City of Las Vegas is powered 100 percent by renewable energy.
Editor’s Note: Energy Briefs is a weekly recollection of local, regional and national news regarding some of the most intriguing updates regarding energy, water and the environment.
The city of Las Vegas, best-known as a tourist attraction set a goal to have all city and municipal building be powered 100 percent by renewable energy a feat the city accomplished earlier this month.
According to the Las Vegas-Review Journal, the effort was achieved through the partnership with NVEnergy to deliver the renewable power to the city to run its facilities which include City Hall, parks, community centers, street lights and others.
“We can brag that the city, this city of Las Vegas, is one of the few cities in the entire world that can boast using all of its power from a green source,” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said in a news conference Dec. 12.
That day the Boulder Solar 1 utility-scale solar farm went online to fully realize the city’s goal.
Las Vegas began its transition into clean renewable energy in 2008. At first the city began implementing energy-saving measures in facilities where it made sense. City officials told the Las Vegas-Review Journal the city since then lowered its consumption by 30 percent.
The city estimates the transition into renewable power and the cost-saving measures have saved the city about $5 million per year.
Off-shore drilling
Last Week, President Obama took action to protect more than 115 million acres of coastal waters from oil and gas exploration.
The outgoing president used a little known provision part of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act of 1953, the provision allows the president to withdraw parts of the ocean waters from offshore drilling leases.
The executive order will protect 115 million acres in the arctic waters and an additional 3.8 million acres of underwater canyons in the Atlantic Coast will be permanently protected from drilling leases.
The move was part of President Obama’s efforts to shield federal marine areas before president-elect Donald Trump takes office in January. Throughout his campaign Trump has vowed to push for the further development of fossil fuels and the latest action could force the incoming administration to seek additional options.
Earlier in the year, the Obama administration also issued a five-year ban on oil and gas leases in the Atlantic Ocean.
Efforts in Ohio
On Monday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich vetoed a bill that would have extended a freeze on the state’s mandatory renewable and energy efficiency standards, which were frozen in 2014.
The bill aimed to push back the increase of renewable power required within the state for another two years. In 2014 the Ohio Legislature voted to keep the renewable energy standards at 2.5 percent until 2017.
In the original legislature, Ohio utilities would have to make clean energy at least 25 percent of its mix with nuclear power — potentially making up 12.5 percent and renewables the other 12.5 percent.
“(The) bill risks undermining this progress by taking away some of those energy generation options, particularly the very options most prized by the companies poised to create many jobs in Ohio in the coming years, such as high technology firms,” Kasich said in his veto message.
The Ohio legislature is expected to meet later this week, possibly to try to override Kasich’s veto according to Columbus Business First.
Staff Writer Edwin Delgado can be reached at edelgado@ivpressonline.com