Topics - Environment & Sustainability
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The Solar+ Decade: Roadmap for Building the Solar+ Economy
This roadmap offers a vision for the radical transformation of the nation’s energy system. It articulates where the solar industry stands today, sets the industry’s goal for the next decade and outlines the steps we must take to get there. The roadmap explains how the solar industry will expand exponentially from comprising 2.4% of the U.S. electricity mix today to 30% of all U.S. electricity generation by 2030.
SPI Sneak Preview: Three Ways to Make the Solar Value Chain More Sustainable
It’s easy to confuse ‘renewable’ with ‘sustainable.’ Both principles lie at the core of the solar energy industry. While energy from the sun is renewable, it’s our responsibility to ensure that, as our industry grows, we take the necessary steps to create a sustainable future throughout our entire value chain. Here, I cover three areas where we can drive meaningful change on the path to sustainability.
Solar & Multiuse Farming
Solar development and agricultural use can exist not only side-by-side, but increasingly are found together.
Solar & Agricultural Land Use
As solar continues to expand into new markets, both rural and urban, land use discussions are likely to occur. In these discussions, it's important for participants to understand that solar in not a threat to agricultural activity, but rather a harmonious development that can assist the farming community.
SPI Sneak Preview: The Secret Behind Political Organizing in the New Era of Climate Politics
Climate change is at the center of the national political conversation like never before. In the past year alone we have seen members of Congress propose a “Green New Deal,” activist Greta Thunberg organize a global school strike, over a dozen climate plans from the 2020 candidates and new reports forecasting the catastrophic effects of a warming planet.
SPI Sneak Preview: Providing Reliability and Resilience: The Case for Using Solar + Storage
As storms batter the coasts of New Orleans and wildfires ravage the west, cities and customers are increasingly finding themselves left in the dark and scrambling to restore power. Extreme weather events across the United States are becoming more frequent and their impacts are being felt more broadly each year.
A Solar Heating & Cooling Renaissance?
As discussions about how to address climate change intensify, a frequently overlooked contributor to the global crisis are emissions from heating and cooling the air and water in homes, businesses and industrial facilities. Many might think that the power and transportation sectors are the only areas for improvement, but the global building and construction sectors are responsible for nearly 40% of carbon emissions. To fully deal with this issue, we must address HVAC concerns.
The University of Chicago RPS “Study” Sets a Debunking-Minded #EnergyTwitter on Fire
#EnergyTwitter exploded yesterday when a story broke on what many agreed was a half-baked study out of the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. We hate to even restate the bogus premise. It was that renewable portfolio standards may reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but are costly compared to other approaches to addressing climate change. WHERE THEY GOT IT WRONG
2018 Solar Messaging Survey
SEIA commissioned a public opinion poll from Global Strategy Group to identify which arguments are most convincing for the general public to support solar.
End-of-Life Considerations for Photovoltaics
The falling cost of solar has made renewable energy accessible to more people than ever before and has resulted in an exponential increase in solar adoption. With more than 400 gigawatts (GWdc) of photovoltaic (PV) modules installed globally (including 62 GWdc in the U.S. through 2018), end-of-life management is important for all PV technologies to ensure clean energy solutions are a sustainable component of the energy economy for future generations.