This spring, 40 SOM and FES students studied “Financing Green Energy” with Lecturer in Finance Jon Anda. Students analyzed cleantech stocks, debated the merits and risks of upcoming cleantech IPOs, and read academic papers at the leading edge of energy and environmental economics. The conversation ranged across renewables, efficiency, PEVs, nuclear, natural gas with CCS, and hybrid power plants. The underlying theme was that advanced analytics on energy system costs and lifecycle analysis are critical to decision-making and understanding cleantech valuations.

Nancy Pfund, Founder & Managing Partner, DBL Investors

Benjamin Healey, Research Affiliate, Yale Center for Business and the Environment

The collapse this past August of Solyndra, a California solar panel manufacturer backed with $500 million in federal loan guarantees, has sparked loud and ongoing complaints over renewable energy subsidies. “It is not the role of government to pick winners and losers,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman, Fred Upton, in a September statement. “Let’s learn the lessons of Solyndra before another dollar goes out the door.”

But these complaints, and the related calls for free market ascendance, ignore the basic historical fact that energy subsidies have been both a constant in the American narrative and essential to our country's economic development.

By Yoni Cohen - Follow Yoni on twitter @Cohen_Yoni

There goes the neighborhood.  A new study by NYU and Yale professors suggests that rooftop solar is contagious.  You are more likely to install solar panels on your roof if your neighbors have gone solar.

In “Peer Effects in the Diffusion of Solar Photovoltaic Panels,” Bryan Bollinger of the NYU Stern School of Business and Kenneth Gillingham of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies analyzed residential solar installations in California from January 2001 to August 2011.

The Sabin Prize is now open to all students and faculty with innovative ideas on entrepreneurship and sustainability.  The Sabin Prize supports student and faculty efforts to start a sustainable for-profit business through cash prizes totaling $25,000.

How to Implement Sustainability Practices for Bottom-Line Results in Every Business Function

By Daniel Esty and P.J. Simmons

Bestseller Follow-up Helps Executives Put Sustainability to Work for their Bottom Line

Business leaders can rejoice at the arrival of the first comprehensive, practical guide created to help every type of executive and manager get business value from going greener.