energy legislation

Investor's Business Daily interviews Applied Materials' Charlie Gay on how the company is managing for success with its diversication into the solar business and focus on crystalline silicon solar, and just how far the solar industry has come in 30 years. 

To all the naysayers who questioned whether energy legislation could pass this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has an answer for them: not so fast. Speaking at the third annual National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas on Tuesday, Reid revived hopes that a bill would get through after all, albeit a much smaller one than the House approved last summer, which may even include the resurrection of a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES).

This has been a very bright week indeed for solar. Not only did I witness the opening of Applied Materials’ Solar Technology Center—the world’s largest non-governmental solar energy research facility in Xi’an, China—but I was heartened to learn that halfway around the world, in the United States, solar energy was given quite the spotlight as well.