On the GreenBeat: Amyris weathers first day of trading, California to double solar capacity

Biofuels and biomaterials company Amyris’s stock held up in its first day of trading, closing last night at $16.50, up three percent from its opening price of $16. The stock peaked at $17.44, the San Francisco Chronicle writes. The report estimates about 2.4 million shares were traded yesterday. The stock was reportedly priced below range. Earth2Tech deemed the IPO a “decent exit” for investors, estimating the worth of investors stakes: $67 million for Kleiner Perkins, $62 million for Khosla Ventures. The company raised a total of $85 million.

Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures and Kevin Skillern of GE’s energy venture-capital arm will speak at a TechCrunch Disrupt  panel on cleantech at noon Pacific time today. GreenBeat will cover the talk, so check back in this space.

Chevrolet will be taking the Volt on a nationwide tour starting Oct. 9 in Seattle. Participants can take the car for a test drive and showcase the Volt’s extended range – it can run up to 40 miles on a battery before switching to a gas engine. GM also announced it will invest an additional $23.5 million for electricfic car components in its Baltimore plant . Part of the money comes from Recovery Act funds.

California is plowing through solar farm approvals and on track to more than double the state’s solar capacity, USA Today writes. Four major projects have cleared regulatory hurdles since August, including the BrightSource Ivanpah project (artist’s rending pictured). The state has also set a goal that one-third of electricity sold in the state must come from renewables by 2020.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has received $2 million to study the use of nanotech ceramics and its uses in storing energy. As CleanTechnica notes, the technology can “smooth out the bumps” with the variable nature of wind and solar availability by storing excess energy with capacitors, which can quickly charge and release energy faster than batteries.