Category: Sustainable & Brownfield Development
How to Measure Job Creation from Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Programs
In past posts, we have discussed how governments can use financing programs to encourage energy improvements and how energy improvements can turn undesirable properties into economic opportunities. In fact, economic development and job creation are some of the major benefits touted by govern … Read more
Student Corner: Coastal Dredging in North Carolina
The North Carolina coastline has a wide variety of inlets that are critical to coastal commerce, such as for commercial traffic at ports, commercial and charter fisherman, and recreation & tourism. According to a report to the Joint Transportation Appropriations Committee by the North Carolina D … Read more
Encouraging Environmental and Energy Improvements through Financing Programs
At the beginning of September, the US EPA announced that it had awarded almost $2 million to 19 small businesses nationwide to develop and commercialize technologies that tackle critical environmental problems through its Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program. Through these types of prog … Read more
Student Corner: Can you feel it Coming in the Air? Rural Economic Development and Wind Farms
Money may not literally grow on trees, but a glance at North Carolina’s rural economies reveals that cash crops sprout not just in our long-cultivated cotton and tobacco fields: they now also root in the steep hillsides of northwestern Christmas tree farms and navigate the waters flowing through the … Read more
Five Dangerous Myths for Small Water Systems
Small water systems serving 10,000 people or less comprise more than 94% of our nation’s public water systems. They are a large and diverse group, and are managed by a wide variety actors – from local and tribal governments, to mobile home park owners, to homeowners associations, to shopping mall op … Read more
Local Government Strategies for Mitigating the Risks of Flooding
With six feet (and counting) of snow on the ground in Boston, the only thing that local officials should fear as much or more than more snow is a heat wave. If it doesn’t melt slowly, communities and homeowners will have to deal with significant flooding. In an area as developed as the Boston metro, … Read more
Student Corner: Primer on Brownfields Redevelopment
The redevelopment of brownfield sites can be difficult. These sites, which are contaminated to some degree with harmful substances usually due to prior industrial use on the site, pose challenges to redevelopment beyond those of a typical project. However, the reuse of these sites can be a boon to e … Read more
Student Corner: Waste Not, Want Not: Local Financing Options for Renewable Energy from Swine Waste in North Carolina
Eastern North Carolina is home to the densest industrial swine farming activity in the world. The pork production industry is foundational to the eastern North Carolina economy, accounting for 11,821 jobs and over $200 million in wages (UNC Chapel Hill, 2013). This activity comes with a cost, howe … Read more
Student Corner: Less Consumption, More Production – Energy Efficiency Programs
It seems like everywhere you turn these days, someone is talking about climate change and the effects of high energy consumption. No matter what your stance on the subject matter, the data concerning energy consumption and the cost of supplying its demand throughout North Carolina is shocking. A 201 … Read more
Change or Die: Why Big Electric Needs to Think Small
The business model of electric utilities has remained largely unchanged in nearly 100 years. Until now, this capital-intensive industry has primarily recovered revenues through the sale of energy units, or kilowatt-hours: a use more, pay more approach. Most electric utilities operate as state-regula … Read more