus announced it will build the first and largest concentrated photovoltaic solar system in Saudi Arabia,  delivering around 300 megawatt-hours of energy. Japanese thin-film solar company Solar Frontier will also provide 10 megawatts in a solar installation for a car park, Greentech Media writes.

Better Place announced it is bringing 61 electric taxis and four of its signature battery-swapping stations to San Francisco. The $6.9 million project will last three years and is funded by the Department of Transportation. Better Place previously piloted a similar electric taxi project in Tokyo.

Biofuels company Codexis is on pace to earn almost $100 million in sales this year, Xconomy writes.

By 2020, the algal fuel industry is forecasted to produce only 61 million gallons a year, or $1.3 billion of market value, according to Pike Research (via Earth2Tech).

Silicon Valley venture capitalists could move investments to China if Proposition 23 passes in California and suspends the state’s previously mandated renewable energy goals, WSJ writes.

Italy’s Enel Green Power isn’t generating much demand for its hoped-for $4 billion IPO, WSJ writes.

Are you a green executive or entrepreneur? If so, sign up now for GreenBeat 2010 — the year’s seminal conference on the smart grid — November 3-4 at Stanford University. World leaders in smart grid initiatives will debate how the new “Super Grid” is creating huge opportunities in cars, energy storage, and renewables. GreenBeat 2010 is hosted by VentureBeat and SSE Labs of Stanford University. Go here for full conference details and to apply for the 2010 Innovation Competition.

India has one of the fastest growing economies in world, due to expand by 8 percent in 2010, and its energy demands will more than double by 2030. At the same time 400 million people in the country have no access to electricity. The result is a severe energy shortage, in particular in rural areas.

The report concentrates on India’s BoP (Bottom of the pyramid) population which consists of households who spend less than $75 a month on goods and services but make up 60 percent of the population, higher in rural areas. BoP households spend approximately $4.8 billion per year on energy, mainly on fuels like firewood, kerosene and dung which are harmful to health and the environment. Studies have found that indoor air pollution from these fuels contributes to 4-6 percent of all disease-related deaths in India.

Decentralized renewable energy (DREs) resources are mainly small hydro-electric and biomass projects where the electricity is distributed using company-owned mini grids (a local grid based on energy resources available in a specific area) or undersupplied existing grids. Biomass gasifiers produce electricity from wood chips or crop residues. Their generating capacity is in the range of 25kW to 100kW which can supply a village of 500-1200 households. The cost is generally 8-12 Indian rupees per kilowatt which makes prices comparable to diesel generator-based electricity.

Small-scale hydro plants built along mountain streams are even cheaper, at 2-2.5 Indian rupees per kilowatt, and they produce more energy. Plants generate from 100-1000 kW. However, the upfront construction cost of 50 million rupees ($820,000) up is massive in comparison to biogas and hydro power is not suitable for all areas.

One interesting point is that the success of DREs relies heavily on being able to predict demand efficiently. Demand estimation and demand response are crucial to the integration of renewables into the utility grid and will be one of the major issues for smart grid vendors. Could India and similar countries be a secondary market for tech startups targeting the smart grid?

Other technologies covered in the report were solar energy systems for individual households, solar lanterns and energy-efficient cooking stoves, all of which have a much smaller current market than DREs, but which is expected to grow considerably in the future.