{"id":9701,"date":"2019-01-18T19:07:39","date_gmt":"2019-01-18T19:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9701"},"modified":"2019-01-18T19:07:39","modified_gmt":"2019-01-18T19:07:39","slug":"texas-cities-leading-transition-to-renewables","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/?p=9701","title":{"rendered":"Texas Cities Leading Transition to Renewables"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_9693\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9693\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9693\" src=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/gr-65124-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"399\" srcset=\"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/gr-65124-1-1.jpg 600w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/gr-65124-1-1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/gr-65124-1-1-405x269.jpg 405w, https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/gr-65124-1-1-60x40.jpg 60w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9693\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In December, the Texas Municipal Power Association announced plans to shutter the Gibbons Creek coal-fired power plant indefinitely due to high operating costs. Photo: Pmelton87\/Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em><strong>by Eric Galatas<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><strong>GEORGETOWN, Texas \u2013<\/strong>\u00a0In 2018, Georgetown became the first city in Texas to get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and conservationists are pushing Austin, Bryan, Garland, San Antonio and other municipalities to join some 100 cities nationwide that have made commitments to transition away from fossil fuels.<\/p>\n<p>Cyrus Reed, conservation director of the Sierra Club\u2019s Lone Star Chapter, says more city leaders understand that switching to solar and wind makes economic sense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen citizens and cities look into the future, they see that the best option \u2013 both for the environment, but also for the pocketbooks of customers \u2013 is to sign long-term contracts with renewable energy providers,\u201d Reed points out.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the city of Denton committed to get 100 percent of its electricity from clean power sources by 2020, and signed three major solar contracts.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the Texas Municipal Power Association announced plans to mothball the Gibbons Creek coal-fired plant, which supplies Denton and three other cities, due to high operating costs.<\/p>\n<p>Fossil fuel advocates say coal and gas are far more reliable than wind and solar, and provide thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n<p>Reed counters that moving away from coal-fired power plants also brings health benefits, especially for people of color and low-income communities that have historically been disproportionately impacted by pollution.<\/p>\n<p>But he agrees that, in the short term, coal and gas-powered plants are necessary to keep electric grids functioning and can\u2019t be shut down overnight.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut over time \u2013 over 10, 20 years \u2013 we can do it,\u201d he stresses. \u201cAnd the secret is wind, solar, plus batteries or other forms of storage. Because obviously the wind doesn\u2019t always blow, the sun doesn\u2019t always shine.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Reed says the latest report by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the electric grid for some three quarters of the Lone Star State, suggests a bright future for renewables.<\/p>\n<p>He says plans for future investments include solar, wind and storage, nothing in coal or nuclear, and only marginal investments in natural gas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Eric Galatas GEORGETOWN, Texas \u2013\u00a0In 2018, Georgetown became the first city in Texas to get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and conservationists are pushing Austin, Bryan, Garland, San Antonio and other municipalities to join some 100 cities nationwide that have made commitments to transition away from fossil fuels. Cyrus Reed, conservation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":9693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-state"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9702,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9701\/revisions\/9702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/losfresnosnews.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}