Community choice aggregation describes a situation where a town can become the bulk buyer of electricity on behalf of its residential and small business customers. Such local aggregations serve about 5% of utility customers in Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and California, but it’s Marin Clean Energy in California that … [continued]
How can a community take control of its energy future from a 100-year monopoly electric utility? Citizens of Boulder, CO, are testing answers to that question, trying to discover how a single city can do more for its economy and the environment with more power over its energy system. At … [continued]
Laboring to keep more of its energy dollars at home, community members in Boulder, CO, decided that they needed some numbers behind their vision of a cleaner energy utility. Listen in to hear Ken Regelson describe how the remarkable results of Boulder’s citizen-driven energy model have given them power to … [continued]
“It’s the most inspirational work that I’m doing…this is an inspirational and aspirational effort…at the heart of it is love of place and energy democracy.” Mariel Nanasi and the citizens of Santa Fe, NM, are exploring the economic and environmental benefits of more local and locally-controlled energy production. Is their … [continued]
Sprucing up cities with greenery goes well beyond aesthetics: a study in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology reports that plants in urban centers reduce concentrations of pollution at far greater rates than previously thought. The study reports that levels of nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter, … [continued]
In 30 states, citizens have just one choice for their electricity service. It’s like the old communist truism: “you can have any color car you want, as long as it’s red.” What if citizens could collectively shop around for electricity in bulk to get lower prices and cleaner, local … [continued]
Living skyscrapers? Not quite. While organic solar cells are one of several types of photovoltaics currently being explored, Scientific American reports that work is being done that could lead to windows acting as solar panels, by using a compound very similar to chlorophyll. Chlorophyll, as we all remember from … [continued]
In just three weeks, citizens of Boulder, Colo., will vote on whether to begin a big, formal process to unplug from Xcel Energy’s system and plug into local energy self-reliance. The vote to form a municipal electric utility could set a precedent for communities across the United States to keep millions of dollars local instead of sending them to remote electric utilities each year.
When is it time to break up with your utility? Perhaps it’s when they come to ratepayers for $30 million in cost overruns on a “free” smart grid project. Or when they fail to meet deadlines to propose a new franchise agreement. Or when they cite national security in an effort to avoid sharing load information. Or when they crash your office with 9 employees to present their delayed franchise plan. Or perhaps when the propose raising rates again to keep up with rising fossil fuel prices.
Vertical farm concepts for the urban environment are not new, but now, a Swedish-American architectural design company (Plantagon) seems to have solved once of the biggest challenges of urban vertical farming: the need for uniform, sufficient natural light to provide even growth of vertically-farmed plants.
