Tom Kandris makes boxes. And his company, PackageOne Inc., better known as American River Packaging, can also fill them.

The black widows caged in professor Craig Vierra’s laboratory evoke the macabre. But here, in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stockton’s University of the Pacific, these crawlers are the story’s heroines.

As Sacramento attempts to forge a regional economic development strategy, manufacturing is being touted as a potential breadwinner, but rebuilding the industry piecemeal could take time.

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.