Don't Worry About the Government?

The LEED-NC "Green Building" Rating System and Energy Efficiency in U.S. Commercial Buildings
By David M.Hart

Addressing global climate change, worldwide energy-supply vulnerabilities, and expanding global energy demand will require an acceleration of efforts to introduce new technologies for energy production, conversion, delivery, and use. The United States must play an international leadership role. Yet to date the U.S. has demonstrated neither the financial commitment nor the institutional capability necessary to meet this challenge. Aimed at evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of the U.S. energy innovation system and recommending ways to improve its performance, the IPC's Energy Innovation Project has four phases:

• Phase I focuses on distilling lessons from earlier innovation experience, including past U.S. energy initiatives, innovation policies and practices in other industries, and successful energy innovation programs in other countries.
• Phase II focuses on identifying obstacles to large-scale deployment in the key areas of residential and commercial building energy efficiency, carbon capture and storage, nuclear power, smart-grid applications, and passenger vehicles.
• Phase III focuses focus on understanding the opportunities and barriers to innovation in China's energy industries.
• Phase IV aims to develop recommendations for public and private action designed to upgrade the performance of the U.S. energy innovation system.

The Energy Innovation Project draws on an interdisciplinary team of researchers at MIT and a national network of leading investigators in the economics of innovation, the management of large-scale research and development, and emerging-energy technologies. Directed by Richard Lester, professor of nuclear science and engineering and director of the MIT Industrial Performance Center, its steering group includes Steven Ansolabehere, professor of government at Harvard University; John M. Deutch, MIT Institute Professor and professor of chemistry; and Ernest Moniz, Cecil and Ida Green Professor of Physics and director of the MIT Energy Initiative.

Project Sponsor: Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

For additional information, please contact Rohit Sakhuja, executive director, rsakhuja@mit.edu (617-253-7522).