Our Recent Clean Energy Accomplishments
UCS analysis of the impacts of fossil-fuel-based power generation shows the need for clean energy.
Demonstrated the benefits and feasibility of renewable energy and the high costs of continued fossil fuel use.
Our report Tapping into Wind Power demonstrates the economic and environmental benefits of this resource and counters the fossil fuel industry's inaccurate claims.
In A Risky Proposition: The Financial Hazards of New Investments in Coal Plants, UCS details the high costs associated with our continued use of this dirty fossil fuel and the need to enforce tough pollution standards.
Showed how clean energy investments in the Midwest could create 85,700 jobs by 2030.
Our report A Bright Future for the Heartland: Powering the Midwest Economy with Clean Energy documents the tremendous potential this region has for producing electricity from wind, biomass, and solar energy, and for increasing energy efficiency in homes and businesses.
Helped California take the lead on renewable energy, green jobs.
For over a decade, UCS has been a lead group advocating for an aggressive California renewable energy standard. In a bold move, the landmark legislation—often referred to as the 33 percent Renewables Portfolio Standard—was signed into law on April 12, 2011.
The law will require California utilities to provide at least a third of their electricity from clean and safe renewable sources like the wind and the sun by the year 2020, and will provide meaningful economic benefits to California by stimulating clean technology investment, innovation, and the creation of new clean energy jobs. This is the most aggressive standard of its kind in the country and the latest in a long string of successes we have had in successfully pursuing adoption of such standards in 29 states.
Revealed the coming clash between energy choices and dwindling water supplies.
Through our groundbreaking Energy and Water in a Warming World initiative, UCS is collaborating with a team of independent experts to raise awareness of the growing threat America's power sector poses to vital freshwater supplies. In 2011, UCS documented the collision between competing demands in several seminal reports and fact sheets.
Freshwater Use by U.S. Power Plants: Electricity's Thirst for a Precious Resource is the first report ever to assess both the specific impact of power plants on water supplies and the quality of information available to make water-smart energy decisions.
Our fact sheet Power and Water at Risk describes characteristic ways in which energy-water collisions occur in each region of the country and highlights power companies and energy developers making choices that reduce water dependencies.
Our short report Corn Ethanol's Threat to Water Resources describes the fertilizer pollution caused by producing ethanol from corn—pollution that could be reduced by switching to more sustainable fuel crops.
Support our work.
For more than 20 years, UCS has worked with leading experts to educate U.S. decision makers and the public about clean, renewable energy and the implementation of practical solutions at an international, national, regional, and state level. You can help support this work:
