What if excess carbon in the atmosphere could be converted to more useful forms? That’s the ultimate goal of carbon conversion companies such as Opus 12, a startup in Berkeley, California. Making stuff out of carbon dioxide could be a trillion-dollar industry by 2030, and it creates an economic incentive...
Climate activist Greta Thunberg at New York City's Climate Strike in September 2019. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez.)
The policies explored in this series, taken together and adopted at national scale, would allow the United States to do its part in limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Can it be done? The final installment of “Look to the States” concludes with an outlook and some tools — drawing once...
To support decarbonization efforts, we will have to overhaul our transportation system. Over the course of the past century, we used fossil fuels to revolutionize the way we move from place to place — creating unprecedented mobility, but substantially contributing to climate change. About 30% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions...
Workers install rooftop solar panels at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory's Research Support Facility in Golden, CO in 2013 / U.S. Department of Energy
States across the country have led efforts to revamp the electric grid: modernizing century-old systems, promoting energy efficiency, and investing in distributed energy generation that replaces central grids. Through smart investment and incentives, the federal government has the ability to usher in this new energy future nationwide, and ensure that...
For years, red and blue states across the country have been building the policy architecture for ambitious national climate action. Part II of "Searching for a New Deal on Climate" explores how the federal government can follow the states’ lead on setting economy-wide greenhouse gas targets, establishing renewable energy requirements...
Demolition of Brayton Point, the last coal-fired power plant in Massachusetts, in April 2019. The location will serve as a site for future offshore wind development. (Dave Souza/The Herald News of Fall River via AP)
Is there a version of decarbonization somewhere out there that is aggressive enough to meet the bar set by the scientists, yet pragmatic enough to work politically and as a matter of law and policy? Yes, there is. We should look no further than the blue and red states that...
Global Thermostat co-founder Graciela Chichilnisky at the company's demo plant in Menlo Park, California / Photo courtesy of Global Thermostat
This summer, ExxonMobil announced it would be working with carbon removal company Global Thermostat to help scale up their technology, with an eye towards large industrial applications. The announcement is the latest indicator that fossil fuel companies are looking ahead towards a world that’s far less friendly towards their products...
In July, the state of Ohio passed its HB 6 energy bill, which authorizes $300 million in annual surcharges on utility ratepayers, primarily to fund four struggling coal and nuclear power plants. The bill also scales back the state’s clean energy targets. Now that HB 6 has been signed into...
