Clean energy makes society better. It’s affordable. It’s healthy. It creates good-paying jobs and choices for consumers. And that’s the truth. 

Increasingly, we’re seeing misinformation and disinformation about clean energy, originating from the fossil fuel industry. This is dangerous for our health and climate. So we’re speaking out in what we're calling our Truth to Power campaign.

From Truth to Power, you can look forward to a free webinar on April 29th plus a 3-part series released via this blog and our podcast, Consumers for Climate, covering these topics:

• The misinformation surrounding offshore wind,
• The truth about what is causing rising energy costs,
• And the myths about electric vehicles.

Here's a preview of each topic.

Offshore Wind

On the first day of his second term, Trump issued an Executive Order halting all permitting and lease sales for the technology. Nonetheless, offshore wind remains safe and imperative to not only meeting our climate goals, but ensuring energy independence, jobs, and local economic growth. Rhode Island and Massachusetts have been at the forefront of the US offshore wind industry.

The major myths surrounding offshore wind purport that it harms marine life (particularly whales), hurts fisheries, and costs more. The marine scientist community agrees that properly sited and constructed offshore wind does not pose a risk to marine life and actually helps preserve it by creating artificial reef habitat and reducing the need for fossil fuels, which have caused climate change and ocean acidification that kills marine life of all types. Artificial reefs help restore the fish population, creating healthy fisheries. And offshore wind has actually been shown to have a price suppression effect on rising electricity costs.

Read our recent blog to learn more: Watch Out For Disinformation About Offshore Wind

Rising Energy Costs

In both of our states, ratepayer-funded clean energy programs have provided billions of dollars in benefits to residents, as well as good-paying jobs. The existence of these programs benefits everyone financially – even folks who don’t take advantage of the program offerings directly – by decreasing overall costs. But we have been seeing misinformation surrounding such programs, blaming them for our high energy bills. This is not true.

Two factors have caused our total gas bills to spike: gas rates were increased on November 1st and this winter has had very cold weather that caused increased consumption. When we dissect the gas bill this winter we will find that the increased costs are coming mostly from the supply portion of the bill (the gas molecules themselves) and the cost of maintaining the gas infrastructure. According to Bruce Biewald, Chief Scientist at Synapse Energy Economics, "Today's annual gas consumption by residential customers in the Commonwealth would be about 13 percent higher but for the Mass Save gas efficiency investments made on behalf of these customers from 2010-2023."

In Rhode Island, the increase in the cost of clean energy programs was just 2.6% this year. Simple math shows that clean energy has been less than 8% of our total energy bill.

A podcast and a new blog post debunking rising energy costs disinformation will be released in May! However, check out these in the meantime:

Behold: Mass Save Will Deliver 13.6 Billion In Benefits Over Three Years

Watch For Gross Misinformation on Rhode Island's Clean Energy Costs

Electric Vehicles

EVs have been painted as a luxury item, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. Today's EVs come in all types and price ranges. Almost every car manufacturer is now making more than one model. Maintenance costs on EVs are far lower, and often, "fueling costs" (electricity) come out ahead of gas. Batteries are lasting longer than expected and the ability to reuse and recycle car batteries has improved dramatically in recent years.

A podcast and a new blog post on EV disinformation will be released in June!

Help us speak out for clean energy. Spread the word about Truth to Power. And tell us in the comments what energy myths you want us to debunk!