Uplifting Equitable Solutions
Carbon Capture and Storage: More harm than good? Part 1
Air Carbon Capture Storage: Not the Answer to Keeping the Lid on at 1.5 degrees Celsius – Part 1 As we live the reality of climate disruption and weather extremes, the widely accepted goal is that the average global temperature rise must be limited to 1.5oC to avoid catastrophe. The analysis of the Intergovernmental Panel…
Energy Burden’s Impact on Households, Health, and the Environment | Blog Series Part 1/3
The Just Solution Collective presents, “Energy Burden and the Clean Energy Transition”, a three-part blog series that addresses energy burden reduction as an important part of the clean energy transition for environmental justice and climate justice. Through this blog series, we will highlight key elements from our latest report and spotlight justice-centered policy & program solutions to…
The road to clean, equitable, affordable, timely decarbonization: Part 1
Nuclear Power: Not clean, not necessary, not affordable; not timely The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry’s think tank, claims “existing reactors as well as new advanced nuclear technologies will provide the backbone of our clean energy transition….” Is that right? Or is a dying industry re-branding itself to keep making money while locking us into a…
The road to clean, equitable, affordable, timely decarbonization: Part 2
Decarbonizing the U.S. electricity sector by phasing out existing nuclear is technically, economically, and environmentally better This post is a complement to a prior one, which dealt with: (1) Is nuclear clean? and (2) Can new nuclear power plants reasonably be expected to contribute significantly to decarbonization in a timely way, given the climate crisis?…
The road to clean, equitable, affordable, timely decarbonization: Part 3
Keeping the lights on with solar and wind energy I’ve written two posts on nuclear – one on new plants and the other on existing ones – indicating we shouldn’t build new ones and phase out existing ones. Some people with impeccable credentials don’t agree. For example, former Energy Secretary Steven Chu, a Nobel-Prize winning…
Portland Clean Energy Fund: From Campaign to Implementation An Interview with Khanh Pham
At Just Solutions Collective, we are working to broaden and deepen the understanding of equitable and effective policies and projects to build the capacity of communities to replicate, scale and build support for justice-centered solutions. We took a deeper look at the Portland Clean Energy Fund (PCEF) and spoke with Oregon State Representative and long-time community advocate, Khanh…
The Electric Grid in a Time of Climate Disasters: Communities Show the Way
Three major electricity grid disasters in just over a year are exemplary of the havoc that climate extremes are causing and what needs to be done about it: (i) the howling winds of the 2020 derecho, when hundreds of thousands lost power in Iowa and Illinois in August 2020; (ii) the February 2021 breakdown of…
PUSH Buffalo: Green Development Zones as a New Model for Economic Growth
In their influential article “The City as Growth Machine” and in subsequent work, John Logan and Harvey Molotch assert that regional economic growth is best understood through analysis of the coordinated investments and power maneuvers of a small set of inter-locking regional elites in banking, real estate development, construction, energy utilities and politics.
