Shooting for Perfection: Hawaii’s Goal of 100% Renewable Energy Use

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Barry D. Solomon ◽  
Adam M. Wellstead
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Power Systems ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Population Distribution ◽  
The United States ◽  
Renewable Portfolio Standard ◽  
Renewable Energy Resources ◽  
Almost All

In the United States, 29 states, Washington, D.C. and three territories have adopted a mandatory Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) for their electric power systems, while eight states and one territory have set renewable energy goals. Many foreign nations have adopted an RPS as well. Thus far, almost all RPSs across the United States have met their interim goals with targets and timetables that vary widely. Hawaii’s RPS is the most ambitious, with a 100% target set for 2045 (though Vermont set a 75% target for 2032). This paper provides a case study of the Hawai’i RPS. The paper focuses on geographical issues and perspectives that may tease out the course of the states’ electricity future: sensitivity to climate change, population distribution, interisland rivalries, as well as the need for greater energy storage and complementary policies. An important complexity is the challenge of meeting electricity demand on six separate Hawaiian Islands (because of the lack of an interisland transmission cable), although all of them have substantial renewable energy resources.

Green Energy from Garbage? A Case Study of Municipal Solid Waste’s Contested Inclusion in Maryland’s Renewable Portfolio Standard

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-7
Author(s):  
Ingrid Behrsin
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
State Level ◽  
The United States ◽  
Green Energy ◽  
Renewable Portfolio Standard ◽  
Policy Tools ◽  
Critical Thought ◽  
Climate Policies ◽  
The U.S

Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) are powerful state-level climate policy tools that set minimum renewable energy targets. They have been adopted by 29 states, in the United States (U.S.) as well as Washington, D.C., and have fueled much of the growth in the U.S. renewable energy sector. However, because these policy tools are state-driven, the technologies and fuel types included in each state’s RPS vary. In this article, I discuss the inclusion of municipal solid waste in Maryland’s RPS, and a social movement for environmental justice that has emerged around this decision. Given the prominence of RPSs in both fueling renewable energy adoption in the U.S., as well as in encouraging particular technologies, it is increasingly important to interrogate the types of technologies and fuel sources that climate policies like RPSs incentivize, and how they are received by the communities for which they are proposed. Thus, this article’s objective is to inspire critical thought about the classification schemes that govern renewable energy production.

scholarly journals The Power of Customer Choice in Energy: A California Case Study in Accelerating Clean Energy Transitions

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly Trumbull ◽  
J.R. DeShazo
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Free Energy ◽  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Energy Transition ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The State ◽  
Market Demand

Despite a lack of action at the national level, the transition to carbon-free energy is becoming a reality across the United States. At the local level, community choice aggregators (CCAs)—which offer communities public control over their electricity purchasing decisions—are accelerating this transition. By forming these electricity providers, member cities and counties can choose how much renewable energy is offered to their residents and businesses. In California, CCAs have become an effective policy tool at accelerating the transition to clean energy. Across the state, 182 cities and counties have become members of one of the 23 CCAs, with additional communities planning to join or form CCAs in the next few years. These CCAs have been effective at unlocking market demand largely stifled by an investor-owned utility monopoly by giving cities and counties greater choice and access to renewable energy. The vast majority of these CCAs procure more renewable energy than the investor-owned utilities they compete with. As a result, CCAs purchased 204% of the renewable energy required by the state from 2011 to 2019. By achieving California’s carbon-free energy targets more quickly than mandated, the state benefits from a cumulatively larger reduction in greenhouse gas emissions each year. The success of CCAs in California demonstrates the power of promoting carbon-free energy at the grassroots, enabled by public, local choice in electricity supply. With six states considering CCA-enabling legislation, and with hundreds of cities and counties across the United States working toward a 100% carbon-free energy goal, policies like California Assembly Bill 117 (2002) that enabled CCAs can provide a valuable tool to accelerate the transition to carbon-free energy. The purpose of this paper is to assess how CCA-enabling policy can support the clean energy transition using California as a case study. We assess three conditions that affect a CCA’s ability to accelerate the clean energy transition: CCA customer characteristics, CCA design features, and their policy and regulatory context. We conclude with a discussion of policy recommendations important to ensure CCAs can continue to support clean energy goals.

Gendered differences in emigration and mobility perspectives among European researchers working abroad

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elisabeth Scheibelhofer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
The United States ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
The Future ◽  
Highly Skilled

This paper focuses on gendered mobilities of highly skilled researchers working abroad. It is based on an empirical qualitative study that explored the mobility aspirations of Austrian scientists who were working in the United States at the time they were interviewed. Supported by a case study, the paper demonstrates how a qualitative research strategy including graphic drawings sketched by the interviewed persons can help us gain a better understanding of the gendered importance of social relations for the future mobility aspirations of scientists working abroad.

Energy Use and Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Cropland Production in the United States, 1990-2004

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
R.G. Nelson, ◽  
C.H. Hellwinckel, ◽  
C.C. Brandt, ◽  
T.O. West, ◽  
D.G. De La Torre Ugarte, ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Carbon Dioxide Emissions ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
The United States

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

THE ANALYSIS OF OPERATION MODES OF ENERGY STORES IN AUTONOMOUS HYBRID POWER PLANTS WITH RENEWABLE ENERGY RESOURCES

2018 ◽  
pp. 55-67
Author(s):  
S. G. Obukhov ◽  
I. A. Plotnikov ◽  
V. G. Masolov
Keyword(s):  
Renewable Energy ◽  
Power Systems ◽  
Low Frequency ◽  
Rechargeable Batteries ◽  
Energy Resources ◽  
Renewable Energy Resources ◽  
Hybrid Power ◽  
Operation Modes ◽  
Energy Stores ◽  
Energy Store

The paper presents the results of the comparative analysis of operation modes of an autonomous hybrid power complex with/without the energy store. We offere the technique which defines the power characteristics of the main components of a hybrid power complex: the consumers of the electric power, wind power and photo-electric installations (the last ones have been constructed). The paper establishes that, in order to compensate the seasonal fluctuations of power in autonomous power systems with renewable energy resources, the accumulative devices are required, with a capacity of tens of MWh including devices that are capable to provide energy storage with duration about half a year. This allows abandoning the storage devices for smoothing the seasonal fluctuations in the energy balance.The analysis of operation modes of energy stores has shown that for a stock and delivery of energy on time intervals, lasting several hours, the accumulative devices with rather high values of charging and digit power aren't required. It allows using the lead-acid rechargeable batteries of the deep category for smoothing the daily peaks of surplus and a capacity shortage. Moreover, the analysis of operation modes of energy stores as a part of the hybrid complexes has demonstrated that in charging/digit currents of the energy store the low-frequency and high-frequency pulsations of big amplitude caused by changes of size of output power of the renewable power installations and loading are inevitable. If low-frequency pulsations (the period of tens of minutes) can partially be damped due to the restriction of size of the maximum charging current of rechargeable batteries, then it is essentially impossible to eliminate high-frequency pulsations (the period of tens of seconds) in the power systems with the only store of energy. The paper finds out that the combined energy store having characteristics of the accumulator in the modes of receiving and delivery of power on daily time intervals, and at the same time having properties of the supercondenser in the modes of reception and return of impulses of power on second intervals of time is best suited to requirements of the autonomous power complexes with renewable energy resources.

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