Why should a city seeking 100% renewable energy focus on local generation? ILSR’s Director of Energy Democracy, John Farrell, provides a short presentation to a forum in Rochester, MN, with three reasons. … Read More
ILSR co-director Stacy Mitchell was interviewed for the Rising Up with Sonali show for a segment entitled, “Why Amazon’s Quest For Online Dominance Is Destructive,” detailing the growth of Amazon across a number of different sectors.… Read More
To honor Xcel Energy’s successful introduction of legislation to give itself a “blank check” for its anticipated Prairie Island nuclear power plant retrofit, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and Community Power today released a video to tell the truth about what’s really in the “red box” that’s prevalent in Xcel’s widespread televised advertisements. For more information about Xcel’s power plant bill and where decisions will be made about it, visit ilsr.org.… Read More
Senator Janice Bowling has long been a champion for rural broadband in Tennessee. On March 6th, her bill SB 1045 came before the Tennessee Senate Commerce and Labor Committee and the members chose not to advance the bill. Once again, big telephone and cable company interests win out over the needs of rural Tennesseans.… Read More
The city of Ammon, Idaho, has used its open access publicly owned network to create an environment that encourages competition for residents and businesses. In addition to giving them control over which services they use and which companies they patronize, the city is doing its best to share information. In this video, the Ammon Fiber Optic Utility explains information financing for those who decide to connect to the network.… Read More
This video from Vox and the Climate Lab at UC-Berkeley is an interesting look at the over-packaging of items throughout our economy and how we can use source reduction as a critical tool to fight waste in our economy and increase recycling prevalence. … Read More
In October 2017, John Farrell gave a keynote address to the annual meeting and expo of AERO, a Montana organization with a similar mission of empowering communities to promote a sustainable economy. He addressed the widespread opportunity for clean energy in Montana, the shared desire of communities to capture that growing economic opportunity, and three ways communities can get started.… Read More
Directly north of Springfield, Missouri, sits Hermitage, a rural community of less than 500 residents. With only a few more than 200 households in Hermitage, it isn’t surprising that none of the big incumbent providers want to install the infrastructure to offer businesses or residents high-quality connectivity. A recent Missourian article described what it’s like for businesses in a … Read More
In September of 2017, ILSR Energy Democracy initiative director John Farrell spoke in front of the Minnesota Solar Energy Industry Association’s Midwest Gateway to Solar event. In his talk he spoke about the importance of sound renewable energy policies that enable growth in locally-owned solar energy and how massive electric utilities are doing their best to harm locally-owned renewable energy like solar.… Read More
