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The two reports on the impacts of EE/RE on Texas -- Role of Energy Efficiency and Onsite Renewables in Meeting Energy and Environmental Needs in the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston/Galveston Metro Areas and The Economic Benefits of an Energy Efficiency and Onsite Renewable Energy Strategy to Meet Growing Electricity Needs in Texas -- were released today by the American Council for an Energy-Efficiency Economy (ACEEE). These studies build upon an ACEEE report released last March that examined the statewide impacts of a suite of EE/RE policies that showed Texas could meet most of its projected needs for electricity while also addressing concerns about peak demand.

Along with wind power, concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) offers one of the most promising utility-scale, renewable energy technology options. CPV has a current system efficiency of 25% and the potential of reaching much higher efficiency. In the right locations, it could provide electricity at cost low enough to be competitive with fossil and nuclear power. Compared to other solar technologies, CPV has the advantage of modularity and very low water needs. This documentary goes across technology features of CPV. A visit to ISFOC (CPV Institute in Puertollano, South of Spain) serves as connecting thread. A second series will follow, focusing on interviews to industry representatives.

As a result of these policies, we can expect a gradual decrease in oil consumption in the EU over the coming years, and the beginning of the switch to cleaner more efficient, and often renewable transport.

the era of cheap energy is over, and at a time when, in any event, we have an absolute obligation to future generations to move to clean, carbon free energy sources for heat, power and transport due to climate change. This is the challenge facing us.

draft directive guaranteeing 20% renewables

Solar proponents love to boast that just a few hundred square kilometers' worth of photovoltaic solar panels installed in Southwestern deserts could power the United States. Their schemes come with a caveat, of course: without backup power plants or expensive investments in giant batteries, flywheels, or other energy-storage systems, this solar-power supply would fluctuate wildly with each passing cloud (not to mention with the sun's daily rise and fall and seasonal ebbs and flows). Solar-power startup > Ausra > , based in Palo Alto, thinks it has the solution: solar-thermal-power plants that turn sunlight into steam and efficiently store heat for cloudy days. >

Large-scale power storage is crucial to our energy future: the Electric Power Research Institute, the U.S. utility industry's leading R&D consortium, says that storage would enable the widespread use of renewable power and make the grid more reliable and efficient.