Beyond City Limits

Rick Noriega

• Don't look for U.S. Senate candidate Rick Noriega on the campaign trail until after June 14. The Democratic state representative from Houston is also a lieutenant colonel in the Army National Guard, and he reported on Sunday for the Guard's mandatory annual training exercises, a two-week affair. This is not the first time his Guard duties have pulled him away from politics – in 2004 he was called to duty in Afghanistan, and his wife, Houston City Council Member Melissa Noriega, filled his seat at the Lege in his absence. Noriega is challenging incumbent John Cornyn in November. – Lee Nichols

• Wind power is becoming one the fastest growing sources of new electricity in the U.S. The wind industry blew into Texas this week for its annual conference, held by the American Wind Energy Association in Houston. AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher talked up a May U.S. Department of Energy report finding that wind power has the technical and economic feasibility to provide 20% of the nation's power by 2030. If that's achieved, the report predicts the following associated benefits by that time: 25% less carbon emissions from electricity generation, an 11% reduction in natural-gas use, a reduction of 4 trillion gallons of water related to the generation of electricity, and an increase of more than $1.5 billion in annual revenues to local communities. The industry is also expected to support roughly 500,000 U.S. jobs, with more than 150,000 directly employed by the wind industry. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Suedeen Kelly said achieving this scenario would cost customers only 50 cents more per month. Last year, one-third of the new energy added to the U.S. power grid was wind power, and between 2005 and 2007, wind was the No. 2 source of new energy overall. In the first quarter of 2008 alone, the wind industry installed more than 1,400 megawatts' worth, or about 3 billion dollars' worth, of new energy-generating capacity nationally – enough to power 400,000 homes. – Daniel Mottola