MIT announced yesterday that it has received $10M from the Chesonis Family Foundation to fund R&D on better solar power technologies. (Last week, MIT announced that it was launching a new research center devoted to making solar power less costly.)

Gov. Deval Patrick mentioned this news yesterday (Earth Day) in a speech he gave at MIT about all of the ‘green’ initiatives that he and his administration are pushing forward. He spoke as a pragmatic politician, saying that renewable energy was not only good for the environment, but also promised to create a new industry and new jobs in MA…not just for engineers and scientists but also in manufacturing and for blue collar workers (eg electricians to install solar panels). That seemed to really excite him.

So we can expect to see soon more programs and initiatives from state government to foster this industry and to encourage greater adoption of renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency. MA seems intent on competing with California on being the greenest and most energy efficient state. Given the lack of energy policy from the feds, it’ll be interesting to see what states can do and how much they can do to wean us off our oil addiction.

Update (Thurs, Apr 24): The governor, Senate president and House speaker said yesterday that Massachusetts would develop and adopt standards capping the amount of carbon in fuel. Again, another instance where Massachusetts is following the footsteps of California in developing clean energy initiatives.