Preparing for an Electric Vehicle Future: How Utilities Can Succeed

EVs can offer sizable benefits to utilities, but only if they start preparing now.

With a forecast of 9.6 million electric vehicle (EV) charging ports required by 2030, utilities need to take a proactive approach to preparing for these new loads. By doing so, utilities will maximize benefits and minimize risk leading to improved customer engagement, growing revenue, reduced system impacts, and more.

Combining results from an industry survey with personal insights of utility industry experts, the paper delivers recommendations and best practices for improving how utilities should support, plan and deploy EV charging infrastructure. With similar time horizons for …

Best Solar Energy Companies Based on In-Depth Reviews

ConsumersAdvocate.org analyzes and reviews commercial solar energy companies. This resource accrues the top national companies condensing the information for the homeowners.  CA.org took into consideration price points, features, customer service, and financing. Residential solar made easy.…

Nature as Resilient Infrastructure: An Overview of Nature-Based Solutions

Our nation’s “gray,” or hard, manmade infrastructure is in need of repair and upgrading due to age, deferred maintenance, and the toll of more intense and frequent extreme weather events resulting from climate change. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)—which has graded the condition of the country’s public infrastructure as a D+ for nearly a decade—estimates direct, cumulative gray infrastructure repair needs at $4.6 trillion through 2025, with an estimated funding gap of $2.1 trillion. Infrastructure has long been an area of bipartisan agreement, and the 116th Congress and White House continue to allude to a possible infrastructure bill …

Enacting a Federal High-Penetration Renewable Energy Standard

The new white paper, Enacting a Federal High-Penetration Renewable Energy Standard: Building on Proposals to Date and Addressing Important Additional Considerations makes the case for a federal high-penetration RES that embraces the following key features:

Qualifying technologies should, at a minimum, include wind, solar, hydropower, ocean, tidal, hydrokinetic, and geothermal energy.
The required percentage of compliant electricity should be at least 50%, on a timeline consistent with climate commitments, recommendations from scientific experts, and other policy goals.
Alternative Compliance Payments (ACPs) and penalties should be sufficient to achieve RES objectives.
A federal high-penetration RES should build upon, and not preempt, …

Estimating the scale of the US green economy within the global context

The green economy has previously been defined and measured in various, but limited, ways. This article presents an estimation of the scale of and employment in the US Green Economy using a data triangulation approach that uses many sources of data and multiple types of data. This can give a suggestion of the green economy’s role in economic development and employment at the country level. It also makes it possible to compare the scale of ‘green jobs’ to employment in fossil fuel-related sectors, and to compare the US green economy to other economies. Through the Low Carbon and Environmental Goods …

Climate Change and Food Security: A Test of U.S. Leadership in a Fragile World

Climate change poses a considerable threat to global food security, with potentially existential economic, political, and social outcomes for humanity. As climate impacts worsen and further stress an already hungry world, the United States should claim the mantle of global leadership in responding to the impacts of climate change, double down on domestic efforts to promote climate-smart agriculture, elevate the issue of climate change and food insecurity in national security circles, and leverage the reorganization of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to further mainstream climate resilience into U.S. global food security programs.…

Funding the transition to all zero-emission vehicles

This white paper quantifies the costs, benefits, and appropriate government funding associated with the transition to all passenger zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs). It assesses the key government support programs needed, for how long the need continues, and how public expenditures compare to societal benefits as the ZEV market develops. The work also identifies opportunities to phase down government expenditures, including shifting to polluter-pay programs, adopting long-term policies with minimal outlays, and transitioning costs to the private sector.…

Sanctions, Shipping, and Oil Markets

In just over a week, the theoretical cost of taking a barrel of oil from the Gulf to Asia, in the cheapest possible way, rose by $6 per barrel. At a time when refinery margins are in single digits, this is a major blow to refinery profitability. The US administration’s decision to sanction two subsidiaries of China COSCO Shipping Energy, alongside announcements by global traders including Exxon and Unipec that they are banning the use of vessels linked to oil flows from Venezuela have effectively taken close to 300 of the global tanker fleet offline. In addition, longer sailing times …

The value of the US nuclear power complex to US national security

In this analysis, the Atlantic Council has set out to estimate the value that the civilian nuclear power sector contributes to the United States’ national security apparatus. Based on a series of inputs, this analysis and conservative estimation found that the nuclear power complex contributes an equivalent of more than $42.4 billion to US national security, as broadly defined. In other words, the lack of a civilian nuclear sector would present an immediate and significant economic shock (and impact on the labor force)—which, in turn, would have immediate and longer-term budgetary implications for the US government.…

Climate Action Playbook Brief

The American Cities Climate Challenge is an unprecedented opportunity for 25 ambitious cities to significantly deepen and accelerate their efforts to tackle climate change and promote a sustainable future for their residents.

Originally open to 20 American cities, the program was expanded to 25 cities due to the strength of the applications received.

As Climate Challenge winners, 25 cities have been accepted into a two-year acceleration program with powerful new resources and access to cutting-edge support to help them meet – or beat – their near-term carbon reduction goals. These resources include a philanthropy-funded team member to facilitate the development …