EnvironMental Podcast - Transitioning to Renewable Energy - Research EnvironMental with Dandelion

This week we're leaving the topic of dirty energy and fossil fuels behind to start talking about the necessary transition to renewables.

We split up and independently answered some questions, and then shared it with each other on this week's podcast.

Aub went first and talked about where we are in the transition and what kind of plan we have in place. There's a lot of information out there about this and to make the long story short - we're gaining in renewables for electricity, but buildings (heating and emissions) and travel are still big issues for the transition.

While there are a lot of people focused on individual solutions, there's no overarching plan, and no one taking charge of this transition. There are a lot of pieces missing in the political and environmental priorities, like how we need to invest in improving the efficiency of the current infrastructure while we find new, renewable sources of energy. Or how subsidies for fossil fuels are still double (or more) the subsidies given to renewable sources.

Courtney picked it up from there, sharing information about energy democracy and a few companies that are dedicated to putting people of color in leadership positions.

She said, "We can't expect to have clean energy solutions without having clean election solutions." And this beautifully sums up the discussion. She shared information about "energy cooperatives" and how this feels like something new, but there are actually quite a few already! The heads of the power companies in these regions bank on the fact that people never even know that they have decision power in their community's energy source.

Next week we're going to continue this conversation by reading a book called The Carbon Boycott; A Path to Freedom from Fossil Fuels By Samuel Avery.

We have moved away from using Amazon to find our audiobook sources because Mr. Bezos, respectfully, doesn't need our dollars (or yours) so here's our link to Libro, a site that makes it possible for you to buy audiobooks through your local bookstore: https://libro.fm/referral?rf_code=lfm282860



Here are our sources for this episode:



Transition updates, plans, and efficiency

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/6/18/18681591/renewable-energy-china-solar-pv-jobs

https://www.energy.gov/eere/analysis/energy-efficiency-vs-energy-intensity

https://www.iea.org/reports/the-critical-role-of-buildings

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-20/nobody-takes-the-renewable-energy-transition-seriously/



Microgrids

https://microgridknowledge.com/microgrid-defined/

greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids



Energy Democracy

The webinar Courtney mentioned: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foh7HMthX1w

PDF https://www.rosalux.de/fileadmin/rls_uploads/pdfs/sonst_publikationen/Energy-democracy-in-Europe.pdf



Asian Pacific organization working on BIPOC leadership training

http://apen4ej.org/