(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will unveil as early as Monday a slimmed-down energy bill seeking to make offshore drilling safer and convert trucks to run on domestic natural gas.

The full Senate could begin consideration of Reid’s bill on Tuesday and Democrats would like to pass it by the early part of the following week. (more…)

The same day BP finally threw a cap over their spewing oil well in the Gulf of Mexico (which is expected to be as effective as celebrity rehab) the non-profit Artists & Athletes Alliance held a private discussion with Philippe Cousteau about the epic Gulf disaster. Event attendees, like Jorga Fox, Alyssa Milano, Stephen Baldwin and Jason Mraz, were treated to Cousteau’s inside information about the spill and it’s consequences, and got a rare glimpse of his feisty Irish side when discussing BP, the government, and our dependence on fossil fuels.

Frustrated with the media’s B-level response to the BP oil spill, Cousteau decided it was time for (more…)

Last Friday, Secretary Locke kicked off a Clean Energy Economy Forum on clean energy manufacturing at the White House.

Last Friday, I joined Obama administration colleagues and business leaders from across the country to participate in a forum on clean energy innovation at the White House. I told the group that the development of clean energy and energy (more…)

Recent announcements illustrate that battle lines are forming over who, what, and how home energy management will be offered to consumers. Demand-responsive homes that throttle their electricity consumption based on the real-time generation capacity are key to the smart grid vision of distributed renewable and PHEVs. The big question is: who will entice pesky (more…)

This week, the EPA released its Sustainable Design and Green Building Toolkit for Local Governments. The Toolkit

The Toolkit is designed to assist local governments in identifying and removing permitting barriers to sustainable design and green building practices. It provides a resource for communities interested in conducting their own internal evaluation of (more…)

Southern California Edison has had a voluntary Renewable Standard Offer Program for the past several years–a fixed-price offer to buy renewable energy from systems under 20 MW in size, with the price set at the Market Price Referent (MPR). It’s not a FIT per se, as it is not ‘must take’, but a standard fixed-price offer nonetheless.

In 2009, SCE contracted for 140 MW of PV. (more…)

Here is a startling fact: US power plants waste more energy than many countries use, including advanced economies like that of Japan. The wasted energy is in the form of heat thrown off when power plants produce electricity.

This is one of the points being brought to light by the International District Energy (more…)

(Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats said on Thursday they will wait until September at the earliest to take up broad climate-change legislation, a potentially fatal blow to the White House push to curb greenhouse gases.

The delay means Democrats have little time to advance the complex (more…)

The rapid growth of wind power is offering new challenges for transmission grid operators throughout the world, especially in the U.S. As wind power levels comprise an ever larger portion of utility supply portfolios, rapid changes in the speed and direction of wind resources often cause wind farms to deviate significantly from scheduled deliveries. When this happens, (more…)

Reid is meeting with his Democratic caucus on Thursday to talk about what may be included in the bill. A bill is seen as key priority for the Obama Administration but a number of lawmakers say time is running out in the legislative calendar and votes are not there for a broad package.

The following are highlights of legislation (more…)