Oregon: 100% Clean Power By 2040

A bill committing electricity providers to deliver 100% clean power to Oregon customers by 2040 passed both the House and Senate of the Oregon State Legislative Assembly on Saturday. If the policy is signed into law by Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon will become the eighth state in the United States with a legislative commitment to 100% clean or renewable electricity, joining Hawaii, California, Washington, New Mexico, New York, Maine and Virginia. With this act, Oregon will also boast the fastest timeline in the country to reach this goal. The bill’s passage follows years of advocacy from a broad coalition of stakeholders and organizations, including Environment Oregon, for a clean and renewable future for Oregon.

Well, 19 years is a long time, and Lord knows what could happen in the interim to force a huge change here, good or bad. A few points:

The price of renewables could fall to the point that the process could be greatly accelerated.

The development of affordable grid-scale energy storage will have the same effect.

If advanced nuclear ever gets developed and deployed, it will mean the immediate end for solar and wind.

As we’ve seen recently with the astonishing revelation that Exxon is aggressively and effectively stalling the transition to clean energy, the fossil fuel industry is clearly not giving up in its attempts to bake and poison our planet for profit.

As one of America’s governors said, “We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it.”

At this point, anything can happen.