We got everyone's attention, but we didn't solve any environmental problems.

Obama wants to build such things as smart electrical grids and high-speed rail lines, which will offer big environmental improvements. Another obvious thing is that large-scale project financing is virtually frozen, so a lot of renewable energy projects are on hold. If the system doesn't get unclogged before the developers run out of cash, they will be cancelled. Money matters, and we are racing against time.

Listen up, you couch potatoes: each recycled beer can saves enough electricity to run a television for three hours.

We shouldn't fuel the future with the polluting methods of the past, ... We have the technology to power our future in ways that don't threaten our health or poison our planet. Let's choose to use it.

When civilization stands at the edge of a cliff, a step forward doesn't make much sense.

Our goal is to turn solar electric technologies into a commodity business like computer chips, and make them ubiquitous in the built environment. I'd couple this with a huge commitment to fundamental research in nanostructure to goose the next generation of more efficient, cheaper, dematerialized cells. And if I'm truly czar, I'd emphasize silicon technologies, as that approach is the one least likely to encounter material constraints in supplying an explosive global demand.

Build high-speed, electrified trains over the most-traveled corridors. It'sreally hard to power carbon-free airplanes, but electrified trains are much easier. We'll be a half century behind the Japanese, but better late than never.