In response to global warming, foreign oil reliance and overstressing the nation’s current energy system, policy makers and citizens are backing efforts to produce more safe, clean, renewable energy. But with numerous limitations, implementing green energy has been difficult.

It didn’t take German immigrant Martin Hermann long to see California as the land of sunshine. And within that bounteous golden glow, he imagined opportunity.

At first glance, the email appeared innocuous enough. All employees were being asked to change their passwords. Just click the link.

A few months after the 2002 launch of Arcadia Biosciences Inc. in Phoenix, CEO Eric Rey insisted the company move to California. Not to Silicon Valley, but to Davis.

Yolo County is doubly blessed. Within its boundaries lie some of the nation’s richest farmland; the open expanses also make it a prime place to develop solar energy.

When Sacramento-based Aerojet decided to convert part of a superfund site into a solar field, it sought bids from companies across the country. The project, after all, would be big — 35 acres ultimately generating six megawatts of power, making it one of the largest industrial solar projects in the country.

A 2009 report from Pike Research in Boulder, Colo., forecasts the combined biodiesel and ethanol markets will reach $247 billion in sales by 2020, up from just $76 billion in 2010, or about 12 percent annual growth.

It was recently reported by the U.S. Department of Labor that worker productivity was down for the second quarter in a row. This downward trend does not surprise George Grinzewitsch, Jr.

The city of Lincoln has embraced an alternative mode of transportation — the neighborhood electric vehicle — and so has Sacramento Valley Golf Carts, the city’s only sales and service center for golf carts and NEVs.

While institutions of higher learning across the state are reeling from budget cuts, tuition hikes, course reductions and faculty and student unrest, Chancellor Linda Katehi has calmly put together a business plan for expansion and prosperity at UC Davis.