policies accordingly. In 2005, with an eye on rising oil prices and a desire to import less oil, Congress passed the Renewable Fuel Standard, which set targets for how much biofuel the country would use in the coming years. Simply passing this legislation sent a strong signal to the transportation industry, which invested a lot in the biofuel

in my experience most people don’t want to hear a lot about the differences between blast furnaces, puddling furnaces, and the Bessemer process.

will take decades for the green products I’ve been telling you about to reach a big enough scale to make a significant difference.

Iron ore is pretty easy (and therefore inexpensive) to dig up. Coal too is inexpensive, because there’s so much of it in the ground. So the world is going to keep chugging along, making

Today, fossil fuels account for two-thirds of all electricity generated worldwide.

solar capacity nearly 650 percent between 2008 and 2010. But Germany produced about 10 times more solar in June 2018 than it did in December 2018.10 In fact, at times during the summer, Germany’s solar and wind

China, which accounts for a large and growing share of the world’s wind-generated power, has said it will soon stop subsidizing onshore wind projects because the electricity they produce will be just as cheap as the power from conventional sources.

Often, the risks that come with testing new products and introducing them in the market are simply too great. Investors get scared off. This is particularly true for low-carbon technologies, which can require a lot of capital to get going and may…

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There are various ways, including a carbon tax or cap-and-trade program, to ensure that at least some of these external costs are paid by whoever is responsible for them.