House GOP Plays Effective Game with Clean Energy, Sen Reid Refuses to Appoint Conferees, CSP Could Play Big Role in Middle East

Scott Rosenberg writes an interesting piece in Grist on how effectively the House Republicans have used Clean Energy to bait the President and the Democrats in Congress.  I am not sure I necessarily agree with him, but because I cannot understand why energy has gone from regional to stridently partisan, his arguments do make sense.

Senator Reid told the Huffington Post this morning, "no negotiations until Boehner follows through and passes the compromise that Senators Reid and McConnell negotiated at his request, and which received 90 percent support in the Senate. It's shameful that he won't even give it an up or down vote.  Hopefully fellow Republicans can prevail upon their wayward colleagues in the House."  By refusing to appoint conferees for negotiation, Senator Reid is rendering Speaker Boehner's challenge a mute one.  There is little hope either party will be able to bridge this disagreement in the next 11 days that remain before the payroll tax cut ends.

Concentrated solar thermal power sits alongside photovoltaic electricity solar energy as a commercially available renewable energy technology which is capable of harnessing immense solar resources.  A new study by the European Academies Science Advisory Council examined the current status and challenges of CSP and at the same time evaluated the potential contribution of CSP in the Europe and the Middle East region in the first half of this century.  The findings report that with significant investment CSP could offer a cost effective way of enabling signigicant contribution to meeting this regions need for clean energy.