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.
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Effective management of DOE’s contaminated excess facilities could reduce the U.S. government’s
environmental liability, which is on GAO’s High Risk List. Deactivating and decommissioning such facilities is crucial for reducing risks and costs as the condition of facilities worsens over time. Since 2016, DOE has been required by statute to regularly plan for deactivating and decommissioning contaminated excess facilities.
Senate Report 118-58 includes a provision for GAO to evaluate DOE’s efforts to develop a plan for deactivating and decommissioning contaminated excess facilities, which is due March 2025 and every 4 years afterward. GAO examined DOE’s approach to deactivating and decommissioning …
View Full ResourceDecarbonizing single-family homes is crucial to meeting US climate goals, as these homes account for 58 percent of the country’s building greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, high up-front costs for electrification, such as heat pump installations, present a significant barrier. In Making Decarbonization Financing Work for Homeowners and Contractors, RMI identifies five key elements that can reshape financing programs to make decarbonization more accessible and appealing to households across America. These include eliminating up-front costs, offering same-day approvals, and ensuring upgrades prioritize efficient electric alternatives over fossil fuel equipment such as gas furnaces and water heaters.
Why is this needed now? …
View Full ResourceIn its Briefing Note, Building Grids Faster: the Backbone of the Energy Transition, the ETC outlines the critical role of power grids for global decarbonisation and highlights the challenges in their development. The note calls on policymakers and industry to fast-track building power grids in order to deliver the energy transition at the pace and scale required to limit warming well below 2°C.
Clean electrification is the backbone of global decarbonisation, meaning power grids, which link the generation and use of electricity, will play a central role. Under net-zero scenarios, the total length of grids must grow by over 50% …
View Full ResourceColorado’s forests are vital to the state’s identity. Indigenous peoples used wildfire to manage these forests for millennia, a practice still relevant today. However, climate change, fire suppression, and urban expansion have made severe wildfires more common and more destructive. Forest thinning, the selective removal of small diameter trees, improves resilience to these wildfires, protects drinking water, and conserves wildlife, but is costly. Furthermore, small-diameter trees from thinning have historically had little market value.
Mass timber, which combines wood from small trees into high performance structural elements, offers a solution by offsetting treatment costs and reducing embodied carbon in buildings …
View Full ResourceIn cities across the country, many low-income families and other disinvested communities struggle with high energy burdens, including many homeowners. In this data update, the authors find that 25% of all low-income households in the United States have an energy burden above 15.2%. In many cases, low-income homeowners in particular experience very high energy burdens, with 25% of low-income homeowners having energy burdens over 17.2% and half having burdens over 9.4%.
Owner-occupied housing (especially in single-family homes and buildings with four units or fewer) makes up a significant portion of housing in cities. To reach their goals for climate action …
View Full ResourceThis report, part of a series of publications on nuclear waste policy at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University SIPA, reveals lessons learned from the experiences of the two prior negotiators that could benefit a recent, congressionally directed effort at the Department of Energy (DOE) to begin a “consent-based” siting program for nuclear waste. Those individuals were authorized to negotiate terms and conditions—including financial and institutional arrangements—with a state or tribe in a written agreement that would then have to be approved by Congress. Importantly, a state or tribe was assured it could explore the potential of …
View Full ResourceClean hydrogen has received a lot of interest for its potential use as a tool for decarbonization but has also prompted a lot of concerns. Hydrogen production and use can have serious consequences on water supplies, particularly in areas already facing water scarcity. The production of green hydrogen, as well as certain end uses, can be very water intensive. This 3-page fact sheet outlines green hydrogen’s impact on water supplies.…
View Full ResourceRMI collaborated with the China Automotive Technology and Research Center (hereinafter referred to as “CATARC”) to launch a nine-month pilot project calculating the carbon footprints of steel products used by four major automotive manufacturers in China. The pilot utilized the methodology introduced by RMI’s Steel GHG Emissions Reporting Guidance (hereafter “Steel Guidance”). Eight companies participated, including the steel enterprises Baosteel, Angang, HBIS, and Baotou Steel, which account for ~12% of the world’s steel supply. Four automobile enterprises, Volvo, NIO, Dongfeng Nissan, and one unnamed manufacturer also participated as downstream buyers and data receivers.
RMI developed an Excel calculation tool for …
View Full ResourceFine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) in 2022 shortens the average Colombian resident’s life expectancy by 1.1 years, relative to what it would be if the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline of 5 µg/m³ was met. Colombia is the eighth most polluted country in Latin America¹ —with air pollution shortening lives by as many as 2.8 years in the country’s most polluted regions.…
View Full ResourceFine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) shortens the average Thai resident’s life expectancy by 1.6 years, relative to what it would be if the World Health Organization (WHO) guideline of 5 µg/m³ were met. In the most polluted parts of the country, such as parts of the Saraburi, Chiang Rai, and Phayao provinces, pollution is shortening people’s life expectancy by more than 2.5 years.…
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