The OurEnergyLibrary aggregates and indexes publicly available fact sheets, journal articles, reports, studies, and other publications on U.S. energy topics. It is updated every week to include the most recent energy resources from academia, government, industry, non-profits, think tanks, and trade associations. Suggest a resource by emailing us at info@ourenergypolicy.org.
Resource Library
On behalf of A Better City, Researcher Tanya Stasio, PhD, Assistant Researcher Elisabeth Seliga, Researcher Jordan Burt, Research Assistant Lila McNamee, and Principal Economist Liz Stanton, PhD prepared a policy brief and accompanying background report that (1) provides a discussion of extreme heat in Massachusetts and the disproportionate impact on low-income and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities, (2) reviews policies to address extreme heat in the Commonwealth and across the United States, and (3) develops six recommendations for Massachusetts policymakers to address both short-term extreme heat emergency preparedness and long-term heat resiliency in the Commonwealth, supporting cooler …
View Full ResourceOn behalf of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team, Researcher Jordan Burt, Assistant Researcher Elisabeth Seliga, Researcher Tanya Stasio, PhD, Research Assistant Lila McNamee, and Principal Economist Liz Stanton, PhD, prepared a report that reviews case studies of fossil-fuel plant conversions to clean energy resources across the country and discusses the replacement of existing peaker plants in Massachusetts to achieve statewide climate goals. The report identifies three key takeaways for the Commonwealth:
1. Fossil-fuel sites can be desirable locations for clean energy siting
2. Reducing reliance on fossil-fuel generation can help lessen the burden of environmental and health impacts on already …
View Full ResourceThe seismic design rules for nuclear power plant piping systems that have been in practice since the 1960s have been applied to hundreds of piping supports and seismic restraints for nuclear power plants. This quantity of seismic hardware brings about design and operational difficulties at nuclear power plants that include:
– excessive plant congestion that limits access for inspection and maintenance;
– plant staff facing increased radiation exposure while accessing equipment for inspection or maintenance;
– an unnecessary constraint of the thermal expansion of the pipes during normal operation;
– a high cost for the plant’s initial construction;
– a …
Recent legislation has brought the goal of getting the most out of public infrastructure funds to the fore. The high cost of building major infrastructure in the US is a longstanding challenge, but it is not inevitable. This paper highlights three elements of state capacity that underlie the high costs and slow timelines the US faces. The first challenge is personnel: government pay has not kept up with private pay, and the public workforce has not kept up with the workload; public-sector work is instead increasingly privatized, raising costs. The second challenge is procedure: government workers operate under onerous procedures …
View Full ResourceWhile industrial electrification must play a critical role in decarbonizing the U.S., utilities often lack clear pathways to support industrial customers’ electrification efforts. Electricity costs frequently make such transitions financially unfavorable compared to natural gas.
The Utility Engagement Playbook for Industrial Customers: Addressing Power Sector Barriers to Electrification, prepared for the RTC by Synapse Energy Economics and the World Wildlife Fund, provides a comprehensive roadmap industrial companies can use to overcome electrification barriers by engaging utilities and policymakers.
This Playbook aims to:
– Describe the barriers to industrial electrification related to the electric utility sector.
– Explore potential utility, regulatory, …
As state lawmakers prepare to convene for their 2025 legislative sessions, they have a clear opportunity to rein in a common practice by monopoly utilities to charge their customers for inappropriate and unnecessary expenses, according to a new report from the Energy and Policy Institute.
The report includes real-world examples showing how the nation’s most prominent investor-owned utilities have routinely tried to charge customers — and often succeeded — for problematic expenses ranging from staff lobbying and slick corporate advertising, to private jet flights and spa services. Additionally, the report outlines policy solutions designed to protect utility customers from shouldering …
View Full ResourceClean energy offers many benefits to consumers, including reducing consumers’ electricity bills, lowering total electricity system costs, and providing health and resilience benefits. States can accelerate consumers’ access to these benefits with policies that support energy efficiency, demand flexibility, renewable energy and storage. Berkeley Lab developed a series of briefs that explore the consumer benefits of clean energy, and identify actions states can take to promote them.
– Contribute to a least-cost electricity system by using low-cost resources such as end-use efficiency, demand flexibility, behind-the-meter solar PV and storage, and utility-scale renewable energy.
– Greenhouse gas emissions reductions and improved …
Decades of nuclear weapons production and research generated millions of gallons of hazardous and radioactive waste. NNSA’s ongoing maintenance and modernization activities of the nuclear weapons stockpile are expected to generate a considerable volume of additional waste. However, a Senate committee report questioned whether there are sufficient facilities to address the waste generated by these activities, and whether such facilities are included in current plans and budgets.
NNSA was required by statute to develop a comprehensive strategy for treating, storing, and disposing of the waste generated by these activities. In July 2022, NNSA created an office to manage the planning …
View Full ResourceThe Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has been driving groundbreaking advances in energy innovation for over four decades. The data and case studies in the 2024 EERE Investment Snapshot describe EERE’s recent successes in delivering the benefits of energy innovations to communities, companies, and industries across the country.
EERE has used targeted investments in applied research and development (R&D), demonstration and deployment expertise, in-kind technical assistance, and its unique convening power to drive energy innovation in select industries and technologies. While each field in EERE’s portfolio has seen remarkable progress, the report focuses on EERE’s impact and …
View Full ResourceAs energy storage becomes an increasingly integral tool to deliver numerous benefits to communities and to the electric grid, the question of how to make this new technology broadly affordable and accessible becomes more urgent, particularly for state agencies tasked with meeting clean energy goals. This report compiles the results of independent research conducted by the Clean Energy States Alliance (CESA) and Sandia National Laboratories, providing a summary of emerging affordability and accessibility approaches in leading state energy storage programs. The intent is to create a body of reference material that can be used in state energy storage policymaking across …
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