President-elect Barack Obama and once-presidential-hopeful Al Gore met today to discuss (what else) “energy, climate change, and job creation — and how those three things go together.” Obama didn’t say what role Gore will play in his administration but pledged that the former VP will be part of the plan to “create jobs all across this country in all 50 states to re-power America.” The meeting, reportedly called at Gore’s request, is perhaps the strongest pitch Obama will get from the cleantech community.

Gore has outlined a five-step plan to achieve his goal of generating 100 percent of the U.S.’s electricity from renewable sources in 10 years. Though Obama hasn’t agreed to Gore’s lofty goal, he has committed, in varying degrees, to implementing Gore’s recommendations. Obama has promised to boost the energy efficiency of federal buildings, work with governors to promote clean energy, invest huge amounts in our electrical infrastructure and help Detroit retool to become a leader in green cars.

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Tubular solar startup Solyndra piled on more sales contracts and today announced a $320 million deal with Carlisle Energy Services, a newly formed division of Carlisle Construction Materials. The deal is for 100 megawatts of panels over five years. Carlisle will work with an independent solar integrator to sell and install the cylindrical thin-film solar panels in conjunction with its Energy Star-certified, cool roof systems for commercial buildings.

The companies say that the reflective white roofing membrane boosts the electrical output of Solyndra’s solar panels, which can absorb sunlight from all directions, by 20 percent. Carlisle has already installed a Solyndra solar system on the roof of its roofing membrane manufacturing plant (see picture) and tells us the entire system went up in just one day.

This deal is in addition to Solyndra’s previously announced $1.2 billion in backlogged sales, which include contracts with German solar integrators GeckoLogic GmbH and Phoenix Solar as well as U.S.-based solar manufacturer and integrator Solar Power Inc. Today’s announced sale pushes Solyndra’s customer contracts up to $1.52 billion.

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The election is over, so hopefully you’ve had plenty of time to catch up on all the cleantech news, but in case you missed the happenings this week, we’ve gathered the big headlines for your here.

Amyris Opens Synthetic Diesel Pilot Plant: Biofuel startup Amyris started production of its “No Compromise” synthetic diesel fuel and officially opened its first pilot plant at its headquarters in Emeryville, Calif.

The Debt Markets Cramped T. Boone’s Wind Plan: Pickens says he was originally planning to finance his 4,000-MW wind farm in Texas with 30 percent equity and 70 percent debt financing, but more recently the debt markets have caused a “financial hangup.”

Nuclear Catfight: Exelon, NRG Take Tussle Public: After a few weeks of gentle pawing at smaller rival NRG Energy, industry giant Exelon has gone hostile.

Al Gore’s 5 Steps To Deliver 100% Clean Power in a Decade: Gore is calling for 100 percent of U.S. electricity to be from renewable power within 10 years, achievable with Gore’s simple, five-step energy revolution plan!

A Green Auto Bailout Must Oust Execs: Tom Friedman calls the auto industry “brain dead” and Obama faults the industry with blocking the very reforms that could have saved it, so why do they deserve a bailout again?

If President-elect Obama is serious about bailing out Detroit and also serious about his campaign goal of putting 1 million domestically produced plug-in electric hybrids on the road by 2015, execs like Bob Lutz, GM’s vice chairman, have no place in tomorrow’s Detroit — at least that’s a growing sentiment in the media; a recent spate of editorials and columns have called for salary freezes and firings. Lutz is the one who earlier this year said hybrids “make no economic sense.” He also told Stephen Colbert, while promoting the Chevy Volt, that he doesn’t believe in what he refers to as the “CO2 theory” of climate change.

The Wall Street Journal asked early on if an auto bailout package should boot the CEOs of Ford, GM and Chrysler just as the government ousted top executives at Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and American International Group (AIG) as part of its takeover.

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“The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” seems to be the place to be if you want to pitch your grand energy idea. Author and energy technology evangelist Thomas Friedman was the guest on Tuesday, and last night T. Boone Pickens pitched his Pickens Plan on the show. Stewart opened last night’s show saying, “Thomas Friedman last night talking about the green revolution; T. Boone Pickens on tonight to tell us how we’re going to pay for it. Very exciting, this new energy revolution we’re about to have.”

Octogenarian Texans aren’t regulars on “The Daily Show,” but Pickens seemed to win over the audience, or at least Stewart, with his plan to switch America’s trucks to run on natural gas. Pickens explained: “When people talk about ‘We’re going to go to the electric car,’ I love it. But remember, they said car, not truck. A battery won’t move an 18-wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18-wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline — and our domestic natural gas. There’s where the fuel needs to go.” It only took Pickens six minutes to have Stewart standing, saluting and shouting at him, “Sir, reporting for duty!” in support of his plan. The Pickens Army likely picked up some new recruits following the Comedy Central appearance.

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Better Wind Turbine Likes Variable Wind: Vancouver, British Columbia-based startup ExRo Technologies has developed a wind turbine that could reduce costs and increase electricity production by 50 percent by tapping winds across a wide range of conditions – MIT Technology Review.

Says Who the Cleantech Bubble is Bursting?: Tired of reading those fatalistic headlines proclaiming the imminent collapse of the cleantech boom? Yeah, us too, so read this and brush those haters off – Clean Break.

How Many “Miles Per Gallon” Does Your Data Center Get?: The Green Grid, a consortium of IT firms, is working to make standardized metrics to measure and compare the efficiency of different bits of IT equipment, just like MPG can be used to compare cars – Business Green.

Credit Crunch Shifting Desert Sands in Solar Land Grab: All the sunniest spots in the California desert are already leased by potential solar developers, but the credit crunch could force firms to give up their claims and bigger solar players are laying in wait – Green Wombat.

Sun Improves OpenEco, Free Carbon Footprinting: Sun Microsystems enhanced its OpenEco.org service, which now provides a more comprehensive carbon footprint by tracking emissions across electricity, travel and utilities energy consumption – Press Release.

The Department of Defense is funding both sides of a new battle, not one between countries, but between battery technologies — lithium ion and lead acid. This week the department announced investments aimed at the development of automotive batteries that employ both technologies: $2.4 million to International Battery for lithium-ion batteries that can be swapped in for lead-acid batteries by soldiers in the field, and $2 million to Firefly Energy for lightweight lead-acid batteries made with carbon foam.

International Battery is designing its Lithium Ion 6TLi Battery to be the same size as currently deployed lead-acid batteries so that soldiers can swap them out on location. The Oakland, N.J.-based company says its battery has four times the energy, half the weight, a significantly longer life and enhanced combat readiness as compared to the current lead-acid battery systems.

Meanwhile, Firefly Energy is using carbon foam to make more lightweight lead-acid batteries for use in military and commercial trucks. The batteries are for the military’s “Silent Watch” program, which allows reconnaissance vehicles to turn off their noisy engines and instead power sensor and communication arrays silently with on-board batteries. This is the fourth time the DoD has provided funds to Firefly, bringing the total received $12.75 million.

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New Zealand-based Aquaflow Bionomic said today that it’s seeking to raise up to NZ$30 million ($16.6 million) from a new public offering. The three-year-old company, whose algae technology involves harvesting wild algae and squeezing it into green crude oil, plans to sell up to 60 million shares at 50 New Zealand cents each. The money will be used to finish commercialization of its technology, which Aquaflow expects to take up to 18 months.

Aquaflow says its free-range algae approach allows it to save money on facilities and maintenance. Aquaflow is working with new partner UOP, a subsidiary of Honeywell, to process algae harvested from open-air sludge ponds and waste streams into high-quality fuels. UOP has years of experience in the petro-chemical refining business but has been moving into biofuels in earnest recently with its own Renewable Energy & Chemicals business and collaborations with aircraft maker Boeing, bio-oil vet Ensyn and the DOE.

Aquaflow raised funding through a public offering at the end of the 2006; it’s also received a NZ$3 million investment from renewable energy business Pure Power Global of Singapore, the company’s largest shareholder, according to Aquaflow’s prospectus. The company built its first pilot plant in 2007 and in September this year said it produced the first samples of its “green crude.” The shares will be made available to Australian investors starting Nov. 18; the offering will close in December.

Image courtesy of Aquaflow Bionomics.

Silicon solar startup Solaria is looking to more than double its funding with a new $100 million financing round, CEO Suvi Sharma confirmed with us today, and first reported by VentureWire. The Series D round would be used to add an additional 50-100 megawatts of production capacity by 2010 to its 25-megawatt line currently operating in the Philippines. To date, the 9-year-old startup has raised $77 million in funding.

The Fremont, Calif.-based startup takes standard crystalline silicon solar cells and slices them into thin strips, a process the company calls “cell multiplication technology.” The 2-millimeter-wide silicon strips are reassembled in a stripe pattern and then an optical concentrator is laid on top to focus light away from the gaps and onto the strips. The company says its unique module design has the same form, function and — most importantly — efficiency as traditional solar modules but uses half the amount of silicon material. Update: Solaria has a 10-year, 1.3-gigawatt solar cell supply deal with one of its backers, Australian German solar firm Q-Cells, that ensures it has access to materials.

In addition to Q-Cells, the company has other big backers, including Sigma Partners, NGEN and Moser Baer. The company has been relatively quiet since closing its $50 million Series C round in July 2007. The company is older than many other solar startups and has built an expansive partner network that includes BP Solar and Spire. Sharma tells us the company’s current customers are large project developers but Solaria is developing a series of “specialty modules” for different market segments which it hopes to start bringing to market in 2010, and the company is looking to hire a number of engineers to finish R&D on these new products.

Image courtesy of Solaria.

Ocean Power Technologies Says Aloha to New PowerBuoy: The wave energy company has deployed its third PowerBuoy in the last two months. The most recent one is part of the company’s work with the Navy and is bobbing in the waves near Kaneohe Bay off the island of Oahu, Hawaii – Press Release.

RecycleBank Launches Incentive-Based Recycling Across Country: East coast-based RecycleBank is taking its incentive-based residential recycling program to a number of new cities across the South, Midwest and Central Plains – Press Release.

Minivan Spoilers Improve Aerodynamics, Awesomeness: Researchers say they’ve designed a new spoiler that could reduce the drag on minivans and SUVs by 5 percent, which could help soccer moms everywhere save gas in style – Green Car Congress.

Tesla Roadster Visit UK PM: After the British Secretary of State for Transport took a Roadster for a spin around Parliament Square, the Tesla car stopped by No. 10 Downing Street for a pit stop with Prime Minister Gordon Brown – Tesla Blog.