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Portland Commits To 100 Percent Renewable Energy By 2050 (cnbc.com)
City of Portland and Multnomah County officials have announced this week that they are committed to 100 percent clean energy by the year 2050. "Getting our community to 100 percent renewable energy is a big goal," Ted Wheeler, City of Portland Mayor, said in a statement. "And while it is absolutely ambitious, it is a goal that we share with Nike, Hewlett Packard, Microsoft, Google, GM, Coca Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart. We have a responsibility to lead this effort in Oregon." CNBC reports: Multnomah County is the most populous county in Oregon. Its Chair, Deborah Kafoury, welcomed the news. "This is a pledge to our children's future,'' she said. "100 percent renewables means a future with cleaner air, a stable climate and more jobs and economic opportunity.'' Portland is among a number of U.S. cities looking to embrace renewables. Wheeler noted that tackling climate change would need to be a collaborative effort. "We don't succeed addressing climate change by government action alone,'' he said. "We need our whole community: government, businesses, organizations and households to work together to make a just transition to a 100 percent renewable future.''
The city is already next to one of the largest supplies of hydroelectric service on the country.
If they buy everyone in Washington state LED bulbs, there will be more than enough surplus to buy.
For a politician to commit to anything more than ten years in the future is meaningless. They likely won't be around to be held accountable.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
Cool... good for them.
As a marketing point, having a city with clean air, would be seen as really valuable in the future, especially as many cities will not bother, preferring dirty kick backs to clean air. So the cost efficiency of clean air, also can take into account, liveability and promoting health, very serious health promotion ie Portland healthy city versus Los Angeles smog cancer city. Will it attract employers who as their first priority is cheating on local and state taxes, no. Well, that is the end of that then.
The only thing clean, healthy and safe can sell is retirement for those poisoned in shitty tax haven cities. It is a sick world we live in. Nations can get away with clean, safe and healthy because why would you leave a clean, safe and healthy nation to go to some crime ridden polluted quagmire unless you are really greedy and those people make for bad employees. Local regions unfortunately can not.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Portland will have 100% renewable energy, but the roads will still be crap, and all of the schools falling apart with no extra curricular activities. And 10K homeless people will be able to get free light.
Portland. The city that works it.
except, these people are trying to help. They are saying that current plans suck--you need new ones. That's a good thing.
Honestly, I'd throw fission power under the green tent because that would help a lot with base load and distribution. It won't last forever, but it will buy us some time.
Not much of a challenge when over 70 percent of electricity generated in Oregon is currently from renewables. The only coal plant is shutting down in 2020 and by 2050 most of the existing plants will have long been replaced.
Seriously, Portland could do it in several years with geothermal. They are loaded with volcanos all-around the area. Easy to tap. And it is criminal that they have not.
Sigh. Why don't you learn something about the generating facility at The Geysers before you decide how "easy" it would be. Because right now you are running your mouth without anything in your head.
TD;DB: (Too Difficult, Didn't Bother) The Geysers has been perpetually over budget and under planned production, has produced a superfund site out on Butts Canyon road where they used to bury the drums of toxics washed off of the turbines, and injecting primary-treated wastewater into the ground to keep steam production up has caused hundreds of millions of dollars of damage due to increased seismicity in the region.
Suggesting a geothermal project in California as an "easy" solution is proof that you should be summarily ignored.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Artificial land subsidies (rents) for coal extraction in the USA are not the same as worldwide. Artificial corporate subsidies for oil and coal and natural gas firms (98 percent of the DOE budget other than nuclear fissiles) in the USA are not the same as worldwide. Energy knows no borders, other than the artificial market restrictions placed by nation states, and true capitalism is aware of this market-altering fossil fuel subsidy level.
As I said, fossil fuels are dying. Renewables are cheaper and there literally is nothing you can do to stop that basic economic fact. At some point the rent subsidies and extraction subsidies will go the way of the dinosaur. Any USA exports have to pay a carbon tax in most of the world. If not collected in the USA, as 16 states currently do, it is imposed on sale or lease overseas. No amount of jawboning will change this basic economic fact.
Industries know this. They are making decisions to maximize their profit on exports by not using fossil fuels. It's easier for them if their competitors don't get artificial subsidies to use fossil fuels. Even if a competitor only sells within NAFTA, both Canada and Mexico also have carbon taxes, and it is collected on point of sale if not collected in the USA before.
As I said, fossil fuels are dying. The world knows this. Business knows this. Look at all the modern data centers and warehouses being built: they use renewables for the bulk of their power. It's a business decision to maximize profits and reduce rent paying to external power providers.
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