Energy Publications

The Wisconsin Apollo State Policy Platform for 2009 supports the promotion of clean energy manufacturing, to enact tougher appliance efficiency standards, to set higher goals for Wisconsin’s renewable portfolio standard, to make a major state effort in building efficiency, to cap, auction and invest, to create affordable, accessible, and comprehensive public transit systems, and to enact a low carbon fuel standard.

This memo offers suggestions on program architecture for a national effort to build “emerald” cities, shorthand for high-road cities committed to greening their economies in equitable and democratically accountable ways.

The Clean Energy Corp will be a combined service, training, and job creation effort to combat global warming, grow local and regional economies and demonstrate the equity and employment promise of the clean energy economy. Documents include Full Report and Executive Summary.

Greener Pathways details current economic and workforce development opportunities in three leading industries: energy efficiency, wind, and biofuels. The report also examines federal resources that can support state green jobs initiatives, and concludes by outlining a plan of action for state policymakers. Documents include Full Report and Summary.

This report asserts that this new generation of coal plants would comply more easily with current and projected environmental regulations and provide more stable employment for utility workers than traditional coal plants.  Integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC) power plants, with their potential for carbon capture and storage (CCS), may be an important piece of this energy future, especially as carbon regulation comes into effect.

Building retrofits, with their associated cost-savings for the working class and poor and “green collar” job opportunities, are a natural way to meet both demands. This opportunity is especially evident in cities, with their density of inefficient buildings, poor people, generally progressive politics, and leadership on climate.

Wisconsin is ripe for a far-reaching, comprehensive energy strategy that will move the state toward energy efficiency and independence.  The state depends heavily on three energy and fuel sources that are produced entirely out of state: coal, natural gas, and petroleum.  Importing all this energy comes at a high cost to the state—each year, Wisconsinites spend over nine billion dollars on energy imports, more than half of which goes toward petroleum products including heating oil, unleaded fuel, and diesel fuels.  These costs are likely to go up as a result of worldwide fuel shortages, natural disasters, and political instability in oil-producing regions. A COWS Fast Facts report.

Prepared by COWS for the Energy Center of Wisconsin (now Seventhwave) on behalf of Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle’s Consortium on Biobased Industry.

This study (in three volumes) is intended to paint, in broad strokes, the background for the Wisconsin bioeconomy picture. To fill in some of the details, we provide a companion Technical Study dedicated to exploring the specific feedstocks currently grown in Wisconsin, and their potential to anchor various bioindustry processes. Taken together, the Briefing Paper and the Technical Study point toward a key conclusion: in order to create a successful bioeconomy, Wisconsin must not only build on its existing resources and infrastructure, but must also pursue specific policies targeted toward creating an economy that includes a range of rural and urban jobs, entrepreneurship opportunities, ownership opportunities for rural landowners, and economic incentives balanced with environmental protections.

Written for the Apollo Alliance, COWS lays out various methods that states can implement in order to reduce energy use, achieve energy savings, and move towards reliance on renewable energy and fuel technologies. Legislation should set standards for construction of green buildings and in the sun, wind, and bio-based industries, should offer incentives for efficient car use and transit development, and should encourage investments to improve job quality.