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The Financial Times reports that the shape of a negotiated outcome on the EU climate package is coming into view. Interestingly, the first headline on its story said:

    EU Industry Wins Climate Concessions

The headline to the same story now reads:

    Hopes rise after CO2 auction retreat

By tomorrow the headline might read that the world is now saved! And so it goes on climate policy.

The exact nature of the deal should not give much optimism to anyone, and reinforces the failure of a cap-and-trade approach...

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Steven Chu: ‘Coal is My Worst Nightmare’

What about other energy sources? Big Coal won’t be very happy if Dr. Chu gets confirmed as head of the DOE—he’s really, really not a big fan. “Coal is my worst nightmare,” he said repeatedly in a speech earlier this year outlining his lab’s alternative-energy approaches.

Edison Electric Institute: Industry Statistics

[US: In 2007] 48.6 percent of our nation's electricity was generated from coal. Nuclear energy produced 19.4 percent. Natural gas supplied 21.5 percent. Hydropower provided 5.8 percent of the supply. Fuel oil provided 1.6 percent of the generation mix. Other renewable resources, such as geothermal, solar, and wind, provided 2.5 percent, with other miscellaneous sources providing the balance.

Environmental Capital - WSJ.com : Steven Chu: Probable Next Energy Secretary Big Efficiency Fan

Dr. Chu’s Berkeley teams have spent the past four years exploring solutions to the thorniest problems in alternative energy, such as figuring out how to make second-generation biofuels more efficiently, or how to store energy from renewable sources like solar and wind.

So, what are the solutions?