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
21 to 30 of 163 item(s) were returned.
Clean energy technology innovation and research, development and demonstration (RD&D) plays a critical role in accelerating the global energy transition. IRENA has, for the first time, collected data on a range of quantitative innovation indicators on the costs and performance of renewable technologies, patents and standards; that provide a quantitative measure of innovation progress.
These indicators of innovation ‘outputs’ (i.e. new or improved technologies, processes and systems with lower costs), based on a methodology specifically created for the purpose, provide both qualitative and quantitative insights into the ways in which seven renewable energy technologies have progressed through time, …
View Full ResourceThe Mission Possible Partnership (MPP) together with the Clean Skies for Tomorrow Coalition, an initiative to help the aviation sector move towards net-zero emissions, has launched an Insights Paper aimed at accelerating the use of sustainable aviation fuels (SAF).
While significant progress has been made and clear ambition established in both the public and private sector, to be successful, regulatory and policy frameworks need to be in place that allow for increased investment across the entire value chain, foster demand and set high sustainability standards.
This toolkit provides a helpful resource to policy-makers around the world. It includes a range …
View Full ResourceThe United States faces the challenge of dramatically reducing carbon emissions while simultaneously ensuring the reliable supply of on-demand energy services that its residents have come to expect. Federal policy will be instrumental in driving investments in energy infrastructure that will be required to transition the U.S. energy supply to zero-emissions sources. This paper discusses the major barriers that policy will need to overcome in order to successfully execute this transition at a reasonable cost. A core problem is that wind and solar generation are intermittent. Provision of reliable zero-emission supply therefore requires combining wind and solar resources with investments …
View Full ResourceThis year, the United States has an enormous opportunity to invest in a clean energy-driven economic recovery that will support millions of good-paying union jobs, confront environmental injustice, and prevent the worst impacts of climate change. On March 31, President Joe Biden released the American Jobs Plan calling for major job-creating public investments in clean energy industries, clean infrastructure, and innovation. This plan would simultaneously confront the climate challenge; drive investment in high-quality, family-supporting jobs; and build worker power by including high-road labor standards and expanding the right to organize.
However, tension has long existed between labor and environmental constituencies …
View Full ResourcePresident Biden and Vice President Harris campaigned and won on a bold Build Back Better plan that called for a $2 trillion investment in “modern, sustainable infrastructure and an equitable clean energy economy.” Clean Jumpstart 2021 is a manual for how Congress can realize President Biden’s vision.
The report details $2.3 trillion in investments—in 39 different action steps— that will deliver on climate, jobs, and justice. Federal lawmakers should seize this opportunity.
In order to build a just and sustainable clean energy economy, the investments in Clean Jumpstart 2021 must be made equitably, in line with President Biden’s commitment to …
View Full ResourceDecarbonization creates enormous opportunities to advance the vital goals of clean air and environmental justice while combating climate change. But these co-benefits are not automatic: to attain them, climate policy must be designed with these goals explicitly in mind. Clean air and environmental justice criteria could be included, for example, in the formulation of Clean Energy Standards (CES) to mandate that electricity companies not only increase the share of clean and renewable power but also meet standards for curbing hazardous air pollution and its disproportionate impacts on low-income communities and people of color.
This report analyzes alternative decarbonization pathways in …
View Full ResourceThis paper reviews the relevant design elements of carbon and environmental markets and explores how they could influence the design of BPS programs and carbon policy. Carbon and environmental markets have existed for more than three decades, giving policymakers experience with scope and target setting and the design of flexibility provisions. The paper also sketches out how the sector-specific BPS programs overlap and interact with existing cross-sectoral programs—state-level clean energy and renewable portfolio standards (RPS), the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), electricity markets, and transport electrification.…
View Full ResourceThis report provides an analysis of clean energy finance opportunities that will accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy in North Carolina. Green Banks have been proven as an effective engine for job creation by leveraging public resources to catalyze private investment, which is particularly relevant in this time of high unemployment. These institutions have helped states make progress on renewable portfolio standards and other greenhouse gas emission goals. Green bank financing can also assist municipal, industrial, commercial, and agricultural facilities transition to cleaner energy resources and lower operational costs. A North Carolina Green Bank (or Clean Energy Fund) …
View Full ResourceFederal climate change policy in the United States has fallen woefully short of what is necessary to achieve the temperature goals enshrined in the Paris Agreement. In the absence of meaningful federal policy, many states have pursued clean energy policies ranging from Renewable Portfolio Standards to Zero Emission Credits. The limits of these state policies have become apparent due to court challenges and recent decisions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. This Note argues that a National Clean Energy Standard (NCES) is critical to harmonize state clean energy policies while also providing them with legal certainty.
Recent studies have shown …
View Full ResourceGlobal energy consumption has grown rapidly over the past century, driven by an expanding population and increasing prosperity. Demand has risen for virtually all sources—coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, and renewables. These “additions” to the global energy system reflect broadly positive trends of higher living standards, decreasing global poverty, and longer livelihoods. At the same time, rising fossil fuel consumption is the leading cause of global climate change and creates other major environmental challenges. To address these challenges, the global energy system will need to undergo a clean energy transition, whereby sources of energy that emit greenhouse gases are …
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