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New Energy Secretary: Tackle Climate Change with Efficiency and Renewable Energy
“A low-carbon economy is absolutely critical,” Ernest Moniz told senators at his nomination hearing. As widely anticipated, Moniz, a former top Department of Energy (DOE) official and head of MIT’s Energy Initiative, was confirmed as the new...
New Energy Secretary To-Do List: More Efficiency, More Renewables. Less Carbon.
In 2008, Ernest Moniz, director of MIT’s Energy Initiative (MITEI), wrote an open letter to the newly-elected President Barack Obama, offering his recommendations on energy policy. He discussed the urgent need to control global warming...
Clean Fuels to Drive Economic Growth
“Today no area holds more promise than our investments in American energy,” said President Obama, in his annual State of the Union address. In addition to wind and solar energy, and energy efficiency, the president also called for investment in new...
Steven Chu: Champion of Clean Energy and Efficiency
"We are in a global race to develop and deploy clean energy technologies," Steven Chu wrote in his White House blog in 2011. "We can either sit on the sidelines and watch the competition pass us by, or we can get in the race and play to win."...
Air Pollution: The Price of Coal in China
Last Saturday an air pollution monitor atop the U.S. Embassy in Beijing rated the pollution index at a shocking 755--on a scale of 0 to 500. (The EPA categorizes pollution levels over 300 as "hazardous.") A Time reporter wrote that the view from her...
Pulling the Plug on Energy Waste: A Guide to Efficient Consumer Electronics
The typical American household owns about 25 gadgets--TVs, phones, video game consoles, cable boxes, computers, and other consumer electronics--many of which waste energy by continuing to draw power even when they're off, or in stand-by mode. All...
Solving Oil Addiction, State by State
As 43 million people hit the road for Thanksgiving — members of my family among them — I'm reminded again of how dependent we are on gasoline to live our lives. We need it to get to work, to school, to spend holidays with our families. When gas...
Wasteland No More: Obama's Win a Victory for Clean Energy and Efficiency
By re-electing President Obama, American voters made clear that clean energy is vital to this country, and that wasteful, 19th-century energy does not hold the answers we seek. A majority of Americans voted for the candidate who arguably has done...
Fracking's Dark Side Gets Darker: The Problem of Methane Waste
Fracking for oil in North Dakota is so lucrative that when natural gas bubbles up alongside the oil, most oil companies simply view it as waste. It's cheaper, in the short term, to burn the gas than it is to build the infrastructure to pipe and sell...
Clean Energy Companies Are Powering Economic Recovery and Job Growth
A few years ago, Craig Winn launched a new company with two employees and a good idea: leverage the auto industry’s engineering prowess to improve solar manufacturing. Three years later, the Michigan-based company has hired nearly 50 workers and...
Wasteland: How America Can Save Money and Stop Wasting Food, Energy and Water
Waste is just that – a waste. A waste of time, money, and valuable resources, like food, clean water, fertile soil, or energy. As pointless as waste is, and as much as we dislike it, it is all around us. We waste almost half the food we...
Obama Administration Set to Finalize Historic Fuel Efficiency Standards, Saving Consumers $1.7 Trillion
It's been a long, hot, and largely unproductive summer in Washington. Members of Congress head home this month, leaving behind plenty of unfinished business and an ideological divide that remains as wide as the Potomac. The Obama administration,...
