By DAVID R. BAKER, San Francisco Chronicle

When researchers tracking elephants in remote northern Kenya needed a stable source of electricity for their camp, they turned to Stephen Gold.

So did conservationists studying cheetahs in Botswana and wolves in Ethiopia. Gold supplied them all with solar power.

A new state report tries to tackle one of the touchiest issues in California's effort to expand renewable power, suggesting possible routes for new transmission lines to carry electricity from wind farms and solar plants.

Someday decades from now, California's sprawling coastal cities could draw their power from floating windmills that bob on the sea like buoys, far from shore.

Their blades would spin over deep ocean water, turning in winds that are steadier and stronger than they are on land. Undersea cables would send their electricity to shore.

An open stretch of desert might look empty to a renewable-power developer who wants to blanket a few hundred acres with solar panels or mirrors. To environmentalists, the same spot could be vital habitat for an endangered lizard or bird -- an ecosystem too delicate to touch.
Now Google and two leading environmental groups intend to head off those fights.

Call it a corporate shuttle bus, without the corporation.
On Tuesday, a San Francisco company that runs luxury shuttles for the likes of Google and Yahoo will start a new, weekday bus service connecting Marin County, San Francisco and San Jose.

The cost of installing solar panels on homes and businesses plunged 27.6 percent from 1998 through 2007, according to a recent study that questions some of the conventional wisdom about solar power's price.

Homeowners interested in sticking solar panels on their roofs got a big boost from the new $787 billion economic stimulus package.
Now homeowners will be able to get a federal tax credit worth 30 percent of the cost of their new solar system, even if they're also receiving state or local financing.

Tesla Motors customers who are still waiting for their 2008 electric sports cars will have to pay more than expected to get what they ordered.
About 400 people who put deposits on the luxury cars will now have to pay an extra $5,300 to get all the options that previously had been included in the base price. In addition, the destination charge will rise by $1,000.

Despite its reputation, solar power isn't completely clean.
Most solar cells are made of silicon, and the process of refining it produces waste that can damage the environment. Some newer solar cells use other materials that are themselves toxic and require proper handling.
Now an environmental watchdog group wants to make the industry cleaner.

Some of Intel Corp.'s tiny devices could one day have a big impact on the environment.
The computer chipmaker offered reporters a glimpse of its research into products such as chip-size sensors that monitor air quality while riding piggyback on street-sweepers. Or cell phones that recharge themselves with energy "scavenged" from the environment.