Philadelphia Area Renewable Energy Anticipated Questions & Responses
Thanks to: Drew O'Bryan, RF100 National Team &
David Moscatello, Ph. D. RF100 Volunteer, West Philadelphia
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What is the expected societal impact?
Is 100% RE feasible in the timeline laid out?
We cannot afford to support 100 renewable energy.
What will be the cost to tax payers for transition planning?
What are the long-term payoffs of renewables?
Most of our electricity comes from Coal... and What about coal jobs?
What about people that work for oil & gas companies in our area?
What about the people that have their savings/investments in fossil fuel companies?
The sun doesn't always shine nor the wind blow!
With the EPA being gutted, we can't do this until a Democratic President is elected.
What about nuclear energy? Won't we have to include nuclear, CCS, hydrogen?
Is 80x50 GHG Reduction inconsistent with 100% by 2050 Renewable Energy? Is one a subset or stepping stone to the other?
What is expected for societal impact in general and the underserved community in particular?
As of January, 2019, 8 communities in PA and 105 cities nationwide in committing to a 100% renewable energy transition. All told, over 15% of US residents (roughly 1 in 7) already live in a place that has committed to 100% renewable electricity. The societal impact of this transition is the opportunity to restructure our electric utility system and to find new economic centers for renewable power innovation. Currently, our electric grid is built around large-scale generation facilities in the form of coal, gas, and nuclear power plants requiring massive capital investments to build and operate. Renewable energy presents the opportunity for smaller generators at the household, community, city and regional level to own and produce power. This is an economic benefit alongside the more obvious environmental benefits. A guiding principle of the Ready for 100 campaign is to ensure that the transition to 100% renewable energy is equitable and just, by spurring communities to apply policy mechanisms and financial incentives that provide for: quality jobs in clean energy industries; a just transition for workers and communities for which the fossil fuel industry has been a primary economic driver; equitable access to clean energy-related economic opportunities; and access to affordable clean energy. In Radnor, the expectation is that ensuring access to affordable clean energy, especially for those with limited incomes, as well as equitable access to opportunities for local clean energy generation will be central to the development and implementation of the plan.
What will be the cost to tax payers – for energy planning or other actions by the municipal government?
The costs for the energy planning process vary depending on several factors, including: whether a municipality undertakes it independently, or in collaboration with neighboring communities; the size and complexity of the local energy economy; and, very likely, the degree to which the municipality [as opposed to the planner] absorbs the responsibilities for community engagement in the planning process. Budgeting and commitments in nearby communities in the region suggest a range in cost of $10,000 - $25,000.
What about the people that have their savings/investments in fossil fuel companies?
We shouldn’t pull the rug out from under these folks. The Ready for 100 campaign seeks to accelerate the clean energy economic transition that is already underway, nationally and globally. States and cities, institutions and businesses, and several multi-national conglomerates have committed to shifting to 100% renewable energy. The growing demand for renewable energy and related technological advances are expanding the demand for investment capital, spreading the range and scope of investment opportunities. Several large public pension funds and other institutional investors have committed to divestment from fossil fuels in favor of renewable alternatives. There is growing recognition within the investor community of this transition and of the market risks associated with fossil fuel-based companies, in particular regarding the potential for stranding assets. Investors at all levels are having to adapt their decision-making to these as to all market dynamics. A comprehensive discussion of these dynamics is available at: https://www.ceres.org/CleanTrillionInSight
What about people that work for oil & gas companies in our area?
This type of concern is why the Ready for 100 campaigns emphasizes the importance of a transition plan. While it isn't the role of small town leaders to prop up industrial interests, it is obviously important to protect workers whose livelihoods can be impacted by high-level decisions. In its transition to 100% renewable electrical energy, each community should encourage local power production in eastern Pennsylvania. This ensures that the rates customers are paying are being paid into the local economy, boosting activity and positioning the region to benefit from renewable energy development. Work can be done at the state and regional level to ensure training for a new, skilled workforce. And again, companies with stakes in fossil fuels are not prevented from retaining employees and entering into this new industry. In southeastern Pennsylvania, the transition away from oil and gas for heating and cooling and transportation will affect employment opportunities in energy service companies, as well, gradually shifting job opportunities towards clean energy alternatives. The surfacing of local concerns about gradual job displacement and possible needs for assistance in the transition should be encouraged during the energy planning process.
What about nuclear energy?
The Ready for 100 campaign seeks to accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy, defined as carbon and pollution free energy, sustainably collected from renewable sources including wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. (Low-impact, small hydro and some forms of biomass may be included after being evaluated for sustainability and environmental justice implications.) Nuclear, natural gas, coal, oil based, or any other forms of carbon-based energy production are not considered clean or renewable sources of energy. Especially from a full life-cycle vantagepoint, including the severe environmental impacts of uranium mining, the carbon pollution associated with fuel production and processing, and the generation of massive and extremely toxic volumes of waste, nuclear energy is not considered a clean energy source. And from an economic standpoint, the aim is to transform our energy economy away from more centralized, massive-scale electricity generation -- coal, gas, nuclear -- towards a more democratic system of easily scalable, and more distributed renewables.
We cannot achieve 100% by timeline laid out.
Other cities have done it, or made an achievable plan to get there.
Despite revisions, both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) continue to underestimate the growth of renewables (Shankleman 2016; Tweed, 2016; Scott, 2017; Price, 2017). Cities of similar size are on track to achieve this (San Diego, CA). While it will take strong political will to move towards achieving this goal, it is entirely feasible. San Diego is 1st city to make a legally binding commitment and is continuing with a Republican Mayor. Georgetown, Texas is already there. RF100 is willing to work with the city so that we can succeed in making this happen. Wind and solar energy are growing significantly faster in the U.S. than predicted by the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in forecasts prior to 2015 (Jervey, 2016; Tweed, 2016). Wind and solar energy are growing faster in many states than required by existing renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), or even by the Clean Power Plan. In fact, 21 of 27 states suing the Federal government to overturn the Clean Power Plan are on track to meet the goals of the plan, even though it's not yet in effect (Porter, 2016).
We cannot afford to support 100 renewable energy.
Studies have shown that renewables are the cheapest solution in the long run
Because of climate change, we cannot afford to NOT support 100% renewable energy, and the dramatic cost decreases of wind and solar energy over the past decade prove that we can afford it. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the U.S. has grown 12% since 2007 while energy use declined by 3.6%, the latest proof of the growing disconnect between GDP growth and energy use (Business Council for Sustainable Energy, 2017). In fact, according to Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis 10.0 (2016), renewables are the cheapest available sources of electricity (other than efficiency) even without subsidies. Similar analyses of wind (Wiser and Bolinger, 2015) and utility-scale solar (Bolinger and Seel, 2015) costs from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory confirmed these trends. The cost of wind power has dropped 66% since 2009, while the cost of solar has dropped 85% since 2009. A survey of Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) costs and benefit estimates across states found that costs were equivalent to less than 2% of retail rates in 17 states, with 10 of these states having estimated costs equivalent to less than 1% of retail rates (Heeter, 2014). Residential rooftop solar still costs more, but the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) for private rooftop solar is still in place. But solar prices are projected to continue to decline, possibly 50% over the next five years, making solar economic without subsidies in all fifty states (Kirsch, 2017). However, the city needs to work with PECO to streamline the process for community solar and rooftop in general.
Given the extensive backlog of maintenance facing the nation's electrical grid (Potts, 2017), combined with the disruptive changes occurring due to the ever-increasing amounts distributed wind and solar generation (The Economist Feb. 25, 2017), the implementation of microgrids and smart grids, and the faster-than-predicted addition of energy storage to the grid (Blunden, 2016; Munsell, 2017), it makes no sense to continue to simply repair and replace the same outmoded grid infrastructure. Rather, we must build in flexibility for the distributed energy future. Fortunately, Philadelphia has excellent local resources in our Universities and technology industries, and is gaining experience with microgrids and associated technologies at the Navy Yard (The Yard Blog, 2016). We must expand this kind of development as quickly as possible, not merely for the environmental and health benefits for Philadelphia residents, but to ensure that Philadelphia is competitive in the future.
What are the long-term payoffs of renewables?
When you consider the health benefits, climate disruption avoidance, sustained fuel as well as straight up cost savings over the life of the installations, it’s a no-brainer.
Studies have shown that the environmental and health benefits of switching to emissions-free energy far outweigh the costs, returning as much as $7 for every $1 invested. Health and environmental benefits are estimated at $2.6 billion to $9.9 billion (2.6 to 10.1¢/kWh-RE) (kilowatt-hour of renewable energy), and the largest health benefits accrue to the eastern half of the country, especially in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast (Heeter et al., 2014; Barbose, 2015; Wiser et al., 2016). A new study in New Mexico found that for the $120 million invested in the tax credit by the state over 13 years, more than $600 million was generated in job income, a more than 5-to-1 return on investment in labor alone (Moss, 2017). Looking ahead, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) forecasts additional returns in health benefits of the reductions in SO2, NOx, and PM2.5 emissions resulting from even partial (35% by 2030 and 49% by 2050) replacement of fossil fuels with renewables, estimated to be a cumulative $558 billion (current value), or 5.0¢/kWh-RE (Trieu et al., 2016).
Most of our electricity comes from Coal... and What about coal jobs?
No, it doesn’t, and coal jobs have already been displaced by mechanization and the gas industry.
Most of our electricity used to come from coal: ten years ago, coal generated nearly half of our electricity, but that had declined to just 30.4% last year (Annual Energy Outlook 2017). And there are no coal jobs in Philly - all we get is the pollution! Coal is no longer cost-competitive and is on its way out, and renewables are the future. Despite the promise by President Trump that he will "bring back coal", both utility executives and economists are unanimous that the decline of coal is irreversible (Hoium, 2017; Romm, 2017). In fact, the use of coal for generating electricity has plummeted so rapidly - due largely to cheap natural gas - that we are already using less coal than the EIA predicted in 2015 for the year 2040 (Annual Energy Outlook 2015). At the end of 2015, there were only 6,633 coal miners in PA, down 16% from 2014. In contrast, clean energy in PA supported 66,021 jobs in 2015, with wind, solar, and hydro supporting 8,800. The solar power sector employed more Americans than the power generation by coal, oil, and natural gas combined. The DOE reported that wind and solar jobs increased by 32% and 25% respectively between 2015–2016, and the fastest-growing job in the United States today is wind turbine technician. Reports from a variety of agencies and stakeholders all show that committing to energy efficiency and clean energy will result in the creation of far more jobs than the fossil fuel status quo (Labor Network for Sustainability, 2016; Stanton, 2016). The answer to the question 'do we support the industry's growing by double digits, or the one shrinking by double digits' should be obvious to all. While coal must go for the health of everyone, we need a just transition plan that will retrain and support laid-off miners, our fellow Pennsylvanians, such as the Clean Power Plan or Trade Adjustment Assistance Act.
The sun doesn't always shine nor the wind blow!
A large grid and local energy storage is the answer.
With large increases in the deployment of wind and solar power, and continuing improvements in energy efficiency and storage, we may ultimately be able to produce all the energy we need locally. Until then, we need regional approach with a large grid to bring power from where it is available. Fortunately, Philadelphia is part of the PJM Interconnection, one of the largest grids in the nation with a capacity of 186 gigawatts (GW), encompassing Pennsylvania, New Jersey (102 GW), Delaware (15 GW), Maryland (52 GW), Ohio, Virginia (89 GW), West Virginia, and parts of North Carolina, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan. The values after NJ, DE, MD, and VA are the developable offshore wind potential according to NREL (Lopez et al., 2012), more than the entire PJM grid currently uses. The PJM grid already includes hydropower and some wind and solar power, and the PJM operators determined that the grid could readily integrate 30% renewable energy without storage in studies done a few years ago (Montgomery, 2014). More recent studies have found that the PJM grid could integrate up to 35 GW of offshore wind with only new transmission lines, and up to 70 GW with better forecasting and additional upgrades (Simão et al., 2017). Within the PJM grid area, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) has leased areas off North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey for offshore wind development. Additional offshore wind projects are under development in the great lakes, where Pennsylvania has 6 GW of offshore technical potential. These developments will result in PJM grid wind farms from North Carolina to Chicago, along with distributed and utility-scale solar power, existing hydropower, and the existing large Bath county (VA) pumped hydro storage facility.
Pennsylvania also has 2 GW of new hydropower potential at existing, non-powered locks and dams, while 300 MW of new hydropower was added at existing, non-powered locks and dams on the Ohio River last year, and the Ohio River basin has nearly 3 GW of developable hydropower potential (Mey, 2016). This could replace the some of the contribution currently made by coal plants to base load electrical generation as they are retired.
The region also has substantial undeveloped solar capacity. Pennsylvania alone has 36 GW of urban utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) technical potential, 357 GW of rural utility-scale solar PV potential, and 20 GW of rooftop solar PV potential (Lopez et al., 2012) - more than twice the total capacity of the entire PJM grid! Of course, there is no need to develop that much, but it's clear that solar PV can make a substantial contribution to Philadelphia's energy future.
As solar and wind power are complementary - the wind often blows when the sun doesn't shine - the combination of onshore and offshore wind, existing hydropower, distributed (rooftop) and utility-scale solar developments will bring us to 100% renewables. Either interconnection with other grid operators or more energy storage will be needed to handle 100% wind, solar and hydropower; which of these will occur may depend on how rapidly energy storage prices decline (Budischak et al., 2013; Jacobson, 2013). Additional pumped hydro storage within the PJM grid is being evaluated, particularly in western Virginia (Owens, 2017), and PJM is installing increasing amounts of battery storage as costs continue to decline.
Climate change is a hoax.
The truth hurts sometimes. Credible science clearly points to escalating human-caused climate disruption. Are you willing to bet our children’s future on a very small minority opinion?
Science shows otherwise. In 2015, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report (IPCC 2014). This Report integrates the findings of the three Working Group contributions to the Fifth Assessment Report of the IPCC, the most comprehensive assessment of climate change undertaken thus far. The forward to this report concisely summarizes the situation (emphasis added):
"The SYR confirms that human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed across all continents and oceans. Many of the observed changes since the 1950s are unprecedented over decades to millennia. The IPCC is now 95 percent certain that humans are the main cause of current global warming. In addition, the SYR finds that the more human activities disrupt the climate, the greater the risks of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems, and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system. The SYR highlights that we have the means to limit climate change and its risks, with many solutions that allow for continued economic and human development. However, stabilizing temperature increase to below 2°C relative to pre-industrial levels will require an urgent and fundamental departure from business as usual. Moreover, the longer we wait to take action, the more it will cost and the greater the technological, economic, social and institutional challenges we will face."
No data obtained since the IPCC report disproves or negates any of the prior findings. According to data from NASA and NOAA, global temperature records have been broken for three consecutive years since 2014 (Khan, 2017). The amounts of sea ice recently hit record low levels at both the North and South poles (Thompson, 2017). Despite stories asserting a lack of warming since 1998, studies using data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space administration (NASA) have found that there has in fact been no pause in global warming (Karl, 2015; Nieves, 2015; Hausfather, 2017).
With the EPA being gutted, we can't do this until a Democratic President is elected.
Unless we let political forces interfere, the market will choose the cheaper solution - renewable energy.
We have an obligation to the citizens of Philadelphia to push forward even when Washington, D.C. has its priorities otherwise. This has always been the case, even before the EPA. Despite the lawsuits filed by several states against the Clean Power Plan (CPP), most states are on track or ahead of the requirements for emissions reductions. This is because the rapid cost reductions are resulting in far more wind and solar energy being deployed than required by Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS), and because cheap natural gas has already reduced electricity generation with coal to below what the Energy Information Administration (EIA) projected for 2040. Excepting only energy efficiency, wind is now the cheapest form of electricity generation. As shale oil and gas deplete, prices will rise, but the cost of wind and sunshine - free - will never go up. [Short answer: It's the economics.]
Won't we have to include nuclear, CCS, hydrogen?
No.
Improvements in battery technology and other methods of energy storage mean that we will not need to rely on nuclear power or hydrogen. A Tufts University professor has developed a much safer, new lithium battery than has twice the energy density and which cannot explode (Yahoo Finance, January 30, 2017). The cost of electric storage with batteries is rapidly declining, similar to what happened with solar PV. A few years ago, batteries were $400 per kWh, and when Elon Musk opened the Gigafactory in Nevada last year, he claimed costs were below $190 per kWh. By 2020, battery costs are forecast to fall to below $100 per kWh (The Motley Fool, February 26, 2017). Used electric vehicle (EV) batteries are already being deployed for grid storage. As adoption of EVs accelerates (another case of declining costs), an ever-increasing number of used EV batteries will become available for grid storage, further driving down costs. The annual U.S. energy storage market is projected to reach 1.7 gigawatts by 2020 (a value of $2.5 billion), and the PJM grid operator is deploying ever-increasing amounts of storage - over 160 megawatts of energy storage systems in 2015 - (GreenTech Media March 03, 2016). Additional pumped hydro and low-impact hydro (at existing locks and dams) projects have been permitted or are under development or planning within the PJM grid area.
...Nuclear power?
Nuclear power is expensive, and has been losing capacity auctions by grid operators such as PJM, resulting in plans to close a number of plants in the next several years. These include the James A. FitzPatrick plant in upstate New York, set to close in early 2017, the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant shut down in 2014, Exelon may close Three Mile Island after May 2018, and the Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station in Massachusetts may close in 2019 (The Philadelphia Inquirer, Monday June 6, 2016).
The high costs of operating nuclear power plants means that subsidies may be needed to continue operating existing nuclear power plants; Illinois has passed such support through a surcharge on customers’ electric rates, a $240 million annual customer-funded rescue package (GreenTech Media, March 6, 2017). While this has benefits in reducing both hazardous and carbon emissions by facilitating the closing of more coal-fired power plants, there are no job benefits.
Furthermore, after over fifty years of commercial nuclear power generation in the U.S., there is still no long-term repository for high-level radioactive waste in the United States. Although technically feasible, the costs of constructing such a repository are unknown, but will be high. And, while competing technologies like wind, solar, and batteries keep getting cheaper, constructing and operating nuclear power plants have not (Smith, 2017). While various "small" modular reactors are under development, none are projected to even have prototype reactors operational before the mid-2020s, and no one knows what they will cost to build or operate. Worse, estimates of the costs required to decommission old reactors in the U.S., never solid, increased 44% between 2008 and 2013 to $80 billion, with real-world experience indicating that decommissioning nuclear power plants could cost more than it cost to build the reactor in the first place (Hewitt, 2015). And that's assuming no serious reactor accident: decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi complex after the meltdown is expected to take 30 to 40 years and cost between $50 billion and $250 billion (CNBC, 2016).
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is allowing owners of closed reactors to use the funds set aside for decommissioning to build temporary storage for their waste on-site (Gram, 2015). It's clear that those funds are woefully inadequate. As an example, the recently decommissioned Vermont Yankee's fund has only about half the estimated $1.24 billion cost of dismantling the reactor, removing the waste and restoring the site. To deal with this, the plant plans to mothball the reactor for up to 60 years in hopes the fund will grow enough to cover the cost (Gram, 2015). We all know what that really means: dangerous, high-level nuclear waste sitting in a hundred places around the country for decades, waiting for a leak or terrorist attack, and future generations of taxpayers will have to pay for the cleanup. We've seen this script before: can you say Superfund?
...Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS)?
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology can theoretically sequester the carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants that are causing climate change, and several projects have demonstrated technical feasibility. However, CCS is extremely expensive. Last year, the Obama administration cut funding for the FutureGen 2.0 project in Illinois, and the Energy Department reportedly decided to suspend funding for another CCS project in Texas (Mooney, 2016). Construction of the Kemper "clean coal" Plant in Mississippi started in 2010 at a proposed cost of $2.4 billion and completion projected for 2014, but by 2016 the cost hit $6.7 billion, and the plant is not yet complete (The Motley Fool Jul 27, 2016). A comparable 582 MW natural gas power plant could have been built for $500 million. In February 2017, the Southern Company finally admitted Kemper is not viable as a coal power plant (Zegart, 2017). By March 2017, costs hit $7.1 billion, Southern Company shareholders have lost $2.8 billion, and Mississippi Power customers may have to pay $4.2 billion through increased electric rates (Amy, 2017). In contrast, a 845 MW wind farm was completed in Oregon in 2012 for $1.9 billion (Danko, 2012), so four such wind farms supplying 4,225 MW - seven times the capacity of the Kemper plant - could have been built for the cost of that one "clean coal" plant. And it would have taken a quarter the time, and provided jobs and power in multiple geographic locations. The average cost of wind power has declined from about $40/ MWh in 2012 to $20/MWh in 2016 (Wiser, 2012; Wiser, 2016), so the economic argument for wind is even stronger today. Because of the cost of CCS, it is currently only economically feasible in conjunction with stimulating old oil fields. The only CCS plant currently operating in the U.S. is the Petra Nova carbon capture system at the W.A. Parish Generating Station, a coal-fired power plant southwest of Houston, from which the captured carbon dioxide is pumped to the West Ranch oil field in Jackson County, Texas (Scientific American, October 4, 2016). Despite the high cost, failure to make rapid reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by replacing fossil fuels with renewables may make building more CCS technology necessary to limit the devastating results of exceeding a 2° Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average global temperatures. However, barring substantial technological and cost breakthroughs, this would be a drag on the economy by making our energy more expensive (Melvin, 2015).
...Hydrogen?
While Hydrogen could eventually become the energy source of choice, hydrogen is currently produced mainly from natural gas. Unless and until it can be produced from water by electrolysis using energy from renewables or nuclear, hydrogen will not make a substantial contribution to our energy mix. Robust, scalable, economic technology for producing hydrogen does not currently exist, and even if this does come to pass, there is currently no significant distribution network for hydrogen, which would cost many hundreds of billions of dollars (Green, March 2008).
Is 80x50 GHG Reduction inconsistent with 100% by 2050 Renewable Energy? Is one a subset or stepping stone to the other?
Perfectly consistent. Yes, we need to move to 100% clean energy in order to achieve 80x50.
A goal of 80x50 GHG reduction is consistent with 100% renewable energy by 2050. In order to achieve an 80% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2050 [80x50], it will be necessary to achieve 100% renewable (carbon emissions-free) electricity. However, the electricity used in the city accounts for only about 33% of city wide GHG emissions. Because transportation currently contributes about 17% of GHG, natural gas use contributes about 17%, industrial emissions are about 17%, and leakage from the natural gas system about 2% of GHG emissions from the city (collectively, 53% of citywide GHG emissions), reaching 100% renewable electricity is not sufficient to achieve an 80% reduction in GHG emissions. It is also necessary to drastically reduce GHG emissions from transportation, which should be achievable by widespread adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), and also to reduce home and industrial / petroleum refining GHG and fugitive natural gas emissions (mainly leakage from old pipelines). While completely eliminating the use of natural gas from all of the 600,000 buildings in the city by 2050 may not be feasible, requiring that new construction use heat pumps or other carbon-free heating systems, widespread deployment of energy efficiency measures, including more efficient heating systems, in existing homes and other buildings, and a reduction in fugitive methane emissions are all necessary to achieving the goal of 80x50. Demonstration projects and analyses have shown that it is feasible to reduce energy use in buildings by 30% to 50%, largely paid for by energy savings. So, in addition to 100% clean electricity, we will need to fully electrify transportation within the city and cut all uses of natural gas in half, or replace non-renewable gas with biogas.
Citations
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What is expected for societal impact in general and the underserved community in particular? Radnor would be joining seven other communities in Pennsylvania, so far, and 105 cities nationwide in committing to a 100% renewable energy transition. All told, over 15% of US residents (roughly 1 in 7) already live in a place that has committed to 100% renewable electricity. The societal impact of this transition is the opportunity to restructure our electric utility system and to find new economic centers for renewable power innovation. Currently, our electric grid is built around large-scale generation facilities in the form of coal, gas, and nuclear power plants requiring massive capital investments to build and operate. Renewable energy presents the opportunity for smaller generators at the household, community, city and regional level to own and produce power. This is an economic benefit alongside the more obvious environmental benefits. A guiding principle of the Ready for 100 campaign is to ensure that the transition to 100% renewable energy is equitable and just, by spurring communities to apply policy mechanisms and financial incentives that provide for: quality jobs in clean energy industries; a just transition for workers and communities for which the fossil fuel industry has been a primary economic driver; equitable access to clean energy-related economic opportunities; and access to affordable clean energy. In Radnor, the expectation is that ensuring access to affordable clean energy, especially for those with limited incomes, as well as equitable access to opportunities for local clean energy generation will be central to the development and implementation of the plan. What will be the cost to tax payers – for energy planning or other actions by the municipal government? The costs for the energy planning process vary depending on several factors, including: whether a municipality undertakes it independently, or in collaboration with neighboring communities; the size and complexity of the local energy economy; and, very likely, the degree to which the municipality [as opposed to the planner] absorbs the responsibilities for community engagement in the planning process. Budgeting and commitments in nearby communities in the region suggest a range in cost of $10,000 - $25,000. In Radnor, the availability of immediate, low-cost energy savings opportunities from several municipal buildings offers a considerable potential offset to the planning process. What about the people that have their savings/investments in fossil fuel companies? We shouldn’t pull the rug out from under these folks. The Ready for 100 campaign seeks to accelerate the clean energy economic transition that is already underway, nationally and globally. States and cities, institutions and businesses, and several multi-national conglomerates have committed to shifting to 100% renewable energy. The growing demand for renewable energy and related technological advances are expanding the demand for investment capital, spreading the range and scope of investment opportunities. Several large public pension funds and other institutional investors have committed to divestment from fossil fuels in favor of renewable alternatives. There is growing recognition within the investor community of this transition and of the market risks associated with fossil fuel-based companies, in particular regarding the potential for stranding assets. Investors at all levels are having to adapt their decision-making to these as to all market dynamics. A comprehensive discussion of these dynamics is available at: https://www.ceres.org/CleanTrillionInSight What about people that work for oil & gas companies in our area? This type of concern is why the Ready for 100 campaigns emphasizes the importance of a transition plan. While it isn't the role of small town leaders to prop up industrial interests, it is obviously important to protect workers whose livelihoods can be impacted by high-level decisions. In its transition to 100% renewable electrical energy, Radnor and other communities should encourage local power production in eastern Pennsylvania. This ensures that the rates customers are paying are being paid into the local economy, boosting activity and positioning the region to benefit from renewable energy development. Work can be done at the state and regional level to ensure training for a new, skilled workforce. And again, companies with stakes in fossil fuels are not prevented from retaining employees and entering into this new industry. In Radnor, the transition away from oil and gas for heating and cooling and transportation will affect employment opportunities in energy service companies, as well, gradually shifting job opportunities towards clean energy alternatives. The surfacing of local concerns about gradual job displacement and possible needs for assistance in the transition should be encouraged during Radnor's energy planning process. What about nuclear energy? The Ready for 100 campaign seeks to accelerate the transition to clean, renewable energy, defined as carbon and pollution free energy, sustainably collected from renewable sources including wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal. Nuclear, natural gas, coal, oil based, or any other forms of carbon-based energy production are not considered clean or renewable sources of energy. Especially from a full life-cycle vantagepoint, including the severe environmental impacts of uranium mining, the carbon pollution associated with fuel production and processing, and the generation of massive and extremely toxic volumes of waste, nuclear energy is not considered a clean energy source. And from an economic standpoint, the aim is to transform our energy economy away from more centralized, massive-scale electricity generation -- coal, gas, nuclear -- towards a more democratic system of easily scalable, and more distributed renewables.