Enjoy these good news items from the local, state, and international energy frontiers!
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We know everyone has had a lot of bad news on the Covid-19 front lately, so we want to bring you some good news on the energy front. We are not naïve about the magnitude of the challenge or all that is left to be done at the local, state, national and international levels, but Clean Energy Action, and so many others, have worked tirelessly for the progress we have made, and this seems like a good month and time of year to share some of that good news.
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Wind and Solar gaining ground internationally with deployments in almost every country!
Wind and solar installations are increasing rapidly throughout the world, which, with record decreases in coal production, shows that we're moving in the right direction on a global level.
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Coronavirus Lockdown May Save More Lives By Preventing Pollution Than By Preventing Infection
According to the World Health Organization, air pollution causes 7 million premature deaths globally per year. In France, this figure is around 48,000 - in the United States, 100,000. Evidence suggests that a substantial number of these deaths will be prevented because of reduced air pollution as a result of the economic slowdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Interestingly, so many lives may be saved that the death toll from the pandemic
may actually be positive
- meaning less people will have died because the pandemic happened, than if it did not.
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National
Renewable Generation Tops Coal Generation for
First Quarter of 2020
Renewable generation in the United States
surpassed coal
for the first quarter of 2020, according to an
EIA database
that tracks hourly and daily electricity generation. And with the wind blowing and the sun shining from April through June, we very well may see renewable generation surpass coal for the first half of 2020. Despite a lack of federal effort to advance generation from renewables, this milestone reflects the cumulative impact of state and local efforts in a very impressive way.
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State
The Power Plant of the Future Is Right in Your Home
Or, rather, it could be in the not-too-distant future.
A community in Basalt, Colorado
, "is a testbed for a so-called 'virtual power plant,' a network of self-optimizing energy resources that unbundles the centralized utility and distributes it across the grid." Virtual power plants are operating in other places, but the advance in technology for this one is the autonomous load optimization software developed by NREL. It completely automates load balancing so distributed generation and high penetrations of renewable generation can potentially be expanded to large scales.
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Local
Other cities make a public utility work,
Boulder could too
I would like to set the record straight about the intentions of public utilities, which are community-owned, not-for-profit electric utilities that safely provide reliable, low-cost electricity to more than 49 million Americans while protecting the environment. Homes and businesses in 2,000 communities across the United States — large cities like Austin, Nashville, Los Angeles, and Seattle, as well as small towns and the Navajo nation — get electricity from a public power utility.
Public utilities distinguish themselves by being nonprofit, community-owned, locally controlled, affordable, reliable, invested in their communities, and environmentally responsible, and they open up a healthy energy market.
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Keep the Good News Going
In 2019, the Colorado Legislature passed some strong climate goals, a first for our state! To keep this good news going, now we need the Air Quality Control Commission (AQCC) to enact strong rules that will reduce Colorado's carbon pollution.
There will be an AQCC meeting on;
Thursday April 16, 2020
Just tell the AQCC why you think we need to address the climate crisis by reducing our carbon pollution as quickly as possible. If you want a detailed analysis of where we are and where we need to go, you'll find it
here
.
Thank you as always for keeping Colorado moving forward!!
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Clean Energy Action continues to work hard on climate and energy issues at the local, state and national level. If you’d like to know more or get engaged using our “Citizen Power” model, please be in touch through
info@cleanenergyaction.org
and we’ll help you find a way to engage that matches your time and life constraints. We need everyone’s help if we are to stay below 1.5˚C warming!!
Thank all of you so much for your support over the years. We have a lot of good news as a result—and we’ll be working hard to make it even better in the coming months and years!
- The Clean Energy Action Team
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Meet CEA Board Member Duncan Gilchrist
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Duncan is a 26-year-old masters student at CU Denver's School of Public Affairs studying public administration and environmental policy. His purpose in life is to advance public policy solutions that move us beyond climate catastrophe, and toward an economy with human and ecological well-being as its lodestar. In his free time he runs in the foothills, coordinates a men's emotional support group and draws abstract illustrations by hand. He is also a father to 14 houseplants. Duncan publishes his ideas and drawings on
his blog.
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