A promising approach to reducing the cost of solar power is moving forward with the construction of an installation in Indianatown, FL, that will combine a field of solar concentrators with a natural gas power plant.

Today The New York Times has an update on the project, which the utility Florida Power and Light (FPL) announced almost two years ago, and which we wrote about here. When completed later this year, the power plant is expected to generate up to 75 megawatts of power by making use of turbines at the natural gas plant, which itself has a 3,600 megawatt capacity.

The solar concentrators generate steam, which can be used to drive the turbines. Using existing turbines and generators can greatly reduce the cost of a solar power plant. FPL says the current project reduces costs by 20 percent, according to the Times.

Similar natural gas-solar hybrid projects are being built in Egypt, Morocco, and Algeria. There's also an effort to pair solar concentrators with coal fired power plants. Abengoa, the Spanish based company that's building natural gas plants in Morocco and Algeria, is working with Xcel Energy in Colorado to build solar coal hybrid test facility. According to Abengoa, such hybrids could cut the cost of solar power by 30 to 50 percent to as low as 6 cents per kilowatt hour, which is competitive with many fossil fuel power plants.

The massive energy bill that would set a cap on carbon dioxide emissions and provide other incentives and requirements for clean energy has passed the U.S. House of Representatives by a slim margin.

It's far from becoming law, though. Passing the bill in the Senate will be more difficult: many Democrats voted against the bill in the House, something that can't happen in the Senate if it is to pass. What's more, President Obama isn't entirely happy with the bill and will be pushing to get some changes made, including removing a provision designed to encourage other countries to set up emissions goals of their own, according to the Washington Post.

Some experts hope that the bill's passage in the House will prove a strong bargaining chip later this year when world leaders meet to discuss international caps on emissions.

The Washington Post reports today that the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a bill that would establish a cap and trade system for limiting carbon dioxide emissions. A cap and trade system is a market-based approach designed to allow utilities and other major emitters of carbon dioxide to find the cheapest way to reduce their emission. It involves setting a cap on emissions and then issuing allowances to emitters. Many experts support auctioning off those credits, but the bill gives 85 percent of them away.

In a similar European cap-and-trade system, giving the allowances away seems to have led to windfall profits for utilities.

President Obama originally supported auctioning the allowances, and budget projections included revenue from such auctions. That money would have been used for clean-energy R&D, and for offsetting energy price increases causes by the cap on emissions.

The bill still faces several hurdles before becoming law. It may undergo review by other committees in the House before coming to the entire House for a vote. Then it has to get past the Senate, which has blocked cap-and trade bills in the past. This bill, however, has strong support from the Obama administration and, according to the Post, extra momentum because of the Energy and Commerce Committee's approval.