The grassroots group, the Sunland-Tujunga Alliance has pressured Home Depot into dropping plans for locating in its community after a messy, five-year fight. Continue reading
Twenty-five years ago, many solid waste planners thought no more than 15% to 20% of the municipal waste stream could be recycled. Today numerous communities have surpassed 50% recycling, and many individual establishments — public and private sector — such as office buildings, schools, hospitals, restaurants, and supermarkets have approached 90% and higher levels. A handful… Continue reading
In May 2004, San Francisco adopted an Energy Independence Ordinance using California’s Community Choice Aggregation law (Laws of California 2002 Chapter 838) as a purchasing and ratesetting authority, and will issue revenue bonds, called H Bonds, to finance a 360 MW public works project. The energy projects would be equivalent to more than a third of the city’s electrical capacity needs and on average would supply about 14 percent of the city’s electric consumption (MWhs) without arate increase. Continue reading
Ohio was the second state in the nation to offer community choice. Its community choice provision is modeled after that in Massachusetts’ 1997 electric restructuring law. Ohio has given local governments the right, after a vote by their city council, to become the default supplier. Continue reading
Massachusetts was the first deregulated state to decide that the town or city should be the default supplier in the event that customers do not choose a new electric supplier. Individual customers are always free to opt out and choose their own supplier, but if they do nothing their community represents them. Continue reading
New Jersey was first state in the country to ban large tractor-trailers from its state roads and highways. The restriction, went into effect in July 1999, confined large trucks (more than 102 inches wide) that were not doing business in the state to interstate highways and the National Network, a system of major highways and connector roads. Continue reading
Vermont, Oregon, Gainesville, FL, and the Canadian province of Ontario have recently adopted feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, allowing any prospective renewable energy producer will get a guaranteed connection to the grid, a long term contract to sell their power, and a fixed price sufficient to recover their costs plus a reasonable profit. We believe that feed-in tariffs could turbocharge state level renewable electricity standards, reduce costs, and spread the economic benefits across many more project owners.
This ordinance applies a suite of energy conservation and renewable energy requirements to both residential and commercial development. Some provisions apply to new building projects while others apply to remodeling projects at existing buildings. One of these is a requirement to prepare the building for the installation of future photovoltaic systems. Continue reading
Two proposals were signed into law in 2005 in Washington. The new laws put distributed generation and renewable energy on the fast track in the state. The first bill (SB 5101) establishes a renewable energy production incentive that is larger if the equipment comes from in-state manufacturers. The second bill (SB 5111) provides corporate tax breaks for solar energy businesses in the state based on their sales. Continue reading
In 2006, California enacted a "Million Solar Roofs" law. The bill reiterates and supplements the California Public Utilities Commission’s$2.9 billion California Solar Initiative. The new law extends the PUC solar energy incentives initiative to publicly-owned utilities -municipal and cooperatives. Including the publicly-owned utilities, the PUC must limit the cost of the California Solar Initiative to $3.35 billion over the next 10 years. Continue reading
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