In the Atacama Desert of Chile, the promise of clean energy for the world comes at a steep cost. Beneath the salt flats that power electric vehicles in the Global North, Indigenous communities struggle with water scarcity and environmental degradation. The imbalance between the consequences for the South and North shows that the pursuit of […]
Tag: renewable energy
Seizing the Means of Electrification in California
The typical scheme for electric utilities places customers in one of two bins: investor-owned or city-owned. There is a perennial debate over utility ownership. Should we rely on investor-owned utility companies or should cities manage their own utilities? The answer is simple: neither. Both are fundamentally flawed. Investor-Owned Utilities (IOUs) are inefficient and today’s Public-Owned […]
Why California Should Push Nuclear
The word “nuclear” is often associated with gigantic, terrifying bombs, or the neon-green sludge that contributes to the erratic behavior of Homer Simpson. And yes, it earned that reputation with infamous mistakes, such as the horrifying incidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. However, one must keep in mind that these mistakes were made by […]
The Modern Great Experiment: India’s Climate Policy
India is somehow facing the largest problem of the twenty-first century while achieving some of the largest growth of the twenty-first century, and many are wondering exactly how. The answer might just lie in their climate policy. India’s Unique Historical, Demographic, and Political Positions Gaining independence in 1947, India as a nation has only been […]
CA Isn’t Ready to Close Its Last Nuclear Power Plant— But It Can’t Stay Open
On the first of February, 79 top energy experts signed an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom, urging him to halt the decommission of the Diablo Canyon Power Plant, California’s very last operational source of nuclear power. The group behind this letter includes dozens of prominent energy executives, professors from Berkeley, MIT, Stanford and more, […]
Power Dynamics: China’s Hard Path to Clean Energy
From Trump’s election through his decision to pull out of the Paris agreement, doomsday predictions about Trump’s approach to climate policy have largely mellowed to anxious reassurances that all is not quite lost. Rather than causing a collapse in American resolve to fight climate change, Trump’s public repudiation of the Paris agreement spurred American mayors, governors, […]
The Environment Isn’t Doomed Yet
Washington is no longer in tandem with a majority of American citizens. Less than 30% of the American population endorses Trump’s decision to forego a global leadership opportunity for the nation by exiting the Paris Agreement. Donald Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will exit the Paris Agreement was shocking and disheartening, but it isn’t the […]
China’s Quest for Soft Power
In order for China to compete with the scale and magnitude of United States’ soft power, it must increase its investment in the renewable energy sector. Although China has made considerable strides in heightening its presence in solar and wind energy in the past decade, it must become the foremost name in clean energy in […]
Solving Japan’s Energy Crisis
The Fukushima disaster was a traumatic experience for Japan: in March 2011, an earthquake and the subsequent tsunami it triggered led to the meltdown of a vital power plant that left the country in a toxic state. The country’s forty-eight nuclear reactors, once symbols of Japan’s advancement, were shut down immediately. Now, three years later, […]