Læs om den såkaldte  Clean Coal-teknologi, der mest af alt minder om en moderne omgang “newspeak”.

Wind is generally considered the front-runner when it comes to renewable sources of energy. It’s both cheaper and more reliable than solar. The government certainly prioritized it last year when it doled out millions in grants mostly to wind firms. Now news of record-setting wind generation out of Texas confirms that turbines are probably the best bet.

Apparently, early this morning, about 19 percent of the power on the major Texan grid came from wind installations (about 6,272 megawatts) — that’s an incredible amount considering that green-minded states like California are hoping to hit 33 percent from renewable power in general 10 years from now. This is also significant given that not all of Texas’ turbines participated — the state’s Panhandle is actually on a different grid.

On a regular basis, Texas derives about 6 percent of its electricity on the grid from wind, reports the New York Times. That’s not very much for a state that is far and away the leader in wind development. Interestingly, however, not all of the wind power generated in Texas is actually transmitted. The necessary infrastructure doesn’t yet exist to deliver it all to consumers. So who knows what could be achieved if this missing link were fixed?

Not that the problem has been neglected. The state is already investing $5 billion in transmission repairs and expansions. The goal is to string many more cables between the wind-heavy western region of Texas and the biggest cities, Houston, Austin and Dallas.

If Texas can successfully (and affordably) build the necessary infrastructure to up the amount of wind-generated power on the grid, it could provide a great best-practice case for states looking to boost their own wind power, like California, Michigan, and other states in the Midwest.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Energy, led by President Barack Obama, launched a “Cash for Caulkers” program called Home Star, to give rebates and other incentives to consumers who make their homes more energy efficient. Now the legislature is taking the issue even further, with two senators pitching a $6 billion rebate and tax incentive program to make apartment and commercial buildings more efficient.

Somewhat uncreatively, the bill that would establish this program is being called “Building Star.” The mission behind the package is to persuade enough building managers to weatherize and retrofit their properties to eliminate close to 1,000 megawatts of demand. To put this in context, that’s enough energy to power upwards of a million American homes. Given that these types of buildings account for 40 percent of energy consumption in the U.S., this could save building owners more than $3 billion total every year.

Building Star will actually go one step beyond Home Star, providing low-interest financing options to small businesses and building owners who need them — on top of the typical rebates and tax credits.

And just as Home Star’s underlying goal was to jumpstart employment for thousands of contractors, window and door manufacturers, construction workers and the like, Building Star hopes to do the same. As such, the bill has already racked up support from some powerful lobbying interests, including the National Electrical Contractors Association, the Energy Future Coalition and the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Both Home Star and Building Star are designed to pick up where the government’s long-time Energy Star efficiency program has left off. That initiative itself proved to be incredibly successful, quadrupling emissions reductions in the last two years. The new programs will emphasize the same efficiency measures as before: insulation, better sealed windows and doors, updated heating and air conditioning equipment, regular audits and maintenance, and dynamic lighting, to name a few.

The bill is sponsored by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark.).

Google announced today that it has released the application programming interface (the API) for Google PowerMeter, the tool it launched last year to tell users in real time how much energy they are using and, more importantly, what it is costing them. The decision gives what was a vaguely informative service the potential to spawn gadgetry and software that could change the way we use energy in our daily lives.

PowerMeter collects energy consumption data via two channels: smart meters installed by Google’s utility partners (a handful of utilities across the U.S. and Europe working with the search engine), and device partners like AlertMe and Energy Inc.’s The Energy Detective, which are both capable of collecting and transmitting the relevant data without going through the meter. These were the only people with access to the API before today.

Google was hesitant to release the API to the developer community because energy use raises major concerns over both security and privacy (which the search engine certainly can’t afford right now). No one wants their electricity consumption habits broadcast to the general public, obviously. And beyond that, no one wants it to be any easier for hackers, and other third-parties to edit their electricity bills or disrupt their utility service. PowerMeter’s engineers took both of these issues very seriously in the development of the public API, according to Earth2Tech’s interview with product manager Srikanth Rajagopalan.

The hope is that developers will innovate gadgets and apps that will give consumers even more control over their power use and related decisions. For example, in the future, homeowners will be able to decide which appliances they want to track and which they don’t, how often they will get energy use reports, and even how these appliances will respond to different energy pricing rates or demand levels. Just as venture-backed Tendril is developing a system that could tell your fridge to only make ice when the clothes dryer is off, PowerMeter extensions could soon do the same and more.

Google is actually late to the game when it comes to releasing such an API. Microsoft beat them by a nose, issuing software development tools for its home energy management service, Microsoft Hohm, according to product manager Troy Batterberry. Tendril has also opened up its API to third-parties who could take its capabilities even further with access to consumption data. One fun example: Tendril is partnering with a major video game distributor to release a video game based on energy use. The eco-warrior main character will gain strength as you, the player, conserve energy in real life by turning off lights and the like.

Until now, PowerMeter has been a pretty quiet project for Google — with a user base in the low thousands. At VentureBeat’s smart grid conference GreenBeat in November, the product’s program manager, Ed Lu, told the audience that PowerMeter is really just a gift to humanity with no major ambitions. It looks like this is already starting to shift. Apparently, Google was not content to take a back seat to Microsoft, Tendril, OpenPeak, Silver Spring Networks’ GreenBox, People Power, EnergyHub and the many other companies innovating in the home energy efficiency space. But what’s next?

Here’s a look at the current PowerMeter interface, for those who aren’t familiar:

Companies: Google, microsoft, Tendril

Prudent Energy, a Beijing-based maker of large-capacity flow batteries, has raised a $22 million third round of venture funding. Its products may be too heavy for use in plug-in vehicles, but the company could very likely become a key player in grid storage, both in China and the U.S.

A truly international affair, its batteries were actually designed by a Canadian startup VRB Power Systems, which Prudent acquired in 2009. Because its manufacturing operations are based entirely in China, substantially lowering costs, the company could give U.S.-based competitor EnerVault a real run for its money. Also planning to churn out flow batteries, EnerVault recently raised its own multi-million funding round.

Prudent plans to use its new financing to build out its manufacturing capacity. This will in turn drive growth in U.S. markets. CEO Johnson Chiang said in a statement that the company has already delivered 20-kilowatt flow batteries this year. Its largest customers are telecommunications and utility companies. But really any organization or energy vendor that can’t afford a power outage is a potential customer for flow batteries.

An alternate solution set apart from lithium-ion batteries, flywheels and fuel cells, flow batteries are comprised of huge storage tanks containing positive and negative electrodes that are continuously pumped through an AC/DC converter. This structure allows a battery to continue recirculating and generating power long after most competing storage systems are depleted.

As it stands, Prudent and EnerVault seem to be headed for a showdown. The latter is claiming that it can provide storage at $100 per kilowatt-hour (compare that to $500 to $1,000 per kilowatt hour for lithium-ion rivals). Prudent will not only have to match this price — it will have to beat it if it wants to be a contender in the U.S. market. It will be interesting to see who pulls ahead as demand for grid-scale storage continues to grow, and states begin to pass legislation mandating grid storage to buffer peak periods. California has one such bill pending in the Assembly right now.

The majority of Prudent’s recent round of funding came from Northern Light Venture Capital, a leading Chinese venture firm. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based EnerVault, on the other hand, is backed by U.S. Invest and Oceanshore Ventures. It also scored a $650,000 grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency last year.

Companies: EnerVault, Northern Light Venture Capital, Oceanshore Ventures, Prudent Energy, U.S. Invest