Energy Efficiency, Utilities, Sourcing Renewables  -  May 18, 2019

Weekend reads: Trump vs. Obama on lightbulbs; What's next for energy?

It's the weekend! Kick back and catch up with these must-read stories from around the web:

5 Coming Breakthroughs in Energy and Transportation (Singularity Hub)  The energy and transportation industries are being aggressively disrupted by converging exponential technologies. In just five days, the sun provides Earth with an energy supply exceeding all proven reserves of oil, coal, and natural gas. Capturing just 1 part in 8,000 of this available solar energy would allow us to meet 100 percent of our energy needs. As we leverage renewable energy supplied by the sun, wind, geothermal sources, and eventually fusion, we are rapidly heading towards a future where 100 percent of our energy needs will be met by clean tech in just 30 years.

Socially responsible investing movement is hot and there are no signs of it cooling off (CNBC)  Socially responsible investing has exploded across the globe and interest in it has never been higher. But there is a real chance the business and financial communities will let slip opportunities to fully capitalize on the demand. SRI assets are growing at nearly 40% year-over-year since 2016, according to the US SIF Foundation’s “Report on US Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends.” There is now more than $12 trillion invested in a variety of socially responsible ways. That’s 1 out of 4 of the total assets under management in the U.S. alone. 

States fight Trump rollback of Obama lightbulb rules (The Hill)  States are preparing to fight back as the Trump administration moves to erase Obama-era standards for lightbulbs. The Department of Energy has proposed new regulations for lightbulbs that would eliminate efficiency standards for half the bulbs on the market. The move has prompted a backlash from a bipartisan mix of state attorneys general and governors who say it is harmful to the planet and may be illegal.

Survey: For utilities to go digital, utility suppliers must be digital too (Electric Light & Power)  A new survey of 200 utility providers found that 65 percent lack timely, accurate information from their service providers that impacts outage management and customer service. This is attributed to the continued reliance on error-prone manual data collection, reporting, and workflows with less than a quarter (23 percent) reporting their service providers are fully digitized. In the report, Manual Processes Amid Utility Service Providers released by TrackVia and PA Consulting, sixty-three percent of the utilities said that their service providers use manual processes to collect and share data and reporting.

Could Beer Brewed With Wind Power Help Save the Planet? (New York Times)  During the Super Bowl in February, a commercial showed a Budweiser beer wagon drawn by eight Clydesdale horses rambling down a dreamy country lane past the whirling blades of a wind farm. With Bob Dylan’s 1960s anthem “Blowin’ in the Wind” playing in the background, the message was hard to miss. Your six-pack is now green or, at least, “brewed with wind power.” Making that statement involved a complex journey. In recent years, Budweiser’s owner, now known as Anheuser-Busch InBev, had decided that the copious amounts of electric power that it bought for its breweries and other facilities, like malt houses, should come from green sources — not pollution-belching power plants.

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