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
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Intensifying hurricanes, floods, and wildfires. Ambitious clean energy commitments. Building and transportation electrification. Justice 40 and a laser focus on energy affordability.
Leaders must steer their organizations through a minefield of changes and disruptions. How can they prioritize investments and initiatives as they look to deliver clean, just, and predictable energy in the years to come?
Our latest survey answers pressing questions from nearly 200 utility executives—uncovering pain points and opportunities for utilities to get ahead.…
View Full ResourceIn “Clean Energy Neoliberalism: Climate, Tax Policy, and Racial Justice,” co-authors Lew Daly and Sylvia Chi explain how energy tax credits embody a neoliberal approach to climate policy that continues to rely heavily on private incentives and market choices to drive the energy transition. They discuss how this could not only privatize the clean energy future, but also squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity for remedying historic harms and chronic underinvestment in communities of color.…
View Full ResourceCurbing emissions from the transportation sector is one of the most important steps the United States can take to cut greenhouse gas pollution by 50-52% by 2030. In fact, transportation emissions account for nearly a third of all such emissions in the U.S., in addition to being a major public health and environmental justice issue. The Biden Administration has the important opportunity to use existing authorities to promote cleaner transportation fuels.
Currently, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is the dominant federal policy that governs transportation fuels. It requires fuel providers (i.e. oil companies) to incorporate bio-based renewable fuels, like ethanol, …
View Full ResourceEnergy 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 …
View Full ResourceThe U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) is a key federal program shifting the nation’s transportation fuel mix towards lower-carbon alternatives. A 2014 update to the standard included certain types of renewable electricity as qualifying fuels, supporting vehicle electrification within the RFS for the first time. This study investigates the potential under existing regulatory authority to expand deployment of low-carbon waste-to-electricity pathways, yielding revenue that could be used to subsidize electric vehicle (EV) sales or to support other RFS-aligned climate and transport-sector goals. We find that by accounting for drivetrain efficiency in credit allocation and creating a centralized entity to accrue …
View Full ResourceEnergy justice is an emerging topic that is receiving attention at the federal and state levels. The U.S. Department of Energy is actively working to implement the Biden administration’s Justice40 Initiative, a goal that 40% of the overall benefits from federal investments in climate and clean energy flow to disadvantaged communities. At the state level, some state legislatures have considered measures related to energy justice. Building off the tenets of environmental justice, energy justice refers to the concepts of equity, affordability, accessibility and participation in the energy system and energy transition regardless of race, nationality, income or geographic location.
Advocates …
View Full ResourceOn 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 …
View Full ResourceA rapid and low-carbon transformation of the transportation sector in the United States holds the key to delivering on multiple goals: enhancing economic mobility, improving health, expanding environmental justice and equity, reducing global oil dependence in a time of deep concerns about energy security, and delivering on ambitious and necessary climate goals. The United States has committed to an ambitious climate target of slashing emissions in half by 2030—setting the country on a path toward keeping global climate goals within reach.
The transportation sector—now the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S.—is one of the key linchpins …
View Full ResourceOn 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, …
View Full ResourceNatural gas and electric utilities across the United States are increasingly pursuing pilot projects to blend hydrogen with natural gas for various end-uses, including as a heating fuel in buildings or for power generation. However research shows these projects would increase consumer costs, exacerbate air pollution, and cause safety risks while minimally reducing greenhouse gases. By comparison, electrification is a proven, low-cost alternative that poses no safety or health risks and can rapidly cut building emissions. And in the power sector, increasing renewable electricity is a much more efficient clean energy pathway. State utility regulators and policymakers should require a …
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