The Sierra Club, America’s largest grassroots environmental lobby group, has released a new report highlighting 10 U.S. cities that have committed to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy.
The report is the first update of Sierra’s Ready For 100 campaign, launched this year, which challenged 100 American cities to abandon fossil fuels and transition to clean sources of electricity such as solar, wind, hydropower or biomass.
According to campaign director Jodie Van Horn, 16 cities, including major centres like San Diego, have already signed up to the challenge, and several have achieved the 100 percent renewable goal.
“Cities, long the hotbed of innovation, the drivers of change, and the incubators of solutions to the world’s biggest challenges, are ready for 100 percent clean energy,” says Ms. Van Horn. “Other city leaders should take note from these examples and take the pledge to power their cities by 100 percent clean energy.”
Showcased in the report are San Francisco, CA; Aspen, CO; Burlington, VT; East Hampton, NY; Georgetown, TX; Grand Rapids, MI; Greensburg, KA; Rochester, MN; San Jose, CA; and San Diego, CA.
Making the switch to renewable energy would save cities money and create employment, the report’s authors say. Solar prices in the U.S. have dropped 80 percent in the past 10 years and the cost of wind power around 60 percent. The American solar sector currently employs more than 200,000 people and is adding jobs at 12 times the rate of the national economy.
While state renewable energy goals have spurred several cities’ commitments to the Ready for 100 target, some have taken their own measures to become energy independent.
Burlington, Vermont’s largest city, has become the first in America to cross the 100 percent renewable threshold through a combination of biomass from logging waste (30 percent); landfill methane plus wind and solar power (20 percent); and the voter-backed purchase of the 7.4 megawatt (MW) Winooski River hydropower facility at the city’s edge (50 percent).
Also showcased is Silicon Valley’s San Jose, one of America’s first cities to commit to a 100 percent renewable target, which it adopted in 2007. San Jose has been at the forefront of the use of solar power to lower its carbon footprint and the city’s 15-year clean energy goals include lowering electricity use per capita by half, planting 100,000 trees and creating 25,000 new clean tech jobs.
“By embracing 100% clean energy, these 10 cities are creating more equitable, healthy, prosperous and vibrant communities,” the report (PDF) states. “According to a national survey conducted by the University of Texas at Austin in spring of 2016, 90% of American adults agree that the government should be focusing on developing renewable energy.”
