Life After Coal

After a tornado devastated Greensburg, Kansas, the town decided to use the disaster as an opportunity to become more environmentally sustainable. For example, they built a new school out of recycled wood and it was powered with geothermal heat. While the maintenance of these sustainable features can be tricky, this shift to a greener town can be a case study for others looking to make the transition.

Solar-powered street lights have replaced the shoddy conventional lighting in Jinja City, Uganda. Solar-powered panels and batteries power lighting that is not only cheaper but is also more reliable and has resulted in social and economic benefits too. Safer streets, higher business revenue for businesses that can operate at night, and a boost in the tourism industry are just a few of the positive outcomes.

In so-called 'developing countries,' the focus is often simply on industrializing areas without electricity. In an effort to think beyond this to create sustainable and forward-looking infrastructure, socially- and environmentally-motivated private-sector initiatives have been pioneering off-grid "pay as you go'' solar-home systems. These have brought clean light and basic electricity services to hundreds of thousands of households across Africa.

Local real estate developer Lodha Group created Palava City, a 5,000-acre experimental community using creative green building techniques and layout initiatives, supporting its mission of creating a net-zero community. The city is being developed in phases on a community level, without the restrictions of local government, and plans to house about two million residents. Those already living in the community praise its energy efficiency and walkability compared to nearby cities.

Three startups in Houston are using a technique similar to fracking, a practice used in the oil and gas industry, to store renewable energy without batteries. They use excess renewable energy to pump pressurized water into manmade caverns underground. When energy is needed, they open the caverns, sending the water back to the surface to turn a turbine and generate power.

Eversource Energy, a utility company in Massachusetts, installed a networked geothermal system that provides heat for residential and commercial buildings across the city of Framingham. The connected system allows excess heat from one building to be redirected to another that needs it. It’s the first of its kind in the United States.

A utility company in Framingham, Massachusetts, worked with climate advocates to build a unique geothermal heating and cooling project that spans a whole neighborhood. A group of residential and commercial buildings share the infrastructure necessary to harness stable underground temperatures for heating and cooling, which reduces their greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills.

California and Texas are among the states in the U.S. installing giant lithium-ion batteries to store renewable energy to use when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing. These batteries are reducing the use of fossil fuels as a backup energy source when demand is high.

Thermal storage technologies are lowering businesses’ energy costs and carbon emissions while reducing strain on the grid during peak times. Two hotels in California implemented a system that makes ice when energy demand is low and uses the ice during peak demand times to cool the building.

Federal tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act and added incentives from the state of Colorado and its municipalities is drawing in clean energy companies, creating new jobs, and helping the state meet its decarbonization goals.