In a presentation before national policymakers and analysts recently, leading clean energy venture capitalists, academics and CEOs unveiled the “Gigaton Throwdown,” an assessment of the nation’s clean energy potential that identifies seven industries capable of creating 5 million clean energy jobs and reducing CO2 emissions by 5-7 gigatons by 2020. The report, a collaborative effort between leading researchers at UC Berkeley, MIT, University of Michigan, Stanford, and Drexel University, and clean tech leaders, challenges Washington policymakers to remove obstacles that keep billions of capital investment dollars sitting on the sidelines.

In a sign that the Smart Grid is beginning to gain critical traction and momentum in the wider economy Whirlpool, the world’s leading manufacturer and marketer of major home appliances has announced that it plans to have all of its electronically controlled appliances be Smart Grid compatible by 2015.