Energy/climate legislation – The House of Representatives in late June approved legislation to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and increase energy efficiency. Numerous provisions encourage combined-heat-and-power (CHP) and recycled-energy projects. Read more.

Chicago Tribune – Sean Casten's op-ed discusses a bill in Congress which encourages "energy recycling." In addition to saving consumers $168 billion the legislation would also reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 262 million tons — the equivalent of taking 50 million cars off the road for a year. Read more.

The New Republic – Sean Casten commends Obama for insisting that efficiency will play a major role in the country’s energy policy. But Casten stresses that the focus should not be on how consumers use power but instead on how energy is generated in the first place. Read more.

Stimulus Legislation – The recently approved American Recovery and Reinvestment Act includes numerous provisions that encourage combined-heat-and-power and waste-energy-recovery projects. Review the provisions.

Smithsonian – The publication’s on-line edition features an interview with Tom Casten explaining how to capture power that goes up in smoke. According to Casten, “I became convinced in about 1974 or 1975 that global warming caused by carbon dioxide emissions is going to be the biggest issue that we’ve ever faced as human beings and that we have to burn less fossil fuel and learn to reduce CO2 emissions profitably.”

Duke University – The school’s Center on Globalization, Governance, and Competitiveness released in early March 2009 Recycling Industrial Waste Energy, part of a series supported by the AFL-CIO and Environmental Defense Fund about the impact of carbon-reducing technologies on U.S. jobs. The report concludes, “The U.S. industrial sector includes many significant opportunities to recycle energy that is currently being discarded.”

Awards to RED – GoingGreen recently identified RED as one of the 50 most innovative emerging green-tech and clean-tech companies in the eastern U.S. The Aspen Institute Energy and Environmental Awards also highlighted RED as one of five national finalists in its Corporate Energy Efficiency category. See more details.

American Scientist – The January issue’s cover story argues that “we must extract more useful work from the energy at our disposal, especially in manufacturing, processing, and power generation.” Written by Tom Casten and Phil Schewe, “Getting the Most from Energy” concludes that “we can’t afford to send the large majority of our energy, unused, into the sky.”

Overcoming Regulatory Barriers – A new report from Recycled Energy Development declares that current energy regulations block the deployment of clean and efficient generation.  That these barriers exist is proven by the fact that the power industry has made no overall efficiency gain in the past five decades, since Dwight Eisenhower occupied the White House.