The pace of the cost decline in the solar PV industry isn’t random. It tracks with a known pattern called an experience curve. An experience curve plots the per-unit cost of power against the total installed capacity. The amount of cost decline for every doubling of capacity, is called the learning rate, and it demonstrates how efficiently an industry makes progress in reducing prices. For example, between 1980 and 2003, the cost per watt of solar PV fell 18% with each doubli

In one of the US Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) most interesting articles of 2025, they publish that every US state from 2005 to 2023, had a decline in energy-sector carbon emissions per capita. The total weight fell by 20%, and when considering the 14% increase in population, they fell by 30% per capita. The reduction is attributed to emissions reductions in the electricity sector, specifically from switching from coal to natural gas generation, and additions of s

Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) offer a promising solution for clean, reliable baseload power amid rising electricity demand. We had the chance to speak with Ron Marinzel from X-energy on their XE-100 reactor, at Reuters Energy LIVE in Houston, TX. Key innovations include its passive safety design—relying solely on natural forces for shutdown—and TRISO fuel, featuring robust ceramic coatings that contain fission products and enable higher operating temperatures. Follow ORGEL ac

Digital twins are transforming oil and gas operations by optimizing assets, reducing emissions, and enabling carbon capture and storage (CCS). We spoke with Nathan Leonard of Kongsberg Digital at Reuters Energy LIVE in Houston, TX, to discuss the opportunities and challenges. Follow ORGEL across multiple platforms: LinkedIn YouTube Spotify

The 1973 oil crisis started a paradigm shift in the US regarding oil’s importance. Energy independence and security reemerged as critical goals of the country. To deal with the geopolitical issue and achieve energy independence, the US passed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards (CAFE) under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. Feasibility studies are conducted by the NHTSA to determine the thresholds for CAFE standards, which require auto manufacturers to incremen

Natural gas has greater energy density and lower impact to the atmosphere compared to legacy fossil fuels like coal or liquid petroleum. The adoption of natural gas has helped to displace them as its cost has dropped due to the shale gas revolution that began in the Barnett Shale deposits near Ft. Worth, TX. Regarding its place in the energy system, natural gas appears to be a stepping-stone to ideal systems with even less impact. Environmental impacts occur in the extraction

Direct Air Capture, or “DAC”, is a technology that reduces the carbon dioxide concentration of the atmosphere. DAC works by pulling outdoor air into filtration machinery that chemically captures CO2 by combining it with a solvent, in one process, or physically trapping it with particle filters, in another process. In both, the captured CO2 is then heated and released in a concentrated form that can be sequestered into a permanent destination. The development, scale, and cost

Many of the improvements to sustainability originate as advancements in STEM. New techniques, materials, designs, and processes offer better efficiency and less waste, helping to reduce environmental impacts, especially when those concepts are integrated across the economy to a substantial degree. The significant upside from a massive push of STEM education will come with new challenges as well though.   With sufficient advancement and complexity, scientific fields divide, re

The condition enabling industrialized society to improve environmental conditions is economic wealth. For businesses, having resources and capital makes it possible to research, develop, and deploy sustainable technologies. It’s wealth that enables businesses to scale, leading to price reductions and widespread adoption. Even regulatory compliance requires that the regulated party is sufficiently wealthy. Municipalities depend upon the wealth of taxpayers to support shared sy

Today’s corporate sustainability marketing is unfocused and wide-ranging, a situation that can be traced to the comprehensive format of reporting schemes. They cover nearly every sustainability topic, regardless of industry, greatly reducing each corporation’s focus on the environmental impact of its core product or service. Meeting the current disclosure burden requires most of a sustainability program’s bandwidth, ensnares multiple teams in the disclosure cycle, and produce

The primary goal of the sustainability industry today is to prevent GHG emissions from entering the atmosphere, with a goal of equal additions and removals, a concept called “net-zero.” Efforts to date have been one direction - to restrict, stop, and mitigate emissions. It’s all one direction. On the day net-zero is achieved though, society enters a new paradigm where removals are not the endless mission, and “climate control” is the goal. The world will hold legacy emissions

The sustainability story of the first year of the Trump administration has been the substantial reduction of agency personnel and federal funding. This shift has forced the industry to open its mind to new pathways to sustainability solutions, without the presence of agency support or federal funding sources. The industry is taking on a new shape as its capital and human talent migrates from public institutions to corporate efforts.   Above the market dynamics at play, a key