{"id":1784,"date":"2005-12-01T16:14:00","date_gmt":"2005-12-01T16:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sustainablog.greenoptions.com\/2005\/12\/01\/whats-the-clean-energy-capital-of-the-us\/"},"modified":"2005-12-01T16:14:00","modified_gmt":"2005-12-01T16:14:00","slug":"whats-the-clean-energy-capital-of-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/whats-the-clean-energy-capital-of-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the ‘Clean Energy Capital of the US?’"},"content":{"rendered":"
Folks in Austin, TX, plan to find out<\/a>. The group Solar Austin<\/a>, with a grant from the Department of Energy, has created the Energy Freedom Challenge<\/a>, which is “…a race to see which city in the U.S. can be the first to get 50 percent of its energy from renewable sources like wind, solar, geo-thermal, methane and biomass power by the year 2025.” Austin itself, which will host the contest for the next twenty years, plans to be a front-running competitor:<\/p>\n Right now Austin receives 5 percent of its energy from either wind, solar or landfill methane power; well short of hitting the 50 percent mark.<\/p>\n Austin can expect plenty of competition from other cities for the clean energy title, [Solar Austin Co-Director Jane] Pulaski said.<\/p>\n “Places like Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, New Jersey,” Pulaski said.<\/p>\n The Union of Concerned Scientists<\/a> will be in charge of establishing the rules, metrics and qualifications for the contest.<\/p>\n Solar Austin expects to have cities signed up to compete by early next year. Austin will be both the host and a competitor in the first year.<\/p>\n Austin’s Green Choice<\/a> program already sells more renewable energy to customers than any other program in the country.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n What a cool idea! Perhaps something like this could get other cities (like, say, St. Louis) more involved in renewable energy development. Cities do like cool titles…<\/p>\n Categories: renewables<\/a>, energy<\/a>, competition<\/a>, Austin<\/a>, Texas<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Folks in Austin, TX, plan to find out. The group Solar Austin, with a grant from the Department of Energy, has created the Energy Freedom Challenge, which is “…a race [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n