American-Statesman: Business and community leaders announced a new partnership Wednesday with nine major companies — including Dell Inc. , Freescale Semiconductor Inc. and Microsoft Corp. — to help bring a new clean energy economy to Central Texas. The companies could deploy dozens of employees to the Pecan Street Project, a 9-month-old public-private initiative to develop a local clean energy power system. Some early ideas include Internet-based thermostats that can be adjusted from a remote …