Sam is a senior associate with RMI’s Carbon Free Electricity practice, where he focuses on financial and policy tools to facilitate an equitable transition to clean energy. He joined RMI in June 2019.
Prior to joining RMI, Sam studied at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies where he specialized in clean energy policy and technology. In 2018, Sam interned at RMI with the Energy Web Foundation team where he helped develop use cases for blockchain technology in the energy sector. Before graduate school, Sam supported state efforts to promote local solar market development with Meister Consultants Group, and conducted demand response operations for EnerNOC.
Master of Environmental Management (M.E.M), Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
BA, Science, Technology, and Society, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Boulder, CO
Coal economics have eroded dramatically in recent years, so much so that the continued use of existing coal-fired power often imposes a cost burden on electricity customers that exceeds the cost of newer and cleaner sources of power. Resource planning analyses performed by utilities across the country—including PacifiCorp in…
Meeting the United States’ NDC target of reducing emissions 50–52 percent below 2005 levels by 2030 will require rapid action from companies, governments, and other entities across the country. These actors must accelerate the retirement and clean replacement of long-lived assets and infrastructure that support carbon-intensive economic activity (or,…
According to the latest US government inventory, solar will account for 39 percent of the electric generation capacity added in 2021, and wind will constitute a further 31 percent. With current technology costs and policy incentives, renewables are now unquestionably the cheapest generation assets to build and operate.
Much has been made of coal’s dramatic decline. Coal is no longer the cheapest way to generate electricity in many countries, and in recent years power plants and mines have closed in the face of this economic reality, especially in the United States and Europe. In the coming decade,…
For over a century, growing presence of coal smokestacks worldwide signified economic development and progress. Coal supplied our homes with electricity and our factories with power. At the same time, this workhorse of the industrial era caused serious harm to our health and the environment. Today, the costs of continuing…