With the proliferation of net-zero pledges, these commitments have become a new criterion for businesses that only a few understand but many proffer as an appeal to investors. But how can an investor or a customer know how much greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions a soap maker or bank really dumped...
For clean energy to bump the dirty kind, some minerals look more precious than gold.
As the world rapidly builds renewable energy infrastructure and transportation networks, the critical minerals' sourcing, processing, and trading will have profound economic, environmental, and geopolitical implications. Ensuring the critical minerals’ supply meets ever-rising demand while navigating the mineral supply chain’s impacts on the environment and society is a daunting challenge.
Although the gestures of the bill were certainly made clear, there is still much discussion and clarification to be had, let’s say, concerning the manufactured in America part. The provisions currently seem to demand that 40% of the manufactured components in the facility to be manufactured within America to be...
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Which way will Guatemala and other carbon markets where smallholders dominate grow? (Photo by RS, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.)
A green sanctuary in the heart of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Finca Chimelb hums with the melody of melodious blackbirds and chatter among local laborers. Spanning 4,751 hectares, the farm consists of rolling hills lined with high-value crops, such as cacao, specialty coffee, and cardamom, paired with rubber trees and other...
(Image courtesy Air Company) Is the path to profitability as clear as Air Company's vodka? Only the tax credit market knows for sure.
The novelty of its product, and the need to promote legislation that allows the use of pure SAFs for commercial flights, means the Air Company will need to keep building its reputation through demonstration projects with the support of risk-taking entities. This includes entities such as NASA which in 2022...
The Inflation Reduction Act marks a watershed for federal support of renewable infrastructure and for renewables’ accessibility. Economists say its credits can steer $500 billion in tax incentives, grants, and loan guarantees. While the money is being directed towards reducing the country’s carbon footprint, how does this money affect the...
On an urban two-way street, Timber House's wooden frame points to a different way of assembling housing. (Courtesy of Mesh Architectures.)
Real estate is the source of around 40% of global greenhouse gas emissions, including 11% that come just from making building materials. Mass timber panels, which consist of small pieces of softwood glued together, offer a lower-emissions alternative to steel and cement, as well storing carbon sequestered by trees. Driven...
This site in Lynchburg, VA evokes tobacco production - but the whole region can embrace clean energy generation. (Photo by Kipp Teague, via Flickr Creative Commons.)
The Tobacco Region of Virginia, as its name shows, knows economic transitions. It can use its expertise in workforce development and industrial support to train workers and incentivize investors to speed the clean energy transition through this historic section of a rapidly changing state.
Financing and Deploying Clean Energy: Program Insights
(Courtesy of Jo Zimny Photos via Flickr Creative Commons.) Ithaca took its buildings off fossil fuel. It aims to take its job base in the same direction.
At the local level, a Green New Deal can crowd in private capital. In this update of a Financing and Deploying Clean Energy policy memo, the sustainability director for Ithaca, NY explains the holistic economic and energy-justice strategy driving the city's project to decarbonize all its buildings.
(Photo by Don and Suzan Weller, via Flickr Creative Commons.) As the sun sets over Waterford, CT, an expert proposes a price floor in wholesale electricity markets.
As New England states progress towards decarbonization goals, the electricity spot market will see offers from solar and wind generators that incur no marginal cost. That can harm reliability and put some operators hastily out of business. To retain existing resources and the stability they bring, we need to set...
(Photo by Patrick Kovarik for Getty Images in Fashionista, September 25, 2020.) Chanel once staged a fashion show with wind turbines. The author argues that assertive tax policy can make renewable wardrobes a fashion-forward investment.
The US, as the largest consumer and highest emitter of carbon per capita, bears a critical share of the responsibility to facilitate a transition to sustainable practices. This article lays out the rationale and a pathway for the US to incentivize the apparel industry’s decarbonization. I propose a preferential tariff...
Battery storage systems and virtual power plants offer an opportunity for individual ratepayers to improve energy reliability and contribute to Maine’s clean energy goals. Maine has several options for protecting and incentivizing ratepayers, especially low-income ratepayers, to own battery storage systems and join virtual power plant programs.
With the Yale Program on Climate Change Communications showing this range of climate concern, should Colorado operate under one electricity provider?
Participants in CBEY's Financing and Deploying Clean Energy certificate program learn technology, finance, policy and climate science. Policy savvy locks in when they write real memos to real players. In this example, a professional in Colorado's community-solar industry encourages a state Senator to work on fostering competition in the state's...
The EU needs to open financing channels to more providers to support the intent of the Green Deal.(Photo from Qvinnovindar.)
Why should "prosumers" - individuals who make electricity for others to purchase- encounter brakes on their output in European Union policy? In this memo, which the author wrote first in the Financing and Deploying Clean Energy program, the case emerges for releasing female prosumers' entrepreneurial energy. A linked interview with...
(Photo from Energy News.) Wanja Wallemyr contributes millions of kilowatt-hours to a grid that doesn't properly value it.
What would a prosumer-friendly policy achieve? The Financing and Deploying Clean Energy participant who proposed that direction talked to an entrepreneur whose co-op feeds wind energy into Sweden's electricity system. Wanja Wallemyr's experience outlines what a grid full of prosumers can mean for power and empowerment.
The Center has worked virtually this fall with dozens of professionals earning certificates in Financing and Deploying Clean Energy. Learners in the program study the history, physics, innovation pathways and technological possibility sparking the carbon-free economy. One learning strategy involves crafting policy memos and op/ed pieces on issues where public...
