Yesterday's efficiency standards are saving you money today

Apr 17, 2024
Household appliances like refrigerators and washing machines would use a lot more energy if not for efficiency standards.
“A typical refrigerator today uses only one-fifth as much energy as a new refrigerator sold in the 1970s," says Andrew deLaski with the Appliance Standards Awareness Project.
Mario Tama/Getty Images

Biden administration invests $6 billion in low-carbon industrial production

Mar 25, 2024
The funding aims to cut the cost of cleaner manufacturing in industries like food, paper and chemicals.
Steel production generates a lot of emissions and is hard to decarbonize. Above, training in steel work at an iron workers union local in Dayton, Ohio.
Megan Jelinger/AFP via Getty Images

Are we still 30 years away from fusion energy? Some think the timeline's shrinking.

Dec 22, 2022
Last week, the Department of Energy said scientists had ignited a fusion reaction that created more energy than was needed to sustain it. 
U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm discusses the breakthrough in nuclear fusion research by scientists at a government lab.
Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images

Fusion energy could one day mean reliable, clean, cheap power

Dec 13, 2022
The Department of Energy is announcing Tuesday that scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have had a major scientific breakthrough.
The inside of a nuclear fusion reactor.
Getty Images

A shortage of electrical transformers holds back utilities, businesses

Nov 14, 2022
A utilities trade group has asked the Biden administration to help boost the supply.
Transformers act like an interface between the power grid and a home or business. The current shortage of transformers is frustrating for utility companies.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Investment in solar power key to Biden's green energy goals

Sep 9, 2021
A Department of Energy study out today shows that the U.S. has the potential to power 40% of its electricity needs with solar power.
The 100-megawatt MGM Resorts Mega Solar Array is launched on June 28, 2021 in Dry Lake Valley, Nevada.
Ethan Miller via Getty Images

New energy secretary is likely to continue in predecessor's path

Dec 11, 2019
Dan Brouillette served under the previous secretary in a deputy role
U.S. Deputy Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette speaks during a press conference with the German Economy Minister on February 12, 2019 at the Economy Ministry in Berlin.
Odd Andersen/AFP via Getty Images

For public good, not for profit.

Coal subsidy sinks after federal committee votes “no”

Jan 9, 2018
The Federal Energy Regulatory Committee voted down a proposal from the Department of Energy offering financial support for power plants that keep a 90-day supply of fuel stock on site (basically coal and nuclear plants). The FERC said the cost to consumers far outweighed any possible grid security benefit of the measure.

Will the U.S. invent the next generation of batteries?

Dec 8, 2017
A potential lack of government funding could help other countries pull ahead.
GERARD JULIEN/AFP/GettyImages

Big cuts ahead for energy innovation programs

Jul 10, 2017
Funding for the much-lauded ARPA-E innovation program, which funds energy projects with serious potential, will be removed.
Aaron Palumbo looks into a furnace he helped develop in a lab on the University of Colorado campus in Boulder. His company, Big Blue Technologies, received a $3.6 million ARPA-E grant in 2014.
Dan Boyce for Marketplace