New developments (and ideas) in materials processing have had the most profound impacts on the evolution of materials technology, and derivatively on science. This is especially true as industry and government everywhere are focusing on new goals: better (improved overall performance including the durability of the product), faster (improvement in process-cycle time), cheaper (energy - savings and cost - effectiveness), greener (environmentally friendly). Perhaps the technology which has emerged as having the biggest near term potential for meeting such goals is microwave processing of materials, from metal parts for automobiles, to tungsten carbide cutting tools, to drying wood, to rubber processing, and now to glassy metals. Innovations still unknown to the vast majority of MSE community include: synthesis of simple and multicomponent ceramic phases by radically new routes and in times which are often 90-95% faster, sintering to transparency of virtually any ceramic phase in 3-30 minutes, the totally unexpected ability to sinter any metal from gold to tungsten to super-alloys to all “hardmetals” in typical commercial parts, and to improve the properties in every case. Major scientific developments include the ability to carry out materials reaction between two or more phases where the phases are held at different temperatures and the ability to transform a vast array of ceramic, semiconductor and metallic materials into a noncrystalline state without melting in a matter of minutes, in extremely simple and inexpensive apparatus. These processes have already been commercialized. We will focus on energy efficiency, its economics, and its future impact on energy consumption by the materials industry. Microwave processing of traditional ceramics saves as much as 90% energy as compared to the conventional process. This is mainly attributed to the fact that the microwave process cycle time is 1/6th that of the conventional process. Its implications for national policy are compelling.