The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) sued the Feds this week to reinstate the PACE program.  The PACE program was a component of the Recovery Act, which allowed the upfront costs of property owners’ clean energy and energy efficiency projects to be financed by local governments, and paid back by homeowners as an increase in their (more…)

The National Resources Defense Council Action Fund released a video clip last week designed to echo Obama’s call to move America towards a “clean energy economy” in his State of the Union address.

The video is part of the “This is Your Moment” campaign, which features a host of celebrities, such as Jason Bateman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Felicity Huffman, Justin Long, Edward Norton, and Forest Whitaker, urging Congress to pass the first-ever climate and clean energy bill, currently pending in the Senate.

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Do yourself a favor by visiting NPR.org and downloading the first hour of the last Science Friday. A really intelligent discussion of the future of nuclear energy in the US ranged from the waste storage issue to microreactor technology to financing.

Even the geekiest of Green Nerds probably needs some time away from green tech talk a few minutes a day, especially with all the slop that is bombarding us these days at checkout counters, in brand campaigns and on the nightly news. So, I know the last thing you want to do is head out for that morning run, pop in the ear buds and have a clean tech podcast as your accompaniment; but, the conversation here – which included an MIT Prof and former DOE Under Secretary (Moniz), a NRDC egghead (Cochran) and a scientist – is worth your time.

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There’s been a lot out there in the ether about how Waxman-Markey (and climate change legislation in general) has been a windfall for lobbyists, fighting both to keep the government’s hands off of utilities and others’ CO2 emissions on the status quo side and scrambling for the subsidies and other dollars on the green tech side.

The Washington Post (WaPo) opened just such a story this week with an anecdote about Rep Gene Green’s (D-TX) amendment changing the word “sources” to the words “emission points.” WaPo notes “that tiny bit of editing might one day give petroleum refiners valuable rights to emit carbon dioxide when it otherwise might not have been allowed. (more…)