Appalachian Institute for Renewable Energy
Pioneering community-owned renewable energy
If your electricity comes from an electric membership corporation (a “cooperative” or EMC) chances are you’ve come across Find a Balanced Solution (//www.findabalancedsolution.com/). This is a national campaign to kill climate change legislation aimed at you through EMCs, such as Blue Ridge Electric Membership Corporation here in northwestern North Carolina. “Affordability” is their hot button,
Don’t forget that the 9th annual Southern Energy & Environment Expo (SEE Expo) in Asheville this weekend. Many great presentations and exhibitors. Runs August 21-23.
RALEIGH – The N.C. Senate voted today to ban the commercial generation of wind energy in mountain counties. Supporters of the ban argued that the construction of large wind turbines on mountain ridges would ruin the natural beauty of the mountains. Environmentalists say that the state should be encouraging wind power, not limiting it. Read
It’s been a while but AIRE’s community solar demonstration is finally producing electricity and reducing Boone’s carbon footprint. Here’s a brief update and look ahead to some next steps. Keep in mind the purpose of our first project was to illuminate the barriers to community-based renewable energy, and then create solutions to those barriers. Here’s
Winds of Change Dear Editor, Although I disagree with Don Hendershot by about 180 degrees on wind development in the mountains, I’m glad he’s started the conversation again. As Don mentioned, NC State Senators Nesbitt, Queen and Snow attempted to turn the wind energy siting bill, SB1068, into a ban on wind development in western
If there is any doubt that Washington D.C. is where hyperbole, distortions and silly arguments come home to roost, that doubt disappears as we listen to congressional debate on climate and energy policy. Even some of the statements coming from the Obama team lately inspire a loud “Huh?” Jon Stewart would win a Nobel Prize
In this rapidly changing story, WNC wind escapes the senate’s ax in the eleventh hour this afternoon. It now heads back to senate Ag/Environment/Natural Resources Committee. More shortly on this unfolding plot. We’ll have a fully updated analysis and resource page asap. Stay tuned!
Please read the below articles for a description of the setback realized today by North Carolinians seeking clean environmentally-sensitive wind energy development in the Old North State: – //blogs.newsobserver.com/bullseye/state-lawmakers-reject-wind-power
Thanks to a huge grassroots effort, the ban on windpower in the NC mountains has been averted, at least for the moment. By our count, AIRE and other groups were able to mobilize hundreds of calls and emails to senators over the 4th of July weekend. The senate Agriculture, Environment, and Natural Resources committee discussed
“We think there is a way to create long-term, sustainable jobs so you can feed your families.” Steve Owen Executive Director, AIRE speaking directly to the Massey Energy counter-protestors On Tuesday, June 23, hundreds of people gathered at an anti-mountaintop removal coal mining rally at Marsh Fork Elementary School in West Virginia to protest the