Low-carbon technologies are getting better and cheaper each year, in part thanks to government support for energy technology development, but continued public-policy support is needed to sustain progress, says SFI External Professor Jessika Trancik in a Nature commentary this week.
Her analyses show that the cost of renewable energy technologies have fallen sharply, she says. But to maintain this momentum, "public policies to encourage the development and adoption of renewable-energy technologies are essential, because low-carbon performance is not visible to most consumers and carbon is not priced in the global market," Trancik writes.
Read the commentary in Nature (March 19, 2014)
Read the commentary about Trancik's op-ed in Physics Today (March 2014)