The Breakthrough Institute is a paradigm-shifting think tank committed to modernizing liberal thought for the 21st Century. Our core values are integrity, imagination and audacity. Our goal is to accelerate the transition to a future where all the world's inhabitants can enjoy secure, free, prosperous, and fulfilling lives on an ecologically vibrant planet. For more information on The Breakthrough Institute please visit: http://thebreakthrough.org/
An Interview with Princeton Research Scholar Tim SearchingerBioenergy’s role in the global economy is growing as governments promote renewable biofuels and biomass electricity to replace…
Subsidies to Fossil Energy Aren't the Low-Hanging Fruit We Might Wish They WereEvery few months — or constantly, depending on your attention span — we…
A new Breakthrough analysis looks at regional power generation data and finds that cheap natural gas has overwhelmingly displaced coal generation, not other sources of…
The financial advisory firm Lazard recently updated its estimates for the levelized cost of different electricity generation technologies, and some observers were quick to highlight…
New Nature Piece Tells Us What We Already KnewUse of abundant natural gas across the globe will not “discernably reduce fossil fuel CO2 emissions,” concludes…
Clean Energy Equivalent of 4 to 19 Australias Required to Meet Gap Created by Rebound A new International Energy Agency report finally acknowledges the major role…
Rapid Expansion of Solar Depends on Massive Subsidies and High Carbon PriceThe International Energy Agency updated their technology roadmaps for solar PV and solar thermal…
To help address its energy needs, last week Saudi Arabia announced plans to incentivize both private and public investments in energy sources other than oil.…
Better Technologies Needed for Emissions to Start Falling“While uncertainty over the changes in coal stockpiles still exists, we’re confident that the unbelievable may be at…
Why We Need to Be Careful with How We Generalize Energy NeedsDoña Maria (pictured above) moved from being one of the 1.4 billion people without…
In the last several years, Tanzania has suffered from a growing energy deficit, in part due to recurring droughts that have crippled hydropower capacity. The…
Lack of electricity in Africa remains one of the biggest barriers to the region’s development and prosperity, and continues to trap millions of people in…
It has taken 15 years for American public policy to move toward the long-term goal of mitigating climate change. Although many believe that the new…
Against Anti-Growth EnvironmentalismWhen environmentalists come out against economic growth – Bill McKibben called growth “the one big habit we finally must break” – they often…
In the early 1920s, when my grandparents were just small children, only about 40% of Americans had access to electricity. Over the course of a…
The world was moving faster towards reducing its reliance on carbon intensive energy consumption in the 1970s and 1980s than in the past several decades.…
The last few years have seen a growing number of liberal and environmental heavyweights publicly call for more nuclear energy to deal with climate change.…
My recent post about the costs of Germany’s policy of subsidizing solar energy inspired predictable attacks by true believers in a future powered by solar…
Plutonium is the nuclear nightmare. A by-product of conventional power-station reactors, it is the key ingredient in nuclear weapons. And even when not made into…
Suppose I told you there was a form of energy so plentiful it could encourage huge economic growth, a source so plentiful here in the…