In 2015, Duke Energy’s state-sanctioned monopoly in North Carolina faced a pair of very different challenges from two vastly different communities. In western North Carolina, thousands of people – mostly White, middle-class, with little organizing experience–turned out in droves to attack Duke Energy’s plans for their beloved mountains. Two hundred miles away in Greensboro, a Piedmont church – serving a mostly Black, low-income community with a history of activism and advocacy stretching back decades – simply put solar panels on its roof.
NC CLEAN PATH 2025
In August 2017, NC WARN published North Carolina Clean Path 2025: Achieving an Economical Clean Energy Future, a plan for quickly transitioning the state’s electricity from fossil fuels to solar, battery storage and enhanced energy efficiency.
Local teams are working around the state to implement the plan. Learn more here. The articles below are either about the NC CLEAN PATH 2025 plan or about similar efforts underway in other places.
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As Climate Tipping Point Nears, Duke Energy Lags Behind Other Utilities on Renewables — WCHL
Commentary by Jim Warren. Global temperatures in 2016 are near the tipping point that could cause global warming to surge forward under its own momentum. The heating is happening much faster than scientists expected even a year ago.
As Climate Tipping Point Nears, Many Utilities are Powering Forward with Renewables: Duke Energy, Others are Greenwashing Laggards — Note to Editors from NC WARN
Two recent studies combine perfectly to indicate why NC WARN is laser-focused on persuading or requiring Duke Energy to immediately stop its massive expansion of fracked gas and stop holding back the Clean Energy Revolution.
Inside the first municipal solar-plus-storage project in the US — Utility Dive
There are some things that just seem to go together. Like Superman and Lex Luthor, Kim and Kanye, and love and marriage, solar and storage are an obvious pairing, right?
Sustainability is a top focus for Avid Solutions — Winston-Salem Journal
Jim Warren, the executive director of N.C. WARN, a nonprofit power-industry watchdog and clean-energy advocate, said Avid Solutions should be highly commended for its sustainability efforts. “What people might not realize is that that type of project helps the company in a lot of ways, but it helps the public at large by helping cut pollution, including green house emissions,” Warren said.
What Can Durham Do to Become Sun City? — IndyWeek
The Durham Community Land Trustees has been hip to the sun for about a decade now. But solar photovoltaic panels have always been too expensive. Last year, NC WARN put up $20,000 and raised another $22,000 from solar enthusiasts to purchase and install solar panels on a DCLT property in Durham’s West End neighborhood.
Nearly 40% of US Electricity Could Come From Rooftop Solar — Greentech Media
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has found that nearly 40 percent of electricity in the U.S. could come from rooftop solar photovoltaics, according to a new study. The total figure, 1,118 gigawatts, is nearly double the previous estimate of 664 gigawatts that NREL calculated in 2008. The increase is due mostly to increasing module power density, more granular data and a better grasp of building suitability for solar.
A closer look at the Repower Our Schools report and transitioning CMS to solar — Creative Loafing
Just weeks after the release of an extensive report detailing ways in which Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools could conceivably transition completely to solar energy over the coming decades, the path to making it happen remains unclear. [See links to Charlotte report and a similar one for Durham Public Schools.]
Wind, Sun and Fire — The New York Times
Last year was the hottest on record, by a wide margin, which should — but won’t — put an end to climate deniers’ claims that global warming has stopped. The truth is that climate change just keeps getting scarier; it is, by far, the most important policy issue facing America and the world. Still, this election wouldn’t have much bearing on the issue if there were no prospect of effective action against the looming catastrophe.
Rapid, affordable energy transformation possible — NOAA
The United States could slash greenhouse gas emissions from power production by up to 78 percent below 1990 levels within 15 years while meeting increased demand, according to a new study by NOAA and University of Colorado Boulder researchers.