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The clean energy movement has an unfortunate history of sacrificing the “good” in search of the “perfect” solution. Here’s an example: Kevin Costner (yes, the actor) reacted to the Exxon Valdez oil spill by investing over $24 million in a company that makes high speed centrifuge machines that can separate oil from water at the source of an oil spill. So, rather than having to skim the oil off the water or collect and transport massive mixtures of oil and water, the machines sends clean water back into the ocean on site and collect oil on the tanker. That way, the oil never reaches land, which greatly reduces the impact on wetlands, birds and sea life.

Sounds great, right? Not so fast.

The Spanish government has recently brought forward rather contradictory policy developments concerning renewable energy sources (RES). On the one hand, the Industry Ministry has presented the country’s National Renewable Energy Action Plan. It foresees that, by 2020, 22.7% of the country’s final energy consumption will come from renewable sources. This is great news, considering that Spain’s RES European Union (EU) target is 20%. On the other hand, the government announced soon after that it would introduce retroactive cuts in the feed-in tariff program for the photovoltaic (PV) industry in the context of the austerity measures the country is currently undergoing.

With last week’s withdrawal of the climate bill, many pundits have opined that now is the time to push “pause” on the climate change movement’s efforts to curb carbon emissions – fearing the midterm elections and industry’s failure to unite behind the bill. But I think it’s a time to rethink the existing regulation and opportunities for promoting a clean tech and reduced carbon economy — sans heart-wrenching legislation. How?

This weekend I participated in the Aspen Institute’s Clean Energy Economy Roundtable. And maybe the high altitude is going to my head, but I spent 36 hours with folks deeply committed to and confident in achieving carbon reduction.

The first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial brought together ministers and stakeholders from 24 nations in Washington, D.C., last week to collaborate on policies and programs that accelerate the world's transition to clean energy technologies. Participants included executives from top global companies – including Charlie Gay of Applied Materials.

Charlie, who is president of Applied's solar business, was a panelist at an event that occurred on the first day of the two-day Ministerial, hosted by U.S. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu.

Achieving sustainable manufacturing is a critical goal for leading technology companies driven by growing concerns about the environmental impact of their businesses and by increasingly stringent government regulations and reporting requirements. Product sustainability extends not only to their operations, but also to the products that they manufacture.

At Applied Materials we design our products with the environment in mind. Our goal is to make our products at least 20% more energy efficient and environmentally friendly by 2010 and we’re making great progress.