David Herron .com

A proposal to move large amounts of wind and solar power out of the Southwest by linking the three separate North American electricity grids with state-of-the-art switching terminals and superconducting cables is now in hands of federal regulators.
Tres Amigas LLC has petitioned the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for two key rulings ...

Washington, DC – U.S. Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu today outlined the Department’s plans to invest up to $366 million to establish and operate three new Energy Innovation Hubs focused on accelerating research and development in three key energy areas. Each Hub, to be funded at up to $122 million over five years, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.

Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced utterly idiotic legislation to protect a million acres of the Mojave Desert in California by scuttling some 13 big solar plants and wind farms planned for the region. This sort of thing flies in the face of other actions she takes. Even with the bill not yet being passed in congress it has resulted in developers postponing several proposals or abandoning them entirely. The California agency charged with planning a renewable energy transmission grid has rerouted proposed power lines to avoid the monument.

Copenhagen Update: European Countries Agree to Construct Offshore Wind Supergrid | Sustainability | Fast Company

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has announced an international agreement that will see developed nations give $350 million to developing nations. The Renewables and Efficiency Deployment Initiative (REDI), plan will fund technology in the developing world, including solar lanterns, standards and labels for energy efficient appliances, and online clean energy communication tools.

The Oil Drum | There is plenty of oil but . . .

Efficiency may be best way to reduce environmental footprint of the energy our society uses. There's a lot of focus on developing new technologies, improving solar or wind power, etc. But there is a lot of energy wasted through inefficient machines, through inefficiently used stuff, through shipping stuff around the world when it can be made next door, etc. Switching from incandescant to CFL lights is a minor form of this idea, you get the same number of lumens while spending less kilowatt-hours of electricity.

-->

You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.