The Denton City Council will meet on Tuesday, December 15 for a 1pm Work Session followed by a 6:30pm Regular Session at 215 E. McKinney Street. Click here for a full agenda with backup material.
There are many important topics on the agenda, but one of the most consequential will be a public hearing on the proposed Renewable Denton Plan. And this community discussion is quite timely in light of the recently-ended climate change talks in Paris involving leaders from around the world.
In the lead-up to these talks, there was much reporting on how nations around the world compared in their pursuit of renewable sources of energy. Consider the following chart outlining both the goals and progress toward renewables of certain nations in a recent report by Bloomberg:
This article focused specifically on the renewable energy goals of countries in the EU:
It is important to put the Renewable Denton Plan – and some of the surrounding controversy by those who claim to want to tackle climate change – in this context. There is not a nation highlighted on these charts that will reach the goal Denton plans to reach in 2019 when we scale our already noteworthy 40% renewable energy portfolio to 70%. In our own country, the goal is 20% by 2020 and it doesn’t appear that we will reach that target. Norway can’t reach 70%, but Denton can.
To some, this is still unacceptable to the extent that the Renewable Denton Plan involves the creation of natural gas quick start generation plants housed here in the city of Denton. But for those who are concerned with reliance on fossil fuels and the emissions involved in generating electricity from them, the following facts are important:
- Denton’s current plan involves significant investment in fossil fuels to meet 60% of our energy needs, including coal and natural gas. The Renewable Denton Plan reduces that to 30% reliance on fossil fuels.
- Renewable Denton will use 37% less natural gas than our current plan. All the talk about how many gas wells it will take to power our quick start generating plants misses the crucial point that Renewable Denton requires a significantly smaller amount of natural gas to power our city.
- Renewable Denton assumes divestment from the Gibbons Creek coal generating power plant.
- Renewable Denton results in a 75% decrease in emissions created to power the city as compared to the current plan.
And the Renewable Denton Plan is able to do this while maintaining low rates and ensuring reliability to our customers.
This nation and this world is filled with cities and nations with all sorts of plans and goals as it relates to renewable energy. The city of Denton is one of the few among all of them that is consistently taking bold steps in the right direction. 40% in 2009. 70% by 2019. This is how you get to 100%.