clean energy posts, articles, and infographics

Should the U.S. government play a role in American energy use?

February 8, 2012 by Josh Freed
with 174 views

One of the big questions on the campaign trail today is whether there should be a government role in America's use of energy. The reality is that energy is one of the most regulated sectors of our economy—the government already plays a huge role driving innovation and investment. The question we should be asking is: since the government... [read more]

Why Google invests in clean energy

February 1, 2012 by Marc Gunther
with 624 views

Last year, Google invested more than $915 million in clean energy projects–solar, wind and transmission. That’s a lot of money, even for Google, which had $38 billion in revenues in 2011. The investments don’t appear to be core to the company’s mission of organizing information, and they have attracted criticism, as well as some... [read more]

Why the Clean Energy Sector Has “Rolling Uncertainty”

January 31, 2012 by Joseph Romm
with 449 views

If the 2008 financial crisis was a swift punch to the face for the clean energy industry — and for the whole energy sector — the global uncertainty of 2011/2012 is more like a rolling series of blows to the body. In both cases, the sector continues to stand back on its feet. But it’s still going to be a hard fight to the top. [read more]

Has the Navy Set Sail or Aborted the Mission to Use Green Fuels?

December 15, 2011 by A Siegel
with 207 views

In 2008, Admiral Gary Roughead, U.S. Navy, then Chief of Naval of Operations, established Task Force Energy and Task Force Climate (prior to the Obama Administration). Since then, Task Force Energy has provided a serious focal point for fostering changing Navy thinking and approaches to energy use and... [read more]

New Poll Shows Americans Want Clean Energy

October 25, 2011 by Nicole Lederer
with 344 views

Only 14 percent of country thinks we're going in the right direction on energy [read more]

Increasing Rates of Technology Adoption

October 11, 2011 by Alex Trembath
with 350 views

Via Sonia Arrison at Volokh Conspiracy:New technologies are almost always adopted by the rich first, but over time they eventually reach everyone, and the historical record shows that the distribution of new technology is speeding up, not slowing down. For instance, it took forty-six years for one-quarter of the population to get... [read more]

New Report Breaks Down the Clean Economy

July 13, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
with 258 views

This morning the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy Program released a comprehensive new report, "Sizing the Clean Economy," which takes a detailed look at the United States' ongoing transformation toward a low-carbon future. The report, co-produced with Battelle Technology Partnership, presents the most detailed data available... [read more]

Leaving $2.3 Trillion on the Table: The House GOP's Budget Walks Away from Clean Energy's Economic Jackpot

May 16, 2011 by Josh Freed
with 249 views

The United States is engaged in a fierce global economic competition to capture a share of the $2.3 trillion clean energy market. For the countries that seize this moment, clean energy will translate into new economic growth and businesses and a large share of the 20.4 million new jobs the sector is anticipated to create by 2030. Winning... [read more]

Smart Grid -- Let’s Get Horizontal!

April 4, 2011 by Anto Budiardjo
with 498 views

How the energy information age will change how we use powerGetting horizontal implies that today, something is vertical. So, what exactly does it mean to be vertical? Simply put, a “vertical” is the mechanism by which we focus segments of our business and related sales efforts. It is comprised of people who think alike, address common... [read more]

Break Down Bureaucracy to Get Breakthrough Technologies

March 4, 2011 by Josh Freed
with 807 views

Washington policy wonks scoffed when the Obama Administration announced last year that the Department of Energy and Pentagon were going to collaborate in developing new clean energy technologies. They thought such a shot-gun marriage was impractical and impossible to even get off the ground. Instead, it is proving to be model for... [read more]

Obama's 80 Percent Clean Energy Goal: Who's He Kidding?

January 26, 2011 by Keith Schneider
with 716 views

Arguably the central provision of President Obama's State of the Union address last night was the proposal to generate 80 percent of the nation's electricity from clean energy sources by 2035 -- including nuclear energy and CCS coal technology. Getting there will take a miracle. [read more]

Innovation Conservatism

January 4, 2011 by Breakthrough Institute
with 954 views

Bucking the conventional wisdom that newly empowered conservatives are out to cut government spending at all costs, an influential group of conservative voices has emerged to urge Congressional Republicans to take a more measured approach toward federal programs and challenge them to increase federal investment in science and technology... [read more]

Climate Change: The rise of a Google issue

December 22, 2010 by David Hone
with 1,106 views

As time rushes by it is too easy to forget how long some things have been around for or how they have developed over time. This is certainly true of energy and technology, where changes can take decades. We might think that the climate change issue is something that belongs to the decade just passed, but in fact it has distant roots as well. [read more]

Can Obama Reduce Deficit While Increasing Clean Energy?

December 14, 2010 by Michael Craig
with 1,066 views

By Michael Craig | Originally published at Americans for Energy Leadership Obama's freeze on federal employee salaries and Republican efforts to eliminate earmarks are two of the tangible signs that deficit reduction has, and will continue to be a hot topic in the near future. The 112th Congress will almost surely take up... [read more]

Cancun’s emerging focus on clean energy deployment

December 10, 2010 by Joseph Romm
with 653 views

Few observers expected this week’s international meeting in Cancun, Mexico of U.N. climate negotiators to conclude in forging a legally binding treaty for greenhouse gas reductions as a next phase of the Kyoto protocol. Instead, the likely outcome may simply be a balanced package of incremental though significant measures designed to... [read more]