The Future of Landfills is Bright

There are more than 10,000 closed and inactive landfills around the country. These sites offer an incredible opportunity for solar development. By installing solar on closed landfills, states and municipalities advance local solar energy while repurposing relatively large, vacant sites within communities that have limited reuse potential.

Solar and landfills are a natural combination for many communities looking to accelerate local renewable energy development. Landfills typically have good sun exposure and limited other redevelopment opportunities, making solar one of the few ways to put the land to productive use. Moreover, reinvesting in closed landfill sites can help revitalize the local, …

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Decarbonizing Homes: Improving Health in Low-Income Communities through Beneficial Electrification

In the United States today, 26 million low-income households burn costly, health-damaging, and climate-disrupting fossil fuels inside their homes. Communities of color are disproportionately overburdened by pollution from burning fossil fuels, as well as energy costs and poor housing quality. This is due in part to structural racism throughout our housing and economic systems. Many of these communities are also highly vulnerable to the extreme weather events brought on by climate change. They lack comparable access to cooling and resilient infrastructure, as well as the financial means to relocate.

In order to meet the country’s climate goals and protect public …

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Participating in Power: How to Read and Respond to Integrated Resource Plans

Traditionally in planning power sector investments, utilities have been focused on two metrics for success: reliability and affordability. These metrics remain important, but they do not effectively account for the climate, environmental, and human impacts of fossil fuels, which disproportionately affect marginalized communities. To address climate and equity challenges, utilities will have to transform the way they plan – ensuring that a full range of resources are considered to meet utility customers’ needs. This should include both supply- and demand-side options, as well as distributed energy resources.

One of the most important opportunities to advocate for such outcomes is via …

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Federal-State Partnerships: Tackling Climate through Infrastructure

From January–July 2021, The Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions (NI) and the Center for the New Energy Economy (CNEE) conducted a series of conversations with state leaders and have identified several specific policy priority areas relevant to infrastructure proposals. These policy areas and approaches have been repeatedly highlighted by state leaders contacted by NI and CNEE. This report highlights either emerging areas for states or cross-cutting needs that were consistently cited by states as important. This is not a list of state priorities for programmatic funding—such as how much funding should go to specific public investments—but areas that states …

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Five Reasons to Be Concerned About Green Hydrogen

Green hydrogen has generated a lot of interest as a zero-carbon or low-carbon fuel. Its ability to be injected into existing natural gas infrastructure has led to several large oil and gas companies promoting its use to preserve their existing pipeline assets while lowering emissions. However, despite all the hype surrounding green hydrogen, Clean Energy Group has found that there are several reasons to be concerned about its use, particularly in power plants. While hydrogen might have a valid role to play in deep decarbonization of the heavy transport or industrial sectors, runaway plans to use it extensively in the …

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Insights on Emissions Reduction among U.S. States

From 2005 to 2018, the United States reduced its carbon dioxide emissions from the energy sector by 12 percent, but the national average masks wide variation in performance across states. Declines in emissions were dramatic in some states; in others, emissions changed little or even grew. What explains this variation? What might policymakers learn from the states reducing emissions?

To answer these questions, the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change Program investigated state policies that aim to reduce emissions or boost low-carbon energy. This report focuses on 16 U.S. states that are representative of the country.

The first section of …

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30 Million Solar Homes Implementation Guide

The 30 Million Solar Homes Implementation Guide is a companion piece to the 30 Million Solar Homes policy platform — developed by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Solar United Neighbors, and the Initiative for Energy Justice — and our recent report, The National Impact of 30 Million Solar Homes. The policy platform identifies new and existing federal policies and programs that could catalyze widespread and equitable adoption of rooftop and community solar, to power the equivalent of one in four households across the United States.

The success of this proposal relies not only on the initial passing of …

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California’s Offshore Wind Electricity Opportunity

California has set forth an ambitious goal of generating all of its electricity from clean and carbon-free technologies by the year 2045. The state is planning for this target, outlined in California Senate Bill 100, to be met primarily by several renewable sources like solar, land-based wind, geothermal, along with energy storage and other zero-carbon technologies. Wind energy has long been proven to be a technologically feasible and economically viable option. Moreover, momentum is increasing to include California’s offshore wind (OSW) energy as a complement to the state’s current renewable energy and storage resources.

In this report, we provide a …

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Envisioning Offshore Wind for California

On May 25, 2021, the Biden Administration and the State of California jointly announced their intent to advance floating offshore wind in two locations along California’s coast—a 399 square mile area located offshore of Morro Bay and an area offshore of Humboldt—with lease auctions expected in 2022. This followed on the heels of a federal announcement in late March establishing a nationwide offshore wind energy target of 30 GW by 2030. Offshore wind could become an essential piece of California’s renewable energy puzzle while delivering on multiple statewide goals, from tackling climate change and addressing environmental justice to building a …

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Interstate Natural Gas Pipeline Siting: FERC Policy and Issues for Congress

Growth in U.S. shale gas production has driven the development of natural gas pipelines from producing regions to consuming markets, typically in different states. If long-term growth trends in U.S. shale gas continue, the need for new pipelines could be substantial. One recent analysis by the pipeline industry projected over 30 billion cubic feet per day of new pipeline capacity would be needed through 2025. This new infrastructure could amount to several thousand miles of additional interstate pipeline and on the order of $40 billion in capital investment.

Under the Natural Gas Act, companies seeking to build interstate natural gas …

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