Despite a sunny climate, Alabama ranks 49th among U.S. states in residential solar installations—lower than Alaska. Advocates say the steep solar fee is part of the reason why.
Comeback Town: Birmingham residential electric bills are 41% higher than Huntsville’s
Birmingham cannot change its electric utility overnight. But Alabama can change the way that utility is regulated.
Solar Power Is Getting So Cheap That It’s Almost Unbelievable
The cost of solar panels has dropped to just a few cents per watt, thanks to a massive supply of photovoltaics flooding the market.
A Rural S.C. County Quietly Approved a $2B Data Center During the Winter Storm
Data centers are the nation's fastest-growing energy demand driver, but developers are using nondisclosure agreements to keep projects hidden.
Amazon Data Centers In Mississippi Have Already Raised Electricity Rates for Local Customers, Report Suggests
Three Amazon data centers aren't even open yet, but local residents are already paying at least $10.60 extra per month for them, according to a new study.
Clear the Lines: Policy and Messaging for the Electric Grid the Northwest Needs
Two Sightline reports detail how Oregon and Washington can build a robust energy and climate future.
Mississippi “Data Center Giveaway Law” Leaves Residents in the Dark and Could Already Be Costing Utility Customers ~$11/mo.
A state law is failing to protect households from potentially rising power bills. How lawmakers and utilities can fix this.
Just How Far Can California Possibly Go on Climate? (Published 2017)
California wants to cut greenhouse gas emissions more than even President Barack Obama had proposed. But can the state pull it off, or will it falter?
What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?
The rapid growth of data centers, with their enormous energy and water demands, necessitates targeted policy interventions to mitigate environmental impacts and protect local communities. To address these issues, states with existing data center tax breaks should adopt sustainable growth policies for data centers, mandating energy audits, strict performance standards, and renewable energy integration, while also requiring transparency in energy usage reporting. “Renewable energy additionality” clauses should ensure data centers contribute to new renewable capacity rather than relying on existing resources.
The ‘wicked trinity’ of late capitalism: Governing in an era of stagnation, surplus humanity, and environmental breakdown
Scholars within the fields of political ecology, environmental political theory, and international political economy tend to evaluate the prospects of state-led environmental transitions in general terms – enquiring as to the capitalist state’s inherent properties and their environmental implications. Less attention has been paid to how the state’s green capacities are conditioned by contemporary evolutions in the form and pace of capital accumulation. Capitalism’s directional pattern of historical development poses unique challenges for green state projects. Its drive to raise labour productivity metabolises nature on a growing scale, while generating conditions of overproduction and rendering a progressively larger portion of the population superfluous to the production process.Thus, the question is not simply whether the state can rise to the challenge of climate change, but rather how states are scrambling to govern the intersecting crises of climate catastrophe, economic stagnation, and surplus humanity. This ‘wicked trinity’ compounds the tensions at the heart of the capitalist state, resulting in an increasing inability to perform its role while sustaining its liberal form. This governance trilemma is illustrated by the case of the solar photovoltaic boom, where the spectacular increase in the productivity and scale of solar panel manufacturing have generated oversupply and falling profitability. States have reacted by indefinitely providing subsidies, financing automation technologies thatexacerbate labour superfluity, and relocating solar panel manufacturing to places with authoritarian labour regimes. The case of photovoltaics is a microcosm of the general predicament faced by states as they struggle to govern capitalism’s secular developmental tendencies.
What If California Is the Most Regressive State in America?
California ranks dead last in cost-of-living-adjusted poverty among all 50 states. A native Californian makes the case that Prop 13, NIMBY housing policy, and stroads make it the most regressive state in America.
Yes, a Land Value Tax Is Possible in Washington State | Sightline Institute
A new report modeling a property tax building exemption in Spokane rebalances incentives toward community goals, encouraging homebuilding and discouraging in-city vacant land speculation.
The Price of Solar Is Declining to Unprecedented Lows
Despite already low costs, the installed price of solar fell by 5 to 12 percent in 2015
China’s Solar Industry Is in Upheaval—The Effects Will Be Global
Rather than opening space for rivals, China’s solar industry shakeout is forging a more resilient core — embedding deeper into global value chains, securing a technological lead, and reshaping the industry’s future trajectory to its own long-term advantage.
Switzerland bolted 5,000 solar panels onto a dam wall 8,000 feet up in the freezing Alps where everyone said solar made no sense, and the plant now makes three times more winter power than any farm down in the valleys
High in the Swiss Alps, on a concrete dam wall more than 8,000 feet above the sea, someone bolted thousands of solar panels to a place almost no one thought
France Exports Surplus Solar Power as Electricity Prices Turn Negative
French solar power surged on Thursday as a stretch of sunny weather boosted generation allowing the country to export huge volumes of electricity to neighboring markets.
