Coal still powers around one third of the world’s electricity and sustains millions of jobs. Yet, with the Paris Agreement in mind, ‘coal’ and ‘goal’ don’t go together well. For a net-zero transition, this fossil fuel shoul be phased out well before 2050. But practical experiences of ‘just transitions’—ensuring that workers and communities aren’t left behind—remain rare. Every promising case, however imperfect, becomes thus a precious source for lessons.

Worldwide rising prices of essential commodities – plainly put, food and energy- have made more evident the disproportionate vulnerability of poorer households in face of the socioecological crisis. An example: the extreme heat waves illustrate clearly the social inequalities derived from the -very unfortunate – combination of climate change and increasing electricity prices.

It is no secret that fossil fuels based energy should be that: a fossil from the past. Without entering here into the many economic, social, or technological obstacles for this to happen (ideally very very soon), we do say however that renewable energy cooperatives (REcoops) can be a key solution for the energy transition.

Renewable gases will be essential by 2050 to support the independence of territories from external energy supplies. Agricultural biomethanization, which transforms manure and slurry to produce methane gas, is a fairly widespread process in the world, particularly in Europe and the United States. It avoids emissions into the atmosphere while recovering the energy produced by the decomposition of organic matter.

We love this initiative by Ryan Poh (click-through for a great series of images of his work)! He founded High Desert Off Grid, a one-man company through which he sells batteries to replace gas-powered generators in RVs (Recreational Vehicles).