TCSaves showed that a well done, public-private, residential energy efficiency program can reach many homeowners, make them more comfortable and lower their utility bills, produce good-paying jobs, keep more cash in the local economy, increase home values, and make financial sense.
It was a setting guaranteed to raise a smile: a squinty-bright sun, an electric-blue sky, rolling green hills, a verdant community garden and a big, immaculately restored old barn. But the folks who gathered last week at the Historic Barns Park were grinning for a different reason: Completion of the first phase of a geothermal heating and cooling system that will keep the park’s iconic Cathedral Barn comfortable year-round.
Michigan’s clean energy entrepreneurs and advocates hope to hear some good news from Lansing about renewable energy next week.
That’s when the Michigan Public Service Commission and the Michigan Energy Office release the first of four draft-summaries of comments the public gave them earlier this year regarding the state’s future energy goals.
Last month, a surprisingly large number of people showed up at a remote northern Michigan park to rally against something that, weeks earlier, few of them had ever heard about: the twin, 60-year-old pipelines that transport 22 million gallons of oil a day beneath the Straits of Mackinac. Attracting a crowd to a distant location for a rally about a largely unknown pipeline is impressive; so is reviving a moribund organization to produce the event in just six weeks.
It’s time for Grand Traverse County to use a state law to help local firms cut energy costs and boost bottom lines. The 2010 law, called PACE-Property Assessed Clean Energy-allows local governments to establish bonds for loans to improve commercial buildings’ efficiency or install renewable energy devices, cutting their utility bills. Local units then use special property tax assessments for loan repayments.
Maura Brennan and Elizabeth Dell co-lead what they say is the largest Michigan chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, a national group sharply focused on a very specific goal: Convincing Congress to enact a carbon tax on coal, oil, and natural gas and distribute the money to all American households. The market-based logic is simple: Raising fossil fuel prices will push the country toward ever-cheaper, renewable, clean power sources such as wind, solar, and energy efficiency, cutting the greenhouse gas emissions warming our planet.