Choosing Clean Energy

Creating Clean Energy Jobs

All this new technology is not only bringing cleaner energy and cheaper energy, it’s creating jobs. The fastest growing professions in the US are solar installer and wind turbine technician. And these are jobs that cannot be outsourced. Careful consideration of appropriate siting of these new renewable energy installations is also part of the revolution that’s happening. Smart siting techniques are bringing energy facilities online with better understanding of how to minimize impacts to wildlife and ecosystems. 

Smart Grid Modernization

To reach a clean energy future, we need to upgrade our electric grid. As the nation’s power grid seeks to add new services and more clean energy, we’ll need new technologies to efficiently direct power from where it’s generated to where it’s being used. Consumers are also being offered new technologies—smart thermostats, solar panels, electric vehicles and energy storage —that also make a modern grid necessary.

Encouraging Energy Efficiency

Energy efficiency is by far the easiest way to make a positive impact on our communities, our wallets and our planet. If we use less energy, we burn less fuel, and we need less energy production. By using less energy, imports of oil and natural gas also decline so that our economy can be more secure. Energy efficiency also lowers greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change. Learn more about all the ways people are reducing the amount of carbon pollution they create by being more efficient in how they use energy.

Carbon Pricing

Few would argue that pollution ought to be cost-free. And we have seen that when goods and services reflect the cost of pollution, consumers demand cleaner products.  Where demand exists, innovation follows.

Carbon pricing  puts the technology challenge on getting to a clean energy future where it should be—in the hands of innovators. Carbon pricing gives companies the opportunity to efficiently build these costs into a business plan and maximize economic growth. And it harnesses the power of the marketplace—both consumers and producers—to ensure that the cost of unlimited pollution is not shouldered by the most vulnerable.

The Market Choice Act, introduced in September 2019, is one recent example of federal legislation that sets a national price on carbon. The bipartisan act replaces the federal gas tax with a price on carbon of $35 per ton. Independent projections suggest the bill will reduce greenhouse gas pollution by 36% by 2025. The revenue collected would support development of carbon capture technology, spur deployment of natural climate solutions, kickstart renewable energy deployment, and provide significant investment in resilience against climate impacts.

Read a statement about the Market Choice Act from TNC’s Vice President of Policy and Government Relations, Lynn Scarlett.

Two other pieces of pending legislation, introduced by Reps. Francis Rooney and Dan Lipinski in July 2019, would also set a national price on carbon. Both the  Stemming Warming and Augmenting Pay Act (SWAP Act), sponsored by Congressman Rooney and cosponsored by Congressman Lipinski, and the Raise Wages, Cut Carbon Act (RWCC Act), sponsored by Congressman Lipinski and cosponsored by Congressman Rooney, would establish a price on carbon and  harness private  market forces in identifying the least-cost, greatest-impact ways to reduce carbon pollution. Read our statement about these bills.