Over 90 percent of US power generation comes from large, centralized, highly polluting, nonrenewable sources of energy. It is delivered through long, brittle transmission lines, and then is squandered through inefficiency and waste. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Communities can indeed produce their own local, renewable energy.
In this webinar two community clean power visionaries, Lynn Benander of Co-op Power, a 450-member owned renewable energy cooperative in New York and New England, and Lyle Estill, founder of Piedmont Biofuels, a community scale biodiesel producer, talk about how it is done and answer questions. These are just two of the inspiring projects covered in the Community Resilience Guide Power From the People.
Co-op Power is a 450-member owned renewable energy cooperative in New York and New England, with an emphasis on local and regional organizing to build a multi-class, multi-racial movement for a sustainable and just energy future. Piedmont Biofuels is a community scale biodiesel producer which collects fats, oils, and greases from its region, and converts them into biodiesel fuel which it then provides to its 400 member cooperative. Piedmont is a certified B Corporation, is accredited by the National Biodiesel Board as a BQ9000 producer, and is certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials out of Switzerland.
About the speakers:
Lyle Estill is an expert on small-scale biofuels as well as a leading thinker and writer on the new economy. A founder of Piedmont Biofuels and the Biofuels Center of North Carolina, Lyle is also author of Biodiesel Power; the passion, people, and politics of the next renewable fuel, Small is Possible; Life in a Local Economy, and Industrial Evolution; local solutions for a low carbon future; and publisher of Energy Blog.
Lynn Benander is a community entrepreneur and President and CEO of Co-op Power. She has worked since 1996 with membership groups in New England and New York representing more than two million people to develop sustainable energy resources in the Northeast based on a community-ownership model. As Manager of Co-op Power, Lynn has supported the development of five solar installation businesses, a multi-family/commercial building energy services company, and the development of affordable, sustainable energy products and services for Co-op Power’s members and supporters.This conversation is the second in a a series of Community Resilience Chats hosted by Post Carbon Institute, Transition US, and Chelsea Green Publishing. Watch #1 Rebuilding the Foodshed.