Reports

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

More Wind, Less Warming

Wind power is on the rise across America. The United States generates 24 times more electricity from wind power than we did in 2001, providing clean, fossil fuel-free energy that helps the nation do its part in the fight against global warming.

American wind power is already significantly reducing global warming pollution. In 2013 alone, wind power averted 132 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions – as much as would be produced by 34 typical coal-fired power plants. But with the United States and the world needing to move toward a future of 100 percent clean energy in order to prevent the worst impacts of global warming, America must do much more.

If America were to take advantage of just a fraction of its wind energy potential to get 30 percent of its electricity from the wind by 2030, the nation could cut carbon emissions from power plants to 40 percent below 2005 levels. That much wind power would help states meet and exceed the carbon dioxide emission reductions called for by the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft Clean Power Plan, and help the nation meet its commitment to cut U.S. carbon pollution by 26 to 28 percent by 2025.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Star Power

North Carolina could meet its energy needs by capturing just a sliver of the virtually limitless and pollution-free energy that strikes the state every day in the form of sunlight. With solar installation costs falling, the efficiency of solar cells rising, and the threats of air pollution and global warming ever-looming, solar power is becoming a more attractive and widespread source of energy every day.

Solar energy is on the rise across the country. The amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity* in the United States has tripled in the past two years. More than half of all new U.S. electricity generating capacity came from solar installations in the first half of 2014, and the United States now has enough solar electric capacity installed to power more than 3.2 million homes. North Carolina is a national leader in solar energy adoption, ranking tenth among U.S. states for cumulative installed solar electric capacity as of the end of 2013.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

Waterways Restored

In the early 1970s, many American rivers and streams were environmental basket cases – lined with industrial facilities dumping toxic pollution virtually unchecked, choked with untreated sewage and trash, and, in many cases, devoid of aquatic life.

In 2014, 42 years after the passage of the Clean Water Act, many of these formerly degraded waterways are returning to health. From Puget Sound to Boston Harbor and from Monterey Bay to the Chattahoochee River, the Clean Water Act has played an essential role in restoring America’s rivers, lakes and coastal waters as sources of recreation, engines of economic development, and critical habitat for wildlife.

Report | Environment North Carolina Research and Policy Center

More than 500 Solar Businesses support the Clean Power Plan

As solar power installers, manufacturers, designers, aggregators, product suppliers, and consultants, we welcome the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s unveiling of the Clean Power Plan, the first-ever federal limits on carbon pollution from power plants. Power plants account for 40 percent of America’s carbon pollution. The solar industry offers a wide range of technologies to generate energy pollution-free from the sun and reduce the need for polluting sources of energy. This plan is a critical step toward transforming our energy system to one that protects our health and environment, and that of our children.

 

 

Report | Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center

America’s Dirtiest Power Plants

As international leaders prepare for the United Nations Climate Summit next week in New York, a new study shows America’s power plants dump as much carbon pollution into the air any other country’s entire economy except China. Environment North Carolina Research & Policy Center pointed to the report as evidence for why the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposal for the nation’s first-ever limits on carbon pollution from power plants is a critical step in the international fight against global warming.

Pages

More