Following up on his lecture on geothermal energy, Professor Roland Horne met with some of my students. Horne is an expert in extracting heat from the earth. Hear more about the engineering and science behind traditional geothermal energy, and the promising “hot dry rock” process.

Everywhere you look, it seems, you’ll find another story on cleantech. If you’re curious about the investment community around this fast-growing (and increasingly-hyped) industry, you’ll want to hear what Erik Straser has to say.

Erik Straser leads the cleantech investment of Mohr Davidow Ventures. It’s his job to seek out promising start-ups in solar energy, biofuels, energy storage, industrial biotech and clean coal.

Roz Naylor explained to us in a previous podcast how energy decisions made in the U.S. or Europe can have unintended consequences for the rest of the world. Because of the importance of this topic, we visited one of her PhD students, Joanne Gaskell, to learn more about the benefits, ...

World corn prices have risen considerably in recent years because of corn ethanol production. If you are poor and rely on cheap corn as your staple food, such price increases are bad news. This is just one example of how energy decisions made in the U.S. or Europe can have ...

Meet Professor Pam Matson, dean of the School of Earth Sciences at Stanford University and renowned scientist. Pam is super-excited about the opportunities that ever-increasing levels of private and industrial funding for energy and environmental research offer. How can universities contribute to finding sustainable energy sources and solutions to global ...

Plants are not as efficient as you might think in capturing solar energy. Current photovoltaic panels can capture more energy per square meter — quite a bit more in fact — than biomass crops that are being suggested as feedstock for ethanol. This is not a reason to dismiss biomass ...

You may not be aware that coalfires, both natural and man-made, generate large amounts of carbon dioxide. In China alone, the estimated amount equals that of the U.S. transportation sector! Meet Taku Ide, a PhD student at Stanford University, who is on a quest to extinguish these fires.

China’s economy is growing fast, and China’s demand for energy is growing right along with it. To accommodate this growth in a sustainable manner, China must move away from a largely coal-based energy portfolio. If it does not, the already severe environmental impacts of large-scale coal usage will continue to ...

We’ll meet four aspiring energy engineers, businessmen and policy makers. Each student has his/her own reasons to study energy: Heather is determined to bring green energy technology to Anchorage, Alaska; Erin is convinced that the renewable energy industry offers fantastic business opportunities; Amanda strives to make substantial contributions as energy ...

When you hear “fuel cells” you may, first and foremost, think about hydrogen fuel cells for vehicle transport. But fuel cells are not at all limited to hydrogen, and are attractive energy suppliers for industrial and domestic usage. Professor Nigel Branson is a fuel cell expert and entrepeneur at Imperial ...

Professor Patrick Corbett, from Heriot-Watt’s energy institute, knows that oil companies like BP and Shell are serious about their investments in green energy technologies. He has tracked their contributions for a long time, and believes that their involvement is much deeper than just PR. We also discuss Scotland’s ambitions to ...

Forget alternative energies: in the short term the only feasible solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and petroleum dependencies is energy efficiency. There is much to be gained, especially in the U.S., where energy consumption per person has risen above that of any other country in the world. Professor Jim ...

It’s exciting to see young engineers excited about designing new green energy technologies. Meet one of them: Adam Kreek. Adam designed and built a (small scale!) biodiesel plant in the basement of my university building, which takes waste oils and fats from industry and households as stockfeed. Such systems can ...

Silicon Valley is buzzing, but not just because of software and hardware investments. The new boom is in green energy technologies. James Horn is an investment manager for Noventi, one of the many Venture Capitalist firms excited about the energy field. The boom is fantastic news for new energy technology ...

You may like them or you may not, but nuclear power plants will no doubt be proposed as alternatives to coal-fired power plants. Yes, the nuclear waste problem is significant, but nuclear plants emit negligble amounts of green house gases, and nuclear fuel is abundant. Dr. Jon Koomey thoroughly investigates ...

Global warming is happening, and one of the culprits is likely increased emission levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as a result of our energy usage. Lynn Orr is director of the Global Climate and Energy Project and one of the world’s leading experts on global ...

Alternatives can help create a sustainable energy future. The most promising long-term alternative energy sources are wind and solar: there is plenty of it, greenhouse gas emissions are low, and the required surface area is relatively small — especially when compared to biomass. In this talk, SmartEnergy’s Margot Gerritsen says ...

In Iceland and a few other countries, geothermal energy delivers a large part of the energy used for heating or cooling, through geothermal heat pumps. You may be surprised to hear that there are hundreds of thousands of buildings in the U.S. that are also hooked up to such systems. ...

There’s a lot of enthusiasm right now around ethanol as a potential solution to our oil addiction. Not everyone shares that enthusiasm, though. Margot Gerritsen speaks with UC Berkeley Professor Tad Patzek for a different perspective. Patzek is certain that corn ethanol and/or cellulosic ethanol (produced by specialized biomass crops) ...

Mark Jacobson is a world expert in wind energy and air pollution. He sees wind and solar power — not biomass — as the most optimal energy sources. He says that the increased use of ethanol will not improve the quality of the air we breathe. Mark also strongly ...

Mark Jacobson is a leading expert in wind energy and the atmosphere. He hears some of the claims being made on behalf of E85 — that it’s supposed to be cleaner, that it will reduce ozone-forming pollution and the release of harmful compounds like benzene, toluene and xylene. Mark’s ...

Wind energy is a very attractive energy source with very low emissions and low space requirements (especially when compared to biomass crops). My colleague, Mark Jacobson, has done extensive research into available wind resources in the U.S. and abroad. He’s one of the world’s leading experts in the field. ...