washington dc

green marketing

In order to propel green into the mainstream, marketers will need to make their message enjoyable, accessible and rewarding. Companies in the clean tech sector are beginning to jump on gamification.[read more]

One of the nation’s most important (and sadly too little discussed) intercollegiate competitions is on in Washington, DC: the biennial Solar Decathlon. Open to the public for a few more days (through 2 October), the Decathlon brings together 19 university teams from around the globe to compete across ten categories (thus, “decathlon...[read more]

This was a funny week to be in Washington DC. I happened to be in town on Tuesday when the Senate was debating whether to repeal the numerous tax subsidies given to the oil and gas industry. To give you a sense of scale, the subsidies on the block add up to $21 billion over the next 10 years for the top five oil companies alone. Of...[read more]

This weekend, the Woodstock of the environmental movement is on full display, not in a remote farm in New York, but deep in the heart of the nation's Capitol. That’s where more than 10,000 young environmental supporters poured into the mammoth Washington Convention Center for three days of meetings, speeches and rallies, part of the...[read more]

By Jim Hopf Now that more comprehensive climate change policies such as cap-and-trade are on indefinite hold, congress is considering a national Renewable Energy Standard (RES) in an effort to do something on energy issues. The RES would require that 15 percent of all U.S. electrical generation be provided by “renewable” sources by 2020...[read more]

The Earth Day rally was incredible.  Well over 100,000 people were in the crowd, well over 10x what the Tea Partiers delivered on tax day, so you can figure out which event the media fawned over. I ended up spending a lot of time chatting with James Cameron, and I’ll do a separate post on what he’s like in person.   I...[read more]

From Energy Circle: LEDs could just save the U.S. ...$120 billion in energy costs and tons of earth-warming carbon emissions, that is. This, from a recent Department of Energy report that projects in 20 years a wholesale switch to the coolest lights on earth. In search of energy efficiency know-how, online. Energy Circle founder Peter...[read more]

By most measures, wind energy has been a great business lately. The U.S. wind energy industry shattered previous records in 2008 by installing 8,358 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity, and did even better in 2009, building out another 9,922 MW. That’s enough wind power to deliver electricity to 4.4 million homes, according to the...[read more]

The year 2009 ended on an uncertain note regarding climate change. The conclusion of the recent climate summit in Copenhagen produced an accord that fell well below the expectations that the year began with, although it saved the event from complete failure and set the stage for possible advances in the near future. As 2010 dawns the...[read more]

A good post here from the Overhead Wire. It seems to me that the only thing more remarkable than the great success cities have had when they’ve focused on improving land use around fixed-guideway transit is the fact that cities seem so reluctant to repeat the experiment. Metro’s Green Line through the District has been a gold mine for...[read more]

Alice Rivlin and Benjamin Orr are recommending the nation move to a system in which vehicle miles traveled are tolled, with a toll that varies by congestion level. They suggest it be tested in a major metropolitan area first — Washington. What would this look like? The system might work like this: Vehicles would be fitted with a GPS...[read more]