We Empower America With New Energy Choices

Includes history of bills and resolutions.

America is as addicted to electricity as it is to oil. Our electricity usage increases every year, yet we still use the same transmission grid that was constructed in the middle of the last century. The grid is stretched to the limit, creating the potential of future blackouts like the one that brought the Northeast to its knees in 2003. Meanwhile, some of our most abundant and affordable generating fuels have become major culprits in global warming. Power of the People explores in a nontechnical, conversational way some of the clean, green, 21st-century technologies that are available and how and why we should plug them into our national grid. This important essay explores our failure as a country to adopt these no regrets technologies and policies as swiftly as the rest of the world, and why it matters for the future of every American.

At a time when climate-change deniers hold the reins of power in the United States and international greenhouse gas negotiations continue at a slow crawl, what options are available to cities, companies, and consumers around the world who seek a cleaner future? Scott Victor Valentine, Marilyn A. Brown, and Benjamin K. Sovacool explore developments and strategies that will help fast-track the transition to renewable energy. They provide an expert analysis of the achievable steps that citizens, organizational leaders, and policy makers can take to put their commitments to sustainability into practice. Empowering the Great Energy Transition examines trends that suggest a transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources is inevitable—there are too many forces for change at work to stop a shift to clean energy. Yet under the status quo, change will be too slow to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Humanity is on a path to incur avoidable social, environmental, and economic costs. Valentine, Brown, and Sovacool argue that new policies and business models are needed to surmount the hurdles separating the current consumption model from a sustainable energy future. Empowering the Great Energy Transition shows that with well-placed efforts, we can set humanity on a course that supports entrepreneurs and communities in mitigating the environmental harm caused by technologies whose time has come and gone.