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American Cities Leading The Way In Renewable Energy

– Contributed content –

Renewable energy

(Kenueone, Pixabay)

18 August 2018. While there is still a tiny minority that disagrees, it’s a widely accepted fact that fossil fuels have a huge negative impact on the environment and contribute to climate change. The impact of climate change is starting to become very visible as extreme weather events are on the rise and the climate of the planet is becoming more unpredictable. It’s clear then, that we need a solution. Most climate scientists agree that cutting down on the use of fossil fuels and replacing them with renewable energy sources is a priority.

There are still those out there that argue in favor of fossil fuels and claim that the renewable energy sources won’t produce enough power for the population. In reality, there are a lot of cities around the country that are already moving toward renewables in a big way and they serve as an example of how we can all adopt clean energy in the future. These are the American cities that are leading the way in renewable energy.

New York

A city as large as New York demands a lot of power so you would expect it to use quite a lot of fossil fuels. While it’s true that the city is largely powered by gas generators, those generators can be adapted to use renewable sources when they’re available and the gas is used as a backup. This a great model for cities that are in the transition period, trying to build a renewable energy infrastructure before ditching fossil fuels altogether.

Josco Energy sources renewable energy from quite a few different places. The Robert Moses Niagara Hydroelectric Power Plant is one of the 4 biggest sources of hydroelectric power in the world. It’s a completely clean way of generating power and it supplies a lot of the electricity in New York. They’re also using biomass power plants to generate electricity. They take waste water and add bacteria to it. Those bacteria then purify the water and the reaction releases methane, which can then be harnessed to create electricity.

Las Vegas

You probably wouldn’t guess that Las Vegas is a leader in renewables because of the sheer amount of energy that they use. It’s true that they do use a huge amount of electricity and a lot of that is still generated by fossil fuels but they are starting to make big moves toward renewables. The Hoover Dam has been generating a big chunk of their energy since the 1930’s and more recently, they’ve started using solar power to generate the electricity for all of their municipal buildings. The casinos are also planning to move over to renewables which will make a huge difference.

San Diego

The government in San Diego has made huge commitments to renewable energy. Their climate action plan states that the city will rely almost entirely on solar energy and all of their power will come from renewable sources by 2035. They hope to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in half and also invest a lot of money in the renewable energy industry, creating jobs and pushing the technology forward.

The rest of the country can use these cities as a model for how to adopt renewable energy and reduce their impact on the planet in a big way.

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