On the History and Future of 100% Renewable Energy Systems Research

Research on 100% renewable energy systems is a relatively recent phenomenon. It was initiated in the mid-1970s, catalyzed by skyrocketing oil prices. Since the mid-2000s, it has quickly evolved into a prominent research field encompassing an expansive and growing number of research groups and organizations across the world. The main conclusion of most of these studies is that 100% renewables is feasible worldwide at low cost. Advanced concepts and methods now enable the field to chart realistic as well as cost- or resource-optimized and efficient transition pathways to a future without the use of fossil fuels. Such proposed pathways in …

Stakeholder Recommendations for Reducing Energy Insecurity in the Southeast United States

Energy insecurity—the inability to maintain energy services like heating and cooling—is one of the most pressing issues in the Southeast, where more than one out of every four households face access or affordability challenges. This is more than an energy problem. Paying high energy bills and worrying about utilities being shut off can drain long-term savings, limit economic opportunities, and lead to difficult—and potentially dangerous—decisions to make tradeoffs between energy and other vital services and household items.

Energy insecurity stems from many factors, including income, energy costs, the quality and affordability of housing, historical practices and policies, access to efficient …

Making Clean Energy Decisions in New England

On behalf of Community Action Works, AEC staff developed a report that identifies and examines six on-going clean energy and energy justice advocacy campaigns in New England. AEC profiles and assesses each campaign to determine which decision makers possess the authority to act on the advocates’ goals. These six campaigns include opposition to the proposed peaker plant in Peabody, MA; continued operation of New England’s last coal-fired power plant in Bow, New Hampshire; three existing peaker plants in Berkshire County, MA; a proposed gas-fired power plant in Killingly, CT; a proposed gas pipeline between Longmeadow and Springfield, MA; and an …

On the Road to 100 Percent Renewables: States Can Lead an Equitable Energy Transition

On the Road to 100 Percent Renewables explores actions at one critical level: how leadership states can address climate change by reducing heat-trapping emissions in key sectors of the economy as well as by considering the impacts of our energy choices. A collaboration of the Union of Concerned Scientists and local environmental justice groups COPAL (Minnesota), GreenRoots (Massachusetts), and the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, with contributions from the national Initiative for Energy Justice, assessed the potential to accelerate the use of renewable energy dramatically through state-level renewable electricity standards (RESs), major drivers of clean energy in recent decades. In addition, …

Addressing Energy Equity in the United States: Policy Considerations for Federal Investment

This issue brief discusses existing energy injustice in the United States, related to longstanding and intersectional discrimination based on race, income, gender, and location, and how federal investment in the clean energy transition can address energy equity issues. The brief considers how targeted investment and other spending and policy considerations can direct and retain benefits of clean energy for households and communities that, historically and currently, have not benefited equitably from the energy system.…

Racial Inequity in Household Energy Efficiency and Carbon Emissions in the United States: An Emissions Paradox

Residential energy use represents roughly 17% of annual greenhouse gas emissions in the United States (U.S.). Studies show that legacy housing policies and financial lending practices have negatively impacted housing quality and home ownership in non-Caucasian and immigrant communities. Both factors are key determinants of household energy use. But to date there has been no national scale analysis of how race and ethnicity affect household energy use and related carbon emissions. In this paper, we estimate energy use and emissions of 60 million household to clarify how energy efficiency and carbon emissions vary by race, ethnicity, and home ownership. We …

The National Impact of 30 Million Solar Homes: A Vision for an Equitable Economic Recovery Built on Climate Protection and Energy Democracy

The 30 Million Solar Homes policies leverage federal power to spark investment that can serve more than 30 million households with rooftop or community solar over the next five years. This decentralized approach to reaching one in four households with solar maximizes and disperses the economic benefits of expanding clean energy in the fight against climate change, directly benefiting as many Americans as possible. More than three-quarters of total federal investment benefits marginalized communities, including low- and moderate-income communities, environmental justice communities, and solar deserts. Over 300 advocacy organizations, solar businesses, and faith communities have signed on in support of …

The Clean Economy Revolution Will Be Unionized: A Road Map From States on Creating Good, Union Jobs To Build the Clean Energy Economy

This 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 …

Implementing Biden’s Justice40 Commitment To Combat Environmental Racism

Low-income communities and communities of color have been confronted with environmental injustice for decades, and even centuries, in the United States. From toxic dumps to polluting power plants, oil refineries, chemical companies, and other industrial facilities concentrated in their neighborhoods, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people have been forced to endure dangerous and life-threatening environmental and health risks. These troubling conditions are compounded by the harms of racial and economic inequality.

While action to end systemic racism is long past due, President Joe Biden’s commitment to direct 40 percent of his administration’s climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities marks …

Rewiring Communities: A Plan to Accelerate Climate Action and Environmental Justice By Investing in Household Electrification at the Local Level

Rewiring Communities is a new, innovative proposal focused on delivering the climate, economic and health benefits of household electrification to low-to-moderate income (LMI) families by bringing together the capabilities of local communities and the financial resources and administrative flexibility of the proposed Clean Energy & Sustainability Accelerator (the “Accelerator).…