By Katie Siegner, Scott Wentzell, Maria Urrutia, Whitney Mann, Hallie Kennan
Yale Center for Business and the Environment
As utility-scale solar development expands throughout the United States, with an expected land footprint of 3 million acres by 2030, there is growing interest across various stakeholder groups in adopting land use best practices for new projects.
Pollinator-friendly solar, which incorporates native grasses and wildflowers throughout a solar installation, is one approach to cultivating additional land use benefits from solar projects. The practice is increasingly common, especially in Minnesota, the first state to adopt a voluntary pollinator-friendly solar standard. Read more here.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO LAUNCHING STUDY
ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDED READING
- More Michigan farmers stand up to climate-change threats, Detroit Metro Times
With farms and ranches on the front lines of climate change, there’s a new effort to keep their lands resilient. The Food and Agriculture Climate Alliance includes forest owners, food producers, state governments, and conservation groups. Madu Anderson, director of governmental relations for The Nature Conservancy in Michigan, explained the warming climate is a real threat to the state’s 100-billion-dollar agricultural industry. - New Alliance Motivates Ohio Farmers to Tackle Climate Change, Cleveland Scene
- Local climate efforts cut costs and carbon in Wyoming, High Country News
As the state doubles down on fossil fuels, towns chart their own path. - Cattle markets, economic development, and tax reform headline Nebraska Farm Bureau delegate session, by the Nebraska Farm Bureau, KRVN. Delegates also adopted a resolution in favor of U.S. agriculture taking a proactive and influential role in climate change conversations.
- The price of solar electricity has dropped 89% in 10 years, Fast Company
In 2009, building a new solar farm was 223% more expensive than building a new coal plant. Now, it’s flipped. - Electric vehicle models expected to triple in 4 years as declining battery costs boost adoption, Utility Dive
- NextEra Makes ‘Long Play’ on Fleet Electrification with eIQ Mobility Acquisition, Greentech Media Startup eIQ builds software to advise fleets on when and how to electrify operations. NextEra can help with the rest.
APPLE’S GLOBAL CARBON EMISSIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN GOALS
Apple CEO Tim Cook touts green, renewable initiatives in UN speech, CNET
As part of his speech, Cook touts that Apple has added 25 suppliers to the 70 it’s already helping transition to 100% renewable energy. He also notes Apple’s other efforts, including that it’s become carbon neutral for its worldwide corporate emissions. Ultimately, Cook says, Apple wants its entire supply chain and product usage to be carbon neutral within a decade.
RE100 Resource
Going Beyond: A guide to integrating renewable electricity into your supply chain
This paper provides insights for companies who are starting to implement a renewable electricity program throughout their supply chain. It uses the experience of Apple, BT and IKEA Range & Supply to demonstrate the challenges they face and how they are addressing them.
HYDROPOWER
As Wisconsin transitions to a cleaner grid, can the original renewable energy contribute?, Wisconsin State Journal. After a half-century of fighting dams, a group of conservation organizations last month reached a truce with the hydropower industry, agreeing to work together to generate more clean energy from existing dams while working to mitigate the environmental impacts.
Two and a half years in the making, the agreement, negotiated by groups including the Union of Concerned Scientists, the World Wildlife Fund and American Rivers, reflects a recognition that climate change represents an even greater ecological threat and that hydroelectricity will play a key role in integrating variable clean energy sources like wind and solar.
Nebraska Hydropower
- NPPD’s Hydropower Facilities
- OPPD Quick Facts: Hydroelectricity as a percentage of 2019 Retail Sales: 3.5%
- LES Generation Resources – Western Area Power Administration: LES purchases 55 MW of firm power, 72 MW of summer firm peaking and 21 MW of winter firm peaking power from this hydropower resource. LES’ contract currently runs through 2050.
GREEN HYDROGEN
Why green hydrogen is the renewable energy source to watch in 2021, ABC News
The price tag and energy needed to make it will be worth it, experts say. Green hydrogen, an alternative fuel generated with clean energy, is experiencing a global resurgence and has been identified as the clean energy source that could help bring the world to net-zero emissions in the coming decades. It was initially touted in the U.S. during President George W. Bush’s first term, when it was nicknamed the “freedom fuel.”
EV CHARGING DESERTS
In Chicago, ‘charging deserts’ part of racial divide on electric vehicles, Energy News Network
Public charging stations are most heavily concentrated in the city’s more affluent neighborhoods, creating a chicken/egg scenario for electric car adoption.
SUSTAINABLE AVIATION
Can Shell help pilot a new era of sustainable aviation?, GreenBiz
Shell is just one of several oil companies eyeing new business opportunities in sustainable aviation, particularly at a time of flat or declining outlooks for petroleum-based fuels. In addition to Shell, oil majors including BP, Chevron, Eni, Neste, Phillips and Total are vying for a piece of the action in sustainable aviation, often in partnership with smaller renewable fuel producers, including Aemetis, Fulcrum BioEnergy, SkyNRG, Sundrop Fuels, Velocys and World Energy.
GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE ENERGY
The Rockefeller Foundation Announces Call To Action To Provide Sustainable Energy For One Billion People By 2030, Rockefeller Foundation News Release, PR Newswire
“In this era of unprecedented crises—including the coronavirus pandemic—we have a responsibility and remarkable opportunity to harness the power that can lead to a more equitable, safer world,” said Dr. Rajiv J. Shah, President of The Rockefeller Foundation, “Our goal is ambitious yet achievable: to bring reliable and sustainable electricity, powered by renewable technologies, to a billion people by the decade’s end. Our success will empower millions of people to participate in a modern economy, growing economic opportunity for us all.”
FEATURED GLOBAL CLIMATE INITIATIVE
Climate Action 100+ is an investor initiative to ensure the world’s largest corporate greenhouse gas emitters take necessary action on climate change. The companies include 100 ‘systemically important emitters’, accounting for two-thirds of annual global industrial emissions, alongside more than 60 others with significant opportunity to drive the clean energy transition.
To date, 545 investors with nearly USD $52 trillion in assets under management have signed on to the initiative.
Climate Action 100+ is coordinated by five partner organizations: Asia Investor Group on Climate Change (AIGCC); Ceres; Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC); Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) and Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI).