![]() | This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these template messages)
|
Michael J. Osborne (born September 20, 1949, in Amarillo, Texas) is an author, inventor, entrepreneur, and energy policymaker. He was one of three founding members of the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Alliance (TREIA). [1] His public service appointments have included the steering committees of the State of Texas Energy Policy Partnership (STEPP) [2] and the Sustainable Energy Development Council [3] under Governor Ann Richards; and later, the Texas Energy Coordination Council [4] appointed by Governor George W. Bush. As chair of the Austin Electric Utility Commission, [5] Osborne has traveled internationally to speak and consult about the Texas energy experience. [6] In 2015, he was part of the Austin, Texas, delegation to the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Paris, France.
The youngest of two sons born to Maxine Joan Chambers Osborne (a businesswoman and investor) and Jack Harold Osborne (a World War II navy pilot and rancher), Michael was born in Amarillo, Texas, on September 20, 1949. When he was six, his family moved to the small town of Pampa, Texas, where Osborne's interest in music grew as he played guitar and piano in two rock-and-roll bands. He graduated in 1967. Michael moved to Austin, Texas, at the age of seventeen, to attend the University of Texas and majored in aerospace engineering and later, business marketing. He withdrew from school one semester short of a degree after his business school dean denied him project credit for an advertising agency, Directions Company, he had started on the side.[ citation needed ]
Marketing music. As founder of Directions Company, [7] Michael focused on marketing music venues such as Castle Creek,Mother Earth, and the legendary Armadillo World Headquarters [8] (1971–1980), a famed venue that led the Music of Austin Texas to national prominence. The Armadillo became a springboard for the careers of celebrated musicians such as: Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Marcia Ball, Joe Ely, Jerry Jeff Walker, Bruce Springsteen, Shiva’s Headband, and many more.
Renewable Energy Business. Influenced by architect, inventor and philosopher, Buckminster Fuller , who believed in the importance of renewable energy , Osborne began to focus on the renewable energy business in the late 1970s by building passive solar homes and selling energy-saving wood stoves. In 1981 he developed the first wind energy project (consisting of five 25-kilowatt wind turbines ) that sold energy to an electric utility in Texas. in 1983, he signed on as the first distributor in Texas for Solarex, [9] a now-defunct maker of solar cells [10] used then as power sources for such things as ranch gates, railroad signals and other places where stringing power lines was difficult or expensive. In the 1990s he ran the Texas operations for Zond Energy, which is now part of GE Wind Energy , [11] the largest U.S. wind turbine maker. Throughout the 80s and 90s, Osborne documented and leased the wind resource for Texas wind fields. Many of his exploits are documented in the book, The Great Texas Wind Rush. [12]
In 1999, Osborne was awarded Patent No. US5961739A for his invention of the hemispheric moving focus power plant. [13]
Renewable Energy Policy. In 1984 Osborne co-founded the Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association (now Alliance) (TREIA) [1] with two partners and worked with other key individuals and organizations to bring the nascent renewable energy industry to the attention of policymakers on the state and federal level. Governor Ann Richards appointed him to the steering committees of the State of Texas Energy Policy Partnership and the Sustainable Energy Development Council followed by an appointment by Richards’ successor, George W. Bush to the Texas Energy Coordination Council.
In 2002, Osborne was commissioned by the City of Austin to write a white paper funded by a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Grant, to develop a Sustainable Energy Plan for the City. The white paper was published as the book, Silver In The Mine. [14] He was subsequently hired by the City to implement this sustainable energy plan as Director of Grants, Patents and R&D. Osborne served as Special Assistant to two Austin Energy General Managers and was charged with developing a vision for Austin which included a successful national campaign to get the automakers to support mass production of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
Upon leaving Austin Energy in 2014, Osborne served as Chairman of the City of Austin Electric Utility Commission [5] from 2014 to 2016 and currently serves as a member of that body. He was also appointed Chairman of the City of Austin Generation Resource Planning Task Force, [15] which resulted in an adopted generation plan [16] to bring Austin (the nation's 7th largest public power utility and the 11th largest city in America) to 55% renewable energy by 2025. [17] In April of 2018, Michael founded the Texas Electric Transportation Resources Alliance with Tom "Smitty" Smith. In October of 2019, Mayor Steve Adler appointed Michael to be the Special Envoy for the City of Austin to the C40 Conference on Climate Change in Copenhagen.
He lives in Austin with his longtime partner, Dana Sprute. [18]
Osborne is a published writer. His book, Lightland, [19] is a philosophical look at the human potential in light of the challenge of climate change. His book, Silver in the Mine, [20] is a long-term comprehensive energy plan for the City of Austin, Texas. His third is an allegory called Day of the Heart. [21] His most recent work is Beyond Light and Dark. [22]
Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include the production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reuse of energy that would otherwise be wasted. Energy conservation and efficiency measures reduce the demand for energy development, and can have benefits to society with improvements to environmental issues.
Austin Energy is a publicly owned utility providing electrical power to the city of Austin, Texas and surrounding areas. Established in 1895, the utility is a department of the City of Austin and returns its profits to the city's general fund to finance other city services. Austin Energy is the United States' 7th largest public utility, serving more than 500,000 customers and more than one million residents within a service area of approximately 437 square miles (1,130 km2), including Austin, Travis County and a small portion of Williamson County.
A Zero-Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero-Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels.
The Texas Interconnection is an alternating current (AC) power grid – a wide area synchronous grid – that covers most of the state of Texas. The grid is managed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT).
Energy planning has a number of different meanings, but the most common meaning of the term is the process of developing long-range policies to help guide the future of a local, national, regional or even the global energy system. Energy planning is often conducted within governmental organizations but may also be carried out by large energy companies such as electric utilities or oil and gas producers. These oil and gas producers release greenhouse gas emissions. Energy planning may be carried out with input from different stakeholders drawn from government agencies, local utilities, academia and other interest groups.
Renewable energy in Australia is mainly based on biomass, solar, wind, and hydro generation. Over a third of electricity is generated from renewables, and is increasing, with a target to phase out coal power before 2040. Wind energy and rooftop solar have particularly grown since 2010. The growth has been stimulated by government energy policy in order to limit the rate of climate change in Australia that has been brought about by the use of fossil fuels. Pros and cons of various types of renewable energy are being investigated, and more recently there have been trials of green hydrogen and wave power.
Wind power in Texas, a portion of total energy in Texas, consists of over 150 wind farms, which together have a total nameplate capacity of over 30,000 MW. If Texas were a country, it would rank fifth in the world: The installed wind capacity in Texas exceeds installed wind capacity in all countries but China, the United States, Germany and India. Texas produces the most wind power of any U.S. state. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), wind power accounted for at least 15.7% of the electricity generated in Texas during 2017, as wind was 17.4% of electricity generated in ERCOT, which manages 90% of Texas's power. ERCOT set a new wind output record of nearly 19.7 GW at 7:19 pm Central Standard Time on Monday, January 21, 2019.
According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, renewable energy accounted for 8.4% of total primary energy production and 21% of total utility-scale electricity generation in the United States in 2022.
Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), also known as Community Choice Energy, municipal aggregation, governmental aggregation, electricity aggregation, and community aggregation, is an alternative to the investor-owned utility energy supply system in which local entities in the United States aggregate the buying power of individual customers within a defined jurisdiction in order to secure alternative energy supply contracts. The CCA chooses the power generation source on behalf of the consumers.
Green Mountain Energy is a United States company that sells green electricity products via renewable energy credits.
This page is an index of sustainability articles.
Solar power in Florida has been increasing, as the cost of solar power systems using photovoltaics (PV) has decreased in recent years. Florida has low electricity costs compared with other states, which makes individual solar investment less attractive. Florida ranks ninth nationally in solar resource strength according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and tenth in solar generation by the Solar Energy Industries Association.
Solar power in Texas, a portion of total energy in Texas, includes utility-scale solar power plants as well as local distributed generation, mostly from rooftop photovoltaics. The western portion of the state especially has abundant open land areas, with some of the greatest solar and wind potential in the country. Development activities there are also encouraged by relatively simple permitting and significant available transmission capacity.
Energy in California is a major area of the economy of California. California is the state with the largest population and the largest economy in the United States. It is second in energy consumption after Texas. As of 2018, per capita consumption was the fourth-lowest in the United States partially because of the mild climate and energy efficiency programs.
Most of Kenya's electricity is generated by renewable energy sources. Access to reliable, affordable, and sustainable energy is one of the 17 main goals of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Development of the energy sector is also critical to help Kenya achieve the goals in Kenya Vision 2030 to become a newly industrializing, middle-income country. With an installed power capacity of 2,819 MW, Kenya currently generates 826 MW hydroelectric power, 828 geothermal power, 749 MW thermal power, 331 MW wind power, and the rest from solar and biomass sources. Kenya is the largest geothermal energy producer in Africa and also has the largest wind farm on the continent. In March 2011, Kenya opened Africa's first carbon exchange to promote investments in renewable energy projects. Kenya has also been selected as a pilot country under the Scaling-Up Renewable Energy Programmes in Low Income Countries Programme to increase deployment of renewable energy solutions in low-income countries. Despite significant strides in renewable energy development, about a quarter of the Kenyan population still lacks access to electricity, necessitating policy changes to diversify the energy generation mix and promote public-private partnerships for financing renewable energy projects.
Conservation Services Group (CSG) is a nonprofit energy efficiency and renewable energy company that has provided program design and management services to energy efficiency program sponsors and energy professionals in the United States since 1984. CSG was bought by CLEAResult in July 2015.
Energy is a major component of the economy of Texas. The state is the nation's largest energy producer, producing twice as much energy as Florida, the state with the second-highest production. It is also the national leader in wind power generation, comprising about 28% of national wind powered electrical production in 2019. Wind power surpassed nuclear power production in the state in 2014. Since 2003, Texas state officials have created various initiatives like the Texas Enterprise Fund and the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to develop the economy of Texas.
The climate in Texas is changing partially due to global warming and rising trends in greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2016, most area of Texas had already warmed by 1.5 °F (0.83 °C) since the previous century because of greenhouse gas emissions by the United States and other countries. Texas is expected to experience a wide range of environmental impacts from climate change in the United States, including rising sea levels, more frequent extreme weather events, and increasing pressure on water resources.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location (link)