Clean Energy Just Makes Sense

Avoiding catastrophic climate change will require every community's help, even those where climate action is politically controversial. An overwhelming majority of Americans support expanding wind and solar development, some because of climate benefits, and others, including many Republicans, because of economic benefits.

RMI's nonpartisan, apolitical approach has led to some big wins in the past year. North Carolina showed the bipartisan appeal of the energy transition when a major climate and energy bill was passed by a Republican-controlled legislature and signed by a Democratic governor last October. The bill, the Energy Solutions for North Carolina Act, is the first piece of climate legislation in the state in years and mandates greenhouse gas emissions reductions, a step that only 16 states had taken before.

The new law calls for 70 percent reductions in carbon emissions from the electricity sector by 2030, and an end to carbon emissions by 2050. It also creates a competitive market for solar power projects in the state, establishes the voluntary purchase of renewable energy or renewable energy credits by customers, and authorizes bonds to offset the costs of closing the least efficient and most polluting coal-fired power plants.

RMI fueled these bold actions by helping North Carolina's Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) lead an inclusive stakeholder process that led to the development of a Clean Energy Plan. We and our partners then helped the DEQ to work with another stakeholder group to develop policy proposals and proposed legislation.

In a parallel effort, RMI and our partners helped 15 North Carolina cities and counties explore their clean energy goals through the American Cities Climate Challenge Renewables Accelerator. These local governments' ideas and concerns were brought to the state regulatory commission and were key topics of discussion during the crafting of the bill by the state legislature.

RMI's support also helped Nebraska, another conservative state, set itself up to achieve net-zero carbon emissions in its electricity generation by 2050. As the only state where the major electric utilities are publicly owned and governed, with boards either directly elected by voters or appointed by elected representatives, the utilities' boards are responsive to Nebraskans' views on energy alone, without the influence of all the other political issues that go into elections.

Nebraskans strongly support wind and solar power and voted for utility directors who agreed with them. Major commercial customers in the state also want clean energy — and they let the utilities know. By December 2021, the three largest Nebraska utilities — responsible for 60 percent of the state's retail customers — had set goals that will achieve net-zero carbon by 2050, and RMI facilitated discussions that helped them get there.

RMI and partners worked in Nebraska to help public power representatives understand the range of options available and worked with utility staff and board members to drill down into the economic and technical potential of clean energy.

Notably, an RMI analysis demonstrated that wind and solar projects built before 2030 could deliver more than $1.4 billion in revenue to Nebraska's rural economy. Nebraskans are concerned with rural communities declining and young people moving away. Renewables, and especially wind power, in which Nebraska leads the nation, have helped stabilize those vulnerable communities. It's benefits like those that let RMI move past politics and let the energy transition prove its value.

Gary Thompson, a long-tenured member of the Nebraska Public Power District board said that the information that RMI provided was extremely important. Clean energy technologies are the future he says, “and we've got to be going that way. It's environmental, it's economic, and it's inevitable.”