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Articles by Eric de Place

Eric de Place is a senior researcher at Sightline Institute, a Seattle-based sustainability think tank.

All Articles

  • Carbon neutral caution

    There’s been a lot of ambitious talk lately about carbon neutrality. It’s exciting stuff, but it’s worth pausing to consider just how huge that challenge is. And what, precisely, does it mean? Zero emissions, or lots of offsets?  I thought it was interesting to take a look at the climate action plan from the city […]

    Eric de Place Cities

  • The Maine Lesson of Cap and Trade

    Last week, I referenced an official from Maine saying: “The investments we are seeing in renewable energy, in energy infrastructure, appear to be the largest wave of capital investment in the state’s history.” Which is obviously great news for the state, especially during a recession. Since then, the Kennebec Journal has reported on the formation of […]

    Eric de Place Politics

  • The State of Electricity Prices

    I was messing around with some spreadsheets, and out popped this little guy: The chart plots the 50 states — minus Hawaii but plus DC — with the price of electricity on the vertical axis and consumption on the horizontal axis. (I left off Hawaii because it’s a serious outlier, with average electricity prices nearly twice as high […]

    Eric de Place Climate & Energy

  • Myths and realities of cap-and-trade

    Worries about “gaming” or market manipulation often crop up as objections to climate and energy legislation. While these concerns are understandable, they are not warranted — and they can be addressed in a well-designed system. So let’s look at some of the most common myths. Myth #1: Cap-and-trade markets have no track record. Reality: Cap-and-trade […]

    Eric de Place Politics