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
“Modernizing the Grid with All-Electric Buildings” discusses the grid infrastructure impacts of building electrification and why existing constraints should not slow heat pump deployment.
Colorado must modernize its electric grid to maintain reliable and affordable power. Efficient, all-electric buildings can be a valuable tool in optimizing this evolution. There’s no need to wait: today’s grid can already serve thousands of new electric systems as utilities continue long-term planning efforts.…
“All Electric Buildings: A Health Priority” covers the indoor and outdoor air quality impacts of fossil fuel combustion that can be addressed through building electrification.
Burning fossil fuels for cooking and heating produces pollution that harms Coloradans, especially children, the elderly, people of color, and low-income households. Colorado can prioritize health by helping residents and businesses make the switch to all-electric appliances.…
“All Electric Construction: A Good Deal” details the cost saving opportunity for constructing new homes to be all-electric and avoiding gas pipeline extensions.
All-electric building codes lead to lower construction costs in Colorado by encouraging developers to bypass the cost and complexity of installing new gas lines. These homes have roughly the same utility bills as mixed-fuel homes, which use both gas and electricity. Those savings are projected to improve over time as gas prices rise.…
“Cold Climate Heat Pumps: A Reliable Solution” quantifies the performance of heat pumps in sub-freezing temperatures and provides recommendations for optimizing deployment.
Heat pumps now provide dependable heating across Colorado, even in sub-zero temperatures. New cold climate product certifications, trained installer networks, and weatherization programs are helping consumers switch from less efficient fossil fuel systems and stay warm all winter.…
Estimates of the potential of renewable energy are essential for understanding how we can decarbonize our electric grid and economy. They provide key data for policymakers, land managers, and energy modelers by defining the quantity, quality, and cost of renewable resources. However, estimating renewable energy potential is challenging and requires frequent updates because of rapid advances in technology, cost reductions, and uncertainty about developable land that are due to social, regulatory, and environmental factors. Additionally, the complex processes involved in renewable energy development require regular reviews of methods and assumptions, which can also impact our understanding of renewable potential.
In …
Safe disposal of radioactive waste (RW), including spent fuel, must take into consideration long timescales as implied by radioactive waste management (RWM). The NEA Radioactive Waste Management Committee (RWMC) supports NEA member countries in the development of safe, environmentally friendly, and economically efficient management of all types of radioactive waste. Stakeholder engagement is crucial throughout the development of long-term waste management solutions. Dialogue between all stakeholders at every stage of the RWM life cycle is necessary to build sustainable relationships and foster trust. In order to improve dialogue between regulators and implementers, the NEA RWMC established in March 2019 the …
View Full ResourceThis report from Hart Research and Breakthrough Energy surveys 1,600 registered voters in four proposed Direct Air Capture (DAC) hub regions and lays out the strategic findings. Among these takeaways is that residents of these hub regions view both clean energy sources and fossil fuels favorably. There is no also real value in talking about climate change as the impetus for the hubs, as most hub region residents do not consider it to be a big problem. Mentioning climate change does not hurt opinions of the hubs, but there are more compelling points to make within people’s limited attention spans. …
View Full ResourceThe Renewable Thermal Collaborative’s Electrification Action Plan lays out an ambitious, multi-year strategy to address barriers to electrification. It provides a vision for the priority market, policy, and community actions that will drive the RTC towards its goal of a 30% reduction in U.S. industrial thermal emissions by 2030 and full sector decarbonization by 2050. The action plan describes how accelerating electrification will require new federal and state policies as well as tactical tools, trainings, and convenings to support market development.…
View Full ResourceWhile tens of millions of people work in formal energy jobs around the world, another group that comprises a massive and key labor segment in this sector is often overlooked: women and girls producing biomass to meet the basic energy needs of millions of poorer households across the developing world. Some 2 billion people rely on biomass for cooking (and some for heating), making those who gather it critical players in the global energy supply system. Women and girls in many developing countries constitute the majority of people collecting fuelwood for household consumption— an often strenuous and time-consuming effort— and …
View Full ResourceIn 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) began the Energy Earthshots™ initiatives to accelerate breakthroughs of reliable clean energy solutions within the next 10 years. In 2022, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory was asked by the DOE Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO) to provide analysis for developing Energy Earthshot targets for enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), human-made underground reservoirs that extract thermal energy from the earth for electricity generation and/or heating applications.
The Enhanced Geothermal Shot analysis is based on the technology assumptions in the 2019 GTO report GeoVision: Harnessing the Heat Beneath Our Feet. For Earthshot, they updated some of …