Top climate change officials from China and the U.S. met this week in Beijing to hash out a pre-Copenhagen plan for cutting greenhouse gas. The two countries are the world’s top two greenhouse gas emitters, according to the Brookings Institution. Together, they account for more than 40 percent of annual emissions. Any solution to the greenhouse gas problem may require both countries to transition to low-carbon economies.

Just back from a trip to China is Assistant Energy Secretary David Sandalow, who joins The Takeaway to discuss how talks are going. Click through for the full transcript of the interview.

What have you heard about clean coal? That it involves vats of liquid carbon dioxide annexed away underground? That it's dangerous? That it's never been done before? In an exclusive interview, Scientific American's energy and environmental editor David Biello sits down with The Takeaway to chat about the technology formally known as "carbon capture and sequestration" ("CCS"), carbon balloons, and carbon geysers— the newest Old Faithfuls.

Check out more of what Biello has to say on Scientific American, where he did a week's worth of carbon capture and sequestration coverage.

And for more coverage of what a "new energy economy" will look like, check out The Takeaway's Power Trip clean energy series.

For over thirty years, Iran has been working on a nuclear reactor. They claim that the facility will be used to provide energy to the country, but the West is clearly skeptical. Today Iran conducts a virtual test of the reactor and the world is watching closely. For more, Jon Leyne of the BBC joins us from the site of the nuclear reactor.

We’ve been on a Power Trip all week to talk about the future of energy. Today we’re digging down into some of the water-cooler wisdom surrounding energy use. Are cloth diapers really more energy efficient than disposables? Does shutting off the lights really waste more energy than just leaving them on? We’re here to debunk myths—or maybe to confirm them. To help us do that is Matt McDermott, an alternative energy writer for TreeHugger.com and Planet Green.com.

Okay, okay, we heard you. You, our listeners, smartly pointed out that with all the energy efficient appliances in the world (and thousands of pounds of algae) future energy consumption will continue increasing because population is increasing. The Power Trip was shaking it's head — how could we forget to talk about this? Today, we'd like you to meet David Biello, an associate editor at Scientific American online who joins The Takeaway to talk to about population, energy, and why when one goes up, it's still possible for the other to come down. (Come on, you're as surprised as we are.)

Before every new technology there comes the moment of invention. Before there was ethanol, someone had to look at biomass and say, "There's energy in them thar leaves." For the last day of our Power Trip energy series, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla joins The Takeaway from the TED conference in Long Beach, California. Khosla, whose company risks millions of dollars every year to fund upstart energy technologies, ruminates on creating billion dollar industries out of wild ideas.

Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and philanthropist, addressed the crowd at this year's TED conference with his thoughts on saving the world with a new kind of philanthropy. It's long, but funny. Really.

Just how power hungry is internet giant Google? The Takeaway's Power Trip heads to the Google campuses in Mountain View, California to find out. John Hockenberry sits down with Bill Weihl, the company's green energy czar (that's his title, no joke). On the interview agenda: the company's top picks for which alt-energy sources will rule the future clean energy economy, including solar with a twist. Plus, Weihl talks about the need for government energy subsidies, and why the company still ain't talking about the power consumed by a Google search

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If you knew where all the energy zooming into your house was being used and wasted, would you change the way you consume power? One company is banking on it. Our Power Trip heads to Redwood City, California to talk to Joe Polastre, CTO and co-founder of Sentilla. The company has invented an unassuming rectangular box that tracks —dollar by dollar, watt by watt—how much energy the appliances in your home are using. Clothes dryers and air conditioners beware: your energy guzzling ways are secrets no more.

The economic spending bill now being debated in the Senate would pour hundreds of billions of dollars into the economy. But it wouldn’t do anything to help the transit system in St. Louis, which is in a crisis so grave that it may be forced to sell off many of its buses. The Takeaway's Andrea Bernstein and Les Sterman, executive director of East-West Gateway Council of Governments, a regional transportation organization based in St. Louis, talk about the stimulus plan and the public transportation crisis.

Energy experts have a theory: It won't be a fancy new technology straight out of a science fiction novel that will help us reduce our energy consumption. Rather it will be something simple, sleek, a mere re-design if you will. The concept that will slow down how much energy we eat? Energy efficiency. Some energy efficient products are already out there—CFL lightbulbs and Energy Star refrigerators. Others are in the pipeline. As part of The Takeaway's Power Trip energy series, John Hockenberry heads to Novato, California, where some wacky guys are using the human lung to create better air conditioners.

We continue our discussion on the future of energy with blogger Garry Golden.

Listen to more from Garry Golden in The Takeaway's Power Trip series:
With energy, where do we go from here?
Introducing the new energy economy

President Barack Obama has pledged to reduce our carbon emissions by 80 percent come 2050, and that means saying goodbye to carbon-spewing coal and oil plants. But we can't wave a magic, rhetoric wand to change from black energy to green. So how do we move forward in establishing a new, clean power economy? To launch our Power Trip energy series, The Takeaway is joined by Garry Golden, a futurist and energy blogger who lays out the yellow brick road toward green energy.

Listen to more from Garry Golden in The Takeaway's Power Trip series:
More on the future of energy from Garry Golden and Introducing the new energy economy.

The head of the Russian utility giant, Gazprom, says gas shipments to Ukraine could resume today meaning Europe could start cranking their heaters again. However, the only way Russia will agree is if the E.U. deploys monitors to observe Ukrainian pipelines. Reportedly, no progress has been made on a new contract between the Ukraine and Russia. Here with all the details is the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse.

During the holidays, weather problems have stranded passengers throughout the nation. But what does future travel have in store for passengers? To tell us about what 2009 may bring is Barbara Peterson, the senior aviation correspondent for Conde Nast Traveller.

The Moscow meeting of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum has turned the heads of energy analysts. Chris Weafer, a strategist at Moscow's Uralsib Capital, shares his views with The Takeaway.

A meeting in Moscow today of gas-exporting nations, including Russia, Venezuela and Iran, has some wondering if the group is trying to form the gas equivalent of OPEC. The Takeaway talks to Global Insight's senior Russian analyst, Natalia Leschenko, for more insight.

The price of gas is dropping, but statistics show Americans are clocking fewer miles on the road.

"We can't ride the bucking bronco of day-to-day oil prices to determine our strategy."
-- Van Jones, author of "The Green Collar Economy"