Report Preview: A Clean Energy Pathway for Western Pennsylvania
Transitioning to clean energy means job growth, shared prosperity, and a safer, cleaner future for Western Pennsylvania. ORVI’s forthcoming decarbonization study, produced by Strategen Consulting, describes an energy transition pathway for the ten-county region of Western Pennsylvania that reduces emissions, cuts costs, and creates jobs more effectively than any fossil fuel-based pathway. Key Takeaways: A […]
Appalachia Poised to Be Part of Shift to Clean Energy
For over 150 years, the Appalachian region has provided the cheap energy that has powered the nation to become an industrial giant and build a middle class. At the same time, the enormous wealth pulled from the hills of Appalachia largely enriched other parts of the country while leaving environmental degradation and persistent poverty in its wake. As federal policymakers design policies to transition and invest in a clean energy economy, it is imperative that Appalachia can rebuild and grow a 21st Century sustainable economy that builds shared prosperity.
“What’s the alternative?”: Answering the hardest question asked by workers and communities that feel threatened by energy transition
At ORVI, we’ve documented the inability of the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries to serve as engines for job growth and prosperity in Appalachia. Although these findings may be greeted with doubt, disbelief, and sometimes anger, we find that, once the numbers sink in and people in the mining and fracking regions of Pennsylvania and […]
ORVI testifies in support of Pennsylvania joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Reduced emissions, lower utility bills, and economic development for small-town Pennsylvania ORVI testimony before the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board (On December 11, 2020, ORVI senior researcher, Sean O’Leary, testified before the Pennsylvania Environmental Quality Board in support of the Commonwealth’s proposed membership in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. Here is the text of those remarks.) […]