In a country that talks a lot about the need for clean power there sure is a lot of NIMBY attitude as well as extremely powerful lobbying against any serious move to utilizing clean power alternatives. So it is surprising to hear that there is one municipality in the country that uses only renewable energy, and even more surprising to hear that it is Austin, the capital of Texas.

We’re not just talking dribs and drabs here either as Austin can claim that 100% of it’s energy is coming from renewable sources. That’s all of its public buildings, it’s airport and the water treatment plants. All being powered using wind from West Texas.

In fact, the city’s publicly-owned utility, Austin Energy, has produced more renewable energy than any other power company in the country.

The utility first introduced its energy saving scheme back in 1982 and then a green building program in 1991, and its first wind program back in 1995 and even though Austin Energy’s customers sometimes pay 15 to 25% more for electricity under the Greenchoice program it seems to be a premium they are willing to pay.

For that though they also get a better sense of transparency over what the energy is costing over the duration of any contracts entered into by Austin Energy, as well as seeing their costs go down over the life of those contracts.

It also turns out that Austin isn’t alone when it comes to Texas cities and renewable energy programs. Both Houston and Dallas place in the EPA’s top 10 list of government clean power adopters.

via Fast Company

Texas capital shows how you do clean power adoption the right way is a post from: The Inquisitr

With the new Obama government now in power and with a growing demand for renewable poser a lot of projects for renewable poser systems like wind power and solar energy. The only problem with these forms of creating these different types of power is that somehow the power being created has to be shipped to the places where the poser is needed.

How do they propose to get the power to the cities that need it? The current thinking is the construction of massive power lines from the creation points to the consumers. Right now the big project still being considered by the states involved and SDPG&E is called The Sunrise Powerlink. While the states want it in writing from SDPG&E that the power line that the Sunrise Powerlink would be used exclusively for transmitting renewable power from all these wind power and solar energy creators; but SDPG&E is refusing to – even to the point of threatening to pull out of the whole deal.

The following is the PBS special about what is going on with SDPG&E and the Sunrise Powerlink project

hat tip to ecogeek

The Power Struggle of Renewable Power and getting it to the people is a post from: The Inquisitr