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How Vermont's Energy Efficiency Utility Is Helping Businesses Sweat the Small Stuff

Chad Small

February 23, 2021 |

Next City |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Bennington, Vermont

To make their restaurant more energy efficient and to cut its carbon footprint, The Publyk House utilized the services of Efficiency Vermont, a publicly funded energy efficiency utility. As part of their Deep Energy Retrofit program, the utility helped install insulation, LED lighting, and high-efficiency appliances at the restaurant, allowing them to save 50 percent on energy in two years. Since the start of the program, 10 businesses have been able to cut their energy consumption in half.

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“Power Companies Get Exactly What They Want”: How Texas Repeatedly Failed to Protect Its Power Grid Against Extreme Weather

Vianna Davila Jeremy Schwartz Kiah Collier

February 22, 2021 |

The Texas Tribune |

Multi-Media |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Texas

After winter storms and freezing temperatures in 2011 and 2014 caused power plants in Texas to shut down, the state’s energy regulators failed to adapt the state’s electric grid for future extreme weather events. Experts say the state’s deregulated energy market, failure to weatherize facilities, and a lack of action from lawmakers to update the power grid caused millions of customers to lose power during the deadly 2021 winter storm.

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The Texas Freeze: Why the Power Grid Failed

Katherine Blunt Russell Gold

February 19, 2021 |

Wall Street Journal |

Text |

1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Texas

By relying on the market to give energy suppliers' incentives to keep the power going during extreme weather events, a historic cold snap in Texas revealed cracks in the state’s free-market energy system, which left millions powerless during the storm. Critics of the state’s system say “the alphabet soup of Texas energy oversight bodies” led to inaction and there was a lack of preparation from plant owners to ensure that they could continue to operate in extreme heat and cold temperatures.

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To maximize emission cuts, this Boston campus gets its power from the Midwest

Sarah Shemkus

February 18, 2021 |

Energy News Network |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Boston, Massachusetts

Boston University is getting all of its electricity from a wind farm in South Dakota, which should cover its annual energy needs of 205 million kilowatt-hours. Some energy advocates say the higher education institution should have purchased their renewable energy locally, but the university says their main goal was to maximize its reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. They hope to share their model with other “large energy buyers” and use the wind farm as an educational and research opportunity for students.

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Strengthening Communities and Shifting Power in Pursuit of a Just Transition

Iris M. Crawford

February 10, 2021 |

Yes! Magazine |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Georgia

Two climate coalitions led by BIPOC have strengthened their communities by empowering diverse stakeholders to address social inequities. The coalitions are engaging and centering the voices of Black, Indigenous and people of color and providing the resources needed to advocate for environmental and climate justice. The model is being replicated across the South.

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Norway's Electric Car Triumph Started With an '80s Pop Star

Will Doig

February 08, 2021 |

Reasons to be Cheerful |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Norway

After Norwegian pop band A-ha made headlines for using an electric vehicle in 1989, the government began implementing incentives for people to drive the cars. These perks made electric vehicles so popular in the Scandinavian country that they had to start scaling some of them back. Still, by the end of 2020, nearly 90 percent of all cars sold were rechargeable.

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Floating Wind Turbines Buoy Hopes of Expanding Renewable Energy

Sarah McFarlane

February 06, 2021 |

Wall Street Journal |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: Scotland

Hywind Scotland is the world's first commercial wind farm using floating wind turbines to generate power for about 36,000 homes a year. This approach — which is being seriously looked at by several countries seeking to reduce their carbon emissions and oil-and-gas companies wanting to expand into renewable energy — allows wind farms to work in deeper waters where there is often stronger winds.

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An Architecture Firm's Push to Build Net-Zero Apartments—on a Budget

Russell Gold

February 05, 2021 |

Wall Street Journal |

Text |

800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Apartments at Front Flats, a new residential building in Philadelphia, is powered by 492 solar panels that are wrapped around the building. The point: to demonstrate that developers can design buildings that are energy-efficient and be built at an affordable cost. It’s not clear yet if the building is “net zero” in terms of producing as much energy as it consumes, but residents are paying only $40 a month for utilities.

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How steel might finally kick its coal habit

Maria Gallucci

February 03, 2021 |

Grist |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Woburn, Massachusetts

Boston Metal is transforming how steel is made by replacing coal with electrons. Instead of using the fossil fuel in furnaces to melt iron ores, the Massachusetts-based company uses electric currents to heat the ore, which doesn’t create any greenhouse gas emissions. So far, the company has made only several tons of steel, but it recently received investor funding to expand its work.

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Indigenous Elders Are at Risk of Freezing to Death Because Wood Is So Expensive

Terry Greene Sterling

January 29, 2021 |

Slate |

Text |

Over 3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Navajo Nation, Arizona

A collaborative experiment between Indigenous community activists, tribal officials, loggers, nonprofits, and the U.S. Forest Service is delivering firewood to residents who need it for heating and cooking. The program, called Wood for Life, also doubles as a forest management initiative to thin out Arizona’s forests to prevent deadly wildfires. The shuttering of a local coal mine and the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated this home heating crisis and group members in 2020 delivered a total of 650 cords of wood to several Indigenous nations.

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