electricity
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Critical List: Financial assistance for cooling costs down; Atlanta's trees are dying
Stuck in a heat wave? Can't afford A/C? Too bad: Groups that dole out government assistance for cooling have had their funding cut and have turned away up to 80 percent of applicants.
Today's the first anniversary of the climate bill's death.
Atlanta loves trees! It charges $1,000 to chop one down. But drought, storms, invasive species, and natural causes get to kill trees for free, and they’re are all contributing to a large-scale die-off. -
With HR 2018 House – Once Again – Passes Attack on Water, Science, Humans
Yesterday evening, the House of Representatives passed The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act (HR 2018), a bill that turns back the clock 40 years on the environmental and public health protections in the Clean Water Act. This brazen attack on public protections is the closest big industrial polluters have ever come to completely gutting laws […]
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When is it time to break up with your utility?
Boulder ends its franchise agreement with Xcel Energy and looks into independent, renewable options instead.
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In dimwitted move, GOP set to repeal lightbulb standard that saves billions
Republican lawmakers want to repeal the Energy Independence and Security Act, which saved consumers money by setting lightbulb efficiency standards.
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500 MW of distributed solar could have prevented blackout that affected 55 million
The massive blackout of 2003, which affected 45 million people in the northeast United States and 10 million more in Ontario, could have been prevented by just 500 megawatts of distributed solar, says John Farrell of the Institute for Local Self Reliance. For reference, California installed almost 200 megawatts of distributed solar in 2010 alone.
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The world’s first ass-powered outdoor concert
Here's an idea for a better way to harness the power of stationary bike workout: use the resultant energy to fuel the electricity-sucking equipment for a banging outdoor concert. Pedal Power NYC recruited 250 volunteers to pedal 16 bikes, which, hooked up to generators, provided the electricity for June's NYC Celebrates Water Festival.
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How to get to a fully renewable power system
How can we scale up the clean and phase out the dirty?What’s it going to take to substantially ramp up the amount of renewables in the electricity system? There are many nerdy discussions of that question on the interwebs, but lemme try to talk about it in reasonably non-nerdy language. There’s a certain amount of […]
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Utilities and regulators design energy rates, regardless of the power source
We often talk about electric rates as if the only thing that goes into determining them is the power source. In some sense, this is right: If a utility’s power costs go up, and nothing else changes, the price they charge consumers will likely eventually go up. But, this understanding doesn’t fully appreciate the role […]
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Community uses ‘choice aggregation’ to fight its utility
Utilities need to cooperate with their communities.Photo: Powerhouse MuseumThis post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project. Taking over the local utility has traditionally been the only route for communities wishing to chart their own energy future. California, Ohio, and two other states have opened […]