Expanding Clean Energy & Infrastructure
Seattle has long been a bastion of environmental stewardship and green energy. That said, Seattle still emits over 3 million metric tons of pollution annually. As the world transitions increasingly towards clean energy, it is up to us to keep innovating and trailblazing. Seattle needs to invest in reliable and cost-effective carbon neutral energy infrastructure to fuel the city’s civic and economic development for centuries to come. This means continuing to decrease carbon emissions and continuing to progressively make our city more environmentally friendly. More specifically, Cooper will focus Seattle’s progress on this front towards the following initiatives:
Invest in Alternative Energy
Sources:
We should invest in creating our own energy as a city and make Seattle not just the first fully carbon neutral city, but the first carbon negative city. To do this, Seattle should consider the various alternative energy sources it could create and harness including hydroelectric, solar, nuclear, and wind. While some of these are more feasible and environmentally beneficial than others, experimenting with all of them and deducing the right equilibrium between them is what we need to do. In addition to reducing emissions, producing our own energy would incentivize businesses to return to Seattle, eliminate the city’s budget deficit over time, and create a surplus of green energy that could even be exported from the city for more revenue.
Reduce
Energy Costs:
The average Seattleite pays over $2,000 annually for electricity, not including other utilities. While this isn’t a comparatively bad price tag to many other places, it is still very expensive for the majority of Seattleites trying to get by, and it doesn’t have to be. In creating our own energy infrastructure and generating power through alternative energy sources, we could significantly cut the cost of energy for the city. Producing more of something lowers the cost. Furthermore, many tech companies find themselves paying upwards of $50,000 annually for electricity costs, and even more in other locations. Offering energy for less, with chronic shortages in other cities, will bring in more businesses and more jobs from industries that match Seattle’s priorities and direction, while ultimately bringing in more tax revenue as well.
Replace Crumbling Infrastructure:
Much of Seattle’s infrastructure is old and crumbling. All one has to do is go on a walk or drive for a few blocks to hit a pothole or a sidewalk that is jutting out of place. While there are many new public works projects being pursued, we also need to prioritize fixing our existing infrastructure, which is in decline and was constructed in such a way as to contribute to further climate deterioration. Poor infrastructure yields higher vehicle emissions, absorbs heat, artificially and problematically raises city temperatures up to 7 degrees Fahrenheit, and corrodes into the water in many cases denigrating the water quality and hurting wildlife.