Facilitating dialogue to promote open and multi-faceted discussion and awareness

In Italy, a country more known for it’s garbage than it’s environmental citizenship; a place with electricity rates 3x higher than those in America; a nation repeatedly chastised by the European Union for failing to meet it’s mandated emissions-reduction target or it’s commitment to obtain 17% of it’s energy from renewable resources – a green revolution is occurring in villages sprawled across the Iberian Peninsula.

In northern Alpine counties, the focus is on hydroelectric power and agricultural waste burning. In the scorching south of the country, the focus is on solar power. In the poorer central mountainous regions, the focus is wind… and these small shifting economic projects are changing the fundamentals of renewable energy restructuring from pre-planned national projects to municipality-based initiatives.

With sky-high electricity rates and renewable energy sources becoming more aesthetically pleasing, cheaper, and efficient, small towns across Europe, and not just Italy are diving headfirst into green energy production strategies. Over 800 different communities throughout Italy are not only producing more energy than they consume, via green power plants, but, they are also able to sell their surplus energy back to the grid. This very lucrative enterprise is thanks to feed-in-tariffs that are all the rage across the EU these days. A feed-in-tariff is a government guarantee to buy renewable energy at a handsomely set price from any company, city, or household that produces it. A private entrepreneur could even go into business selling the energy from any green method. This, on top of constantly fluctuating and expensive fossil fuels cost has started a revolution in small communities throughout Europe.

Why has this green revolution not occurred in the Americas on such a scale? There are a few basic causes, fossil fuel-based energy is relatively cheap in the United States. Why rock the boat? Furthermore, government policy has favored setting much lower minimum standards for the percentage of energy produced from renewable sources rather than the EU’s direct incentive tariffs. Imagine if America offered a plan like our personal stimulus plan a few years back for installing solar panels on our rooftops?

Though, Italy still has much catching up to do, the scramble for establishing micro-scale renewable energy plans is spreading throughout Europe. Will America catch up or will we be left in the dust left by the winds of change?