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.
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Between November 2021 and August 2022, three major economic policy laws were enacted by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Biden. These three laws are the BIL (Bipartisan Infrastructure Law), the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) and the CHIPS (Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors) Act. In combination, the purpose of these three measures is to support a large-scale expansion of investments in the U.S. in the areas of clean energy, manufacturing, and infrastructure.
This report considers the BIL, the IRA, and the CHIPS Act with respect to their employment impacts within the U.S. economy. This report is …
The waste sector is a major contributor to planet-warming methane emissions, the third largest source behind agriculture and the oil and gas industry. Because methane is a super-potent greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential more than 80 times greater than CO2 in the near term, addressing this short-lived climate pollutant is key to limiting temperature rise. What if we could identify sites where waste methane is escaping into the atmosphere, pinpoint the sources, and implement evidence-based reduction measures?
The Waste Methane Assessment Platform (WasteMAP), a joint RMI and Clean Air Task Force (CATF) effort funded by the Global Methane …
View Full ResourceEach mineral commodity chapter of the 2024 edition of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Mineral Commodity Summaries (MCS) includes information on events, trends, and issues for each mineral commodity as well as discussions and tabular presentations on domestic industry structure, Government programs, tariffs, 5-year salient statistics, and world production, reserves, and resources. The MCS is the earliest comprehensive source of 2023 mineral production data for the world. More than 90 individual minerals and materials are covered by 2-page synopses.…
View Full ResourceIn The Great Reallocation, RMI shows that contrary to popular belief, the buildout of renewable energy supply does not require a surge in capital expenditure (capex). As fossil fuel capex falls, the net growth in capex is only 2 percent per year, in line with the past seven years, and much lower than in the decade after 2000.
Financing the energy transition is a story of capital reallocation. Over the next seven years, renewable capex will roughly double and fossil fuel capex will roughly halve under core IEA scenarios. Falling fossil fuel capex will therefore provide half of the growth …
In order to meet decarbonization goals, the number of large-scale solar (LSS) facilities in the US is expected to increase considerably. The advantages of LSS over fossil-fueled power generation are numerous and well documented. However, residents living nearby proposed and existing LSS sites have voiced a number of concerns about LSS, including its possible impacts to farmland and agricultural production, biodiversity, stormwater runoff, home and property values, as well as concerns about solar panels’ toxicity and safety. While rapid expansion of LSS currently relies on officials permitting and residents being willing to host these systems, the appetite for LSS in …
View Full ResourceAfter a promising start, global macroeconomic challenges have blown President Joe Biden’s offshore wind ambitions off course. Project stakeholders are looking to bounce back from disruptive cost increases and delays and re-establish investor confidence in the nacent offshore wind sector.…
View Full ResourceIndustrial heat pumps (IHPs) are a key decarbonization technology. As the domestic market for IHPs develops through increasing supply and demand, one area requiring additional focus is refrigerants and the need for consistent refrigerant policy. To plan IHP products and confidently enter the market at scale, IHP manufacturers require stable, consistent refrigerant policies. EPA overregulation of refrigerants without substantial research could have unintended environmental and operational impacts. This topic brief summarizes input from refrigerant and IHP manufacturers and details the diverse refrigerant landscape, the efficacies of available refrigerant choices, and the need for refrigerant certainty.…
View Full ResourceWith growing concerns about climate change, resilience, and housing affordability, the urgency to decarbonize US residential buildings is more pressing than ever. This challenge also presents an unparalleled opportunity for innovation and market expansion in the construction industry.
This report is targeted towards product manufacturers, fabricators, contractors, installers, design professionals, owners, and real estate developers. It provides essential technical insights and cost guidance for scalable zero-carbon-aligned (ZCA) new construction methods and retrofit solutions across various US climate regions.…
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Onsite Energy program and Technical Assistance Partnerships (TAPs) help industrial and other large energy users transition to clean energy, lower costs, reduce emissions, and contribute to a clean energy economy.…
View Full ResourceThis report describes development of an effort to assess Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) performance that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) and others can employ to evaluate performance of deployed BESS or solar photovoltaic (PV) +BESS systems. The proposed method is based on actual battery charge and discharge metered data to be collected from BESS systems provided by federal agencies participating in the FEMP’s performance assessment initiatives. Long-term (e.g., at least one year) time series (e.g., hourly) charge and discharge data are analyzed to provide approximate estimates of key performance indicators (KPIs).…
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