Race, Energy & Climate Justice
What is the intersection of farming and ranching with climate?
Guest blog by Dr. Lakisha Odom, Foundation of Food and Agriculture Research - Now more than ever, it is apparent that agriculture can be instrumental in addressing the needs of climate change and there is a potential positive impact that agriculture can have to address Greenhouse Gas emissions reductions. This positive impact has centered farmers and ranchers in conversations on the potential climate change solutions
States Remain in the Driver’s Seat of the Just Transition
Guest blog by Rory Christian, principal of Concentric Consulting Group – In some states, laws treat access to natural gas as a customer’s right and utility’s obligation. In others, incentives and capital investments remain focused on gas efficiency, but do little for electrification. These policies encourage the continued use of natural gas and serve to subsidize the cost of adding new customers, spreading it out among existing customers.
Addressing a Data Blind Spot for Clean Energy Modelers
We’ll identify and collect hyperlocal sociodemographic and air quality data and build a modeling overlay that enables grid system modelers to assess the local benefits of shutting down individual power plants.
We Don’t Have Time to Solve Problems One-at-a-Time. And We Don’t Have To.
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street - We can’t solve all of our problems independently – we don’t have time. And science tells us we don’t have to. So Pecan Street is adopting a Wicked Solutions approach to all our work. We will apply our unique capabilities to identify and prioritize the wicked problems that sit at the nexus of climate change mitigation and adaptation and focus our effort toward developing wicked solutions.
Utility programs have helped customers weather COVID. Will they continue?
By Clayton Johnson, Communications Coordinator - To show the impact of the relief package, we compared utility bills at the reduced rates to the standard, pre-COVID rate. Energy use in 2020 increased by 14% in April, 10% in May, 2% in June, and 4% in July compared to monthly averages from 2017-2019.
Pecan Street’s Race & Energy Webinar Featured by PV Magazine
PV Magazine picked featured Pecan Street's Race & Energy webinar in their recent article 'Racial equity in clean energy should be a key differentiator for the industry'
Your Data in Action
Over the past several weeks, our work has been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic and the momentum behind the racial justice and equity movement. As always, our home energy database has been central to the work we've accomplished.
Pecan Street @ 10: Tackling Energy Justice Through Representative Research Datasets
By Suzanne Russo, CEO, Pecan Street – In some ways, our volunteers are a varied bunch. But there are few things that connect most of our participants and, in fact, most “early adopter” market segments. They’re mostly homeowners. They’re mostly mid- to upper-income. They already know a good deal about energy, their energy bill, and the cost of renewable energy options. In other words, they’re not the “average energy customer.”