Florida City Votes For 100% Energy Freedom!

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A Florida city enjoying the calm and relaxing breeze that comes off of the neighboring Gulf of Mexico has become the 20th city in the United States of America to commit to 100% energy freedom.

Its city council just voted unanimously to completely cut its use of imported fuel for electricity, while also working to transition away from imported oil and drive increasingly popular electric cars instead.

This will inherently boost the city’s local economy, since residents and workers won’t be
sending money to foreign coal barons or natural gas and oil billionaires from other countries, states, and cities.

chevy-volt-floridaInstead, they will be using limitless and free energy from the sun and the wind, while driving on electricity generated from those free energy resources. They will be sending money to the people who build, operate, and own those solar and wind power plants — which could actually be themselves in many cases. Some of the solar power systems will be built on the residents’ own homes and local businesses, and some could be community solar farms and community wind farms that are owned by members of the local community. That is, the electricity can be from rooftop solar and community energy farms … if the city is smart about its approach to achieving energy freedom and prioritizes those options.

rooftop-solar-florida

In any case, the plan is to move away from polluting sources of energy that come from other countries and states and that demolish the health of local residents. The energy freedom will simultaneously be a pre-emptive attack against cancer, heart disease, and premature death. That’s a nice bonus to the energy freedom approach!

Perhaps it’s partly because of the city’s elderly population — which once got the city nicknamed “God’s Waiting Room” — that this sensible approach to a healthier and more democratic energy system was pioneered in a small Florida city. We will talk to local leaders soon to find out more. However, it certainly seems that it was a coalition of elderly citizens, youthful students, and the working middle class of St. Petersburg that led to this coastal city becoming a leader in the quest for energy freedom.

st-pete-ev-chargingBut energy freedom isn’t just for conservative Florida cities. Energy freedom that saves money, boosts the economy, and protects our health should be for everyone. Why should any community in the United States of America or anywhere else be importing coal, oil, and gas from megacorporations and billionaires when they could be generating clean electricity from local wind, water, and sun resources; and then driving on that electricity in electric cars that are nicer to drive anyway?

Conservatives and progressives across the country and across the world should be joining hands to kick Big Energy and Big Money out of their homes and cars — out of their pocketbooks and bank accounts.

St. Petersburg is leading the way by charting a path to 100% renewable energy, by installing more electric car charging stations, and by finding other ways to encourage its community members to drive cutting-edge electric cars powered by local energy resources.

Let’s hope your city is the next one to vote for energy freedom! And please, go out and make that happen!

Related:

Yes, this article is not just a news story — we already covered this news. This article — especially compared to the original one — is an example of how we can frame certain news and use powerful arguments for people who haven’t already realized the great importance of energy freedom. I hope it is effective. I hope it’s an effective example. And I hope to write in this format more in the future.


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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