 Welcome everyone, thank you for coming to our second community conversations with Sierra Club main chapter. We are live on Facebook and we are recording this and we will post it on our website afterwards. So this really started as a way to help us all get through Coronavirus and it was started by our volunteer leaders which is the heart of Sierra Club as a grassroots organization and I'll let introduce one of our executive committee members who will introduce our speaker David Gibson and right before that just a quick overview of some logistics as we have quite a few people on this call and via Facebook for the first time so this is kind of an experiment with the Facebook side but David will give the presentation and then there will be time for discussion that's what we hope in these talks. The best way to do that with larger group has been the chat bar so you see the chat icon on the bottom of your screen and you click on that you'll be able to see everyone's questions and you'll be able to type a question if you have one. That really is the best way there are other ways you can raise your hand but it's a little challenging to see everyone at once. So I encourage you to use the chat bar and we'll do our best to get through as many questions as possible by eight o'clock and then if there is a little extra time David might be able to take some questions from people and for you know five or ten minutes after that and we will do our best to get through all your questions because this is a really interesting topic and I will introduce John Brodigam. Thank you very much Matt and welcome everybody to another in our series community kitchen table conversations in this time of social distancing it's ever been more important to continue to connect and to find ways to collaborate together to do the things that we're passionate about all of us and tonight is no exception to that. This is another series another series of informative timely discussions where we'll have a presentation from somebody I think you're going to find is truly an expert and then there'll be an opportunity for questions afterwards. David Gibson is a member of the Sierra Club Executive Committee and the energy team all volunteer groups as you know and we welcome your interest and encourage your engagement with us if you are interested in volunteer opportunities. We have things going on all the time at the state and local level in a variety of areas and we are there's a lot of fun and a lot of rewarding opportunities to engage with the chapter so we encourage you to connect with us. If you have an interest and you haven't done so already I see many people on the call already have. David's going to speak about financing. Financing some of our solutions to the climate crisis I think David is very persuasive that the biggest barrier to the implementation of clean energy projects and other climate solutions is the upfront cost that people struggle with. People of all income struggle with it but particularly people of modest family incomes find some of these solutions out of reach. David brings a great deal of experience to this work over a decade of experience implementing climate solutions. Part of that time out west for five years he led the development of viral solutions project recharge which is a training program for middle and high school students to learn how to make their homes and schools more efficient. From 2014 to 2016 he implemented efficiency programs statewide in Nevada for the governor's office of energy where he helped create the heroes program for low income seniors and he also developed over 50 million dollars in self-funding performance contracting projects for public buildings. David's a resident of moral he designed solar and heat pump systems for revision energy where he's helping residents across the state to transition away from fossil fuels so I'm really delighted to have David Gibson with us here today and with that I'll turn it over to David. All right great thanks John I'm going to share my screen here can everyone see my screen now yes yes okay perfect yeah so um so this is this is my house in moral and it was built in 1828 so it's a post and beam farmhouse and we've transitioned it entirely off of fossil fuels so we heat with heat pumps we have a heat pump water heater a very efficient hot water heater and we have not turned on our oil boiler in more than two years now and so we have a wood stove for backup but the heat pumps provide all of our heat and the solar array does not quite offset all of our electricity we're not quite to net zero energy but we are entirely off of fossil fuels in terms of consumption on on the site and to me that's something that can happen in every home and to address the climate crisis needs to happen in every single home across the state and so um we'll we'll talk about that and how we can make that happen tonight I want to start with a land acknowledgement um as as you all know we are on stolen land and in these times in particular the indigenous people are being hit especially hard by the pandemic and in most cases have fewer resources and less support I'd encourage any of you who are able to make a donation either to your local Native American tribe or to an organization I know there's different organizations in the Navajo Nation where they've had some of the worst COVID-19 cases as well as there's local organizations like the Wabanaki Health and Wellness and just in these times for those of us who are able I think it's really important to help support those who have been here and cared for the land for generations and generations before us so I studied civil and environmental engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and worked in construction management for three years before moving to Reno, Nevada I quit my job in construction management to become an AmeriCorps volunteer with a non-profit in Reno called EnviroLution which was started by a couple of friends of mine and we developed curriculum and led in-school education and teaching middle school and high school students about efficiency and clean energy and had homework assignments for them to take steps in their own homes as well as using the school as a learning laboratory and assessing how the schools could become more efficient and before I left the non-profit they they we wrote a successful National Science Foundation grant and so they were awarded 1.2 million dollars to continue and expand the program after I left so they're now working with over a hundred teachers in 35 different schools in northern Nevada and northern California and I've led some trainings with different teachers at different points but I would love to bring that curriculum to Maine it's it's the same thing every home needs the same steps and buildings all use energy in the same types of ways so if any of you are teachers or engage in education I'd be happy to share resources on that front and as John mentioned I work for a revision energy and design solar and heat pump systems here in Maine and I've transitioned two houses entirely off of fossil fuels our current home and moral as well as our previous home out in Reno and in Reno I made a video showing how we transition to 100 clean energy at the website they're powered by sunshine.org so there's a nice 12-minute documentary if you want to check that out and so in the decade plus that I spent in the clean energy industry the biggest barrier that I found is the upfront cost most families don't have $10,000 in savings to do an efficiency retrofit of their home or have 20 or $30,000 to invest in solar on their home and so if you don't have the upfront cost you're looking at either taking out a home equity loan but if you don't have the equity in your house and that's not an option and then there's so many people that have poor credit and and are shut out of the lending markets because their credit scores are too low and so it's really important to create financing programs that are available to everyone throughout the state and aren't limited just to those with with other means as well and I wanted to mention here the impacts on low-income households are particularly harsh because if the average family is spending $3,500 a year low-income households are least likely or least able to afford the cost of energy retrofits for their home so they're more likely to have higher energy usage and higher energy costs and on top of that if they if the average is $3,500 for residential household energy each year in Maine $3,500 is a much bigger percentage of your income if you're making 10 or 20 grand a year versus someone who's making 80 or 100 grand a year that $3,500 is a much smaller portion of their income so they're more likely to be living in less efficient houses have the least ability to pay for these improvements and their energy costs are a much higher portion of their of their income so it's really important to focus on how we can make the clean energy transition work for low-income households and people in poverty there are a lot of existing funding programs in Maine already efficiency Maine has great residential rebates as well as loans up to 15 grand for efficiency projects the finance authority of Maine does a lot of commercial programs providing direct loans and credit enhancements and they underwrite loans but only in the commercial market they have a restriction that they can't work with with residential projects CEI coastal enterprises does a lot of work with multifamily residential and they they provide business loans as well as well as power purchase agreements for municipalities and so those three organizations do a great job and have a lot of have a lot of different lending programs and rebates available that are that are beneficial for for clean energy the federal housing authority offers energy efficient mortgages which allow you to finance the upfront cost of efficiency improvements into your into your mortgage when you buy or refinance a house they also offer a solar loan that allows you to finance the upfront cost of solar into your mortgage as well and I I led some training programs out in Reno with the Reno Sparks Association of Realtors and local lenders training the the lenders and the realtors about these FHA programs because essentially no one knows that energy efficient mortgages exist and there's no better time to finance efficiency and clean energy than into the purchase price of your home where you are getting the best interest rate that you'll probably ever you know ever see as well as paying it off over a 30 year time period rather than a shorter loan through through the private market and I've I've had some conversations with realtors in Portland and we were not able to identify a single mortgage lender in the state of Maine that offers the FHA energy efficient mortgages or solar loans and their FHA programs available nationally and and to me that's that's a huge opportunity here in the state to increase funding options most of the local banks bank or savings bank Norway savings bank all of our all of our local banks and credit unions the ones that offer home mortgages you have the option to refinance your your home and or take out a home equity line of credit and so those are other ways to finance efficiency or clean energy projects and then the final option is a personal loan which is typically unsecured and and often has a higher interest rate of 10 or 12 percent which which often makes it cost prohibitive if you can finance at two three four five percent usually the energy improvements will pay for themselves and reduce your monthly costs but if you've got to finance at a much higher interest rate then usually your monthly payment ends up being more which for many people is still very doable there's also other other financing options there's third party solar loans for instance at revision we work with an organization called mosaic and they were established specifically for financing solar and they're they're a b-corp like we are a benefits corporation focused on the triple bottom line rather than just profits and so they're a great company to work with but they have a lot of the same issues that that other lenders do that we see high credit requirements that exclude a lot of households and and other lending requirements are often often prohibitive so there's and then and then for towns and school districts there's the option of energy saving performance contracting which is one of the programs that I led in Nevada and funds the upfront cost of efficiency or clean energy improvements for public buildings which are then repaid through guaranteed energy savings over the life of the project and so that's a third party source of funding that is available for for those types of municipal projects and so then in terms of funding gaps in the state I've already mentioned that we don't have bank or savings bank does do a lot of financing for commercial projects but at this point they don't have a residential solar loan or residential offerings for clean energy and I'm not aware of another local bank in the state that has solar or or energy efficiency loans available typically and this is this was certainly my experience in Nevada as well most banks look at financing efficiency in solar the same way that they look at financing a car or a boat or an RV and and you have to have a certain amount of equity in your home or you have to have a certain credit score or you have to have a certain income level to meet their loan to income ratio but unlike a boat or an RV which lose most of their value the day you drive them off the lot a solar or efficiency project will pay for itself over time through the energy savings so it's a very different funding need that banks have not caught up with and so in Maine we need to have options for people with low credit or no credit and one option that a that a green bank typically offers is a loan loss reserve which is a pool of five or ten million dollars depending on the size of the program that is set up to pay for any defaults if the if the banks have any clean energy projects that default the loan loss reserve guarantees that they won't suffer more than a certain rate of default so they're on the hook for the first percent or you know whatever whatever the numbers work out to and then the loan loss reserve picks up the rest and that reduces risks for the banks and the credit unions which encourages them to participate in the clean energy market as well as reduces their interest rate because a lot of a lot of the the reason for interest is to help offset for losses when people default on loans and so if there's less risk then you can have a lower interest rate on the commercial side there there needs we need more funding options for small businesses usually larger businesses have the ability to finance independently and we need a commercial property assessed clean energy program in Maine and there was a bill that would have created commercial pace this year but with the the session ending prematurely due to the virus that that bill was not passed out of the legislature and then and then outside of efficiency and clean energy we're going to need financing for electric vehicles and for the charging infrastructure resiliency projects in terms of climate change and climate solutions helping to fund regenerative farming and forestry and potentially broadband as well we know that broadband is a tremendous need in the state and so these are all funding gaps that a green bank could help to fill and I helped I worked with representative Ziegler a year and a half or so ago who represents moral and liberty both where I live and where I work and I worked with him to draft LD 1634 which which would create a statewide clean energy fund and I use the term clean energy fund and green bank interchangeably just so that you're all aware green bank tends to be the more common term but the word bank is actually highly regulated and so the main bankers association and other groups we don't want us to use the word green bank just because we are not a bank as it's defined in the law but I'll use those terms interchangeably and so a green bank just broadly is a is a public or nonprofit institution that invests public funding to encourage investment in clean energy and there's a big difference between providing investments and offering rebates or grants most of efficiency mains funding provides rebates for projects but if you've got a thousand dollar rebate for a five thousand dollar heat pump system you still have to be able to afford the other thousand dollars of that and but if you're offered a low interest loan then you have the ability to to finance the entire project and and the great thing about making investments in financing projects rather than giving out grants is that the money recycles and you can use it over and over again as the first person pays back their loan you then have more money to invest in other projects and so green banks often have programs like commercial property assessed clean energy they often create loan loss reserves to encourage other local banks and financial institutions to participate they offer credit enhancements and depending on the market whether it's low income residential or commercial properties that can take some different forms but essentially helping boost someone's credit score to the point that that they can borrow through a program and then they also warehouse loans where they lump together hundreds or thousands of different projects and resell those which brings new money into the system to be able to to make those small loans again and so and so lumping them together and reselling them to to another organization in the in the private market and the Connecticut Green Bank is the best example of a green bank in the in the United States they were created in 2011 and have had tremendous impacts just in the last year the Connecticut Green Bank invested 40 million dollars in public capital and they leveraged that almost nine to one so they they brought in 312 million dollars in private investments through the various funding programs and and and projects that they have there's different ways that they leverage that capital and so and so their 40 million dollars turned into more than 350 million dollars in project investments last year alone and one of the one of the really important things about green banks is that they're all about crowding in the outside funding it's not we're going to finance this project and keep your hands off it it's they're trying to actively bring other local banks and lenders into the fold and help them to to cover these types of projects it's all about increasing the playing field and and making more people able to participate and so the Connecticut Green Bank through the projects that they financed last year they generated almost 18 million dollars in state tax revenues and so creating programs creating projects creating investments is then is in recycling that into the community and helping to to pay taxes they created 3300 jobs and that they're the Connecticut Green Bank funded 7600 residential solar installations last year and so to put that in perspective in main last year revision energy installed 530 solar residential solar installations so the Connecticut Green Bank financed more than 10 times as much as the largest solar installer in the state of main installed last year so just an incredible scale that the green bank brings to the table and and provides the funding to to make happen so there will be a tremendous boost to the solar and and clean energy industries having having this type of funding available and one of the things that's really amazing about the Connecticut Green Bank is for their residential solar programs one of their primary programs is targeted specifically towards low income households so trying to make sure that those with the lowest means are able to participate in the programs and they even have one that's focused on communities of color and disadvantaged communities and trying to make sure that they're including including those those groups and so those are the types of things that a green bank can once you have the funding available they can target programs as needed to help overcome the the barriers and the hurdles in the in the marketplace and so last year they installed 73 megawatts of clean energy mostly solar but they they installed some wind and hydro and some other small projects as well and that put them over their state goal of 350 megawatts of clean energy installation I think over the last five years and and so they're now looking at increasing their goal for clean energy in the state because they've hit it so so quickly and the projects that were installed last year in Connecticut funded by the green bank will offset almost 1.2 million tons of carbon dioxide so there's a huge climate benefit to to a green bank and the programs that they do the green bank also does a lot of market development advertising outreach consumer helping direct consumers towards the right contractor and certainly there's overlap with efficiency main and efficiency main and the green bank would need to you know be closely affiliated and and work together to to maximize the benefits and share you know the resources that that each have available one of the big things things that a green bank does as they as they as they bring different banks in and they offer a loan loss reserve or other incentives to the banks to participate they can help standardize all the forms and lending requirements so that as a consumer you're getting the same paperwork regardless of which contractor or which bank you're you're dealing with so it just streamlines things and makes it much easier to get through the whole process they can create a project tracking database and especially in a state like Maine with so many rural areas it would be really beneficial to keep track of where where efficiency and solar projects are taking place to be able to target communities with the with the most need and have geographically targeted programs in the future they can do job training and contractor certification to to ensure quality control and then helping to develop project pipelines bringing in you know customer development and being able to provide leads out to different companies you know as as customers come in looking for a loan and haven't lined up a contractor yet or those types of things and so in terms of creating a green bank in Maine the the biggest question is well where does the money come from and so the the bill that we introduced in the legislature called for a hundred million dollars in bond funding and in Maine there's limited bonding capacity and so that's probably unrealistic and and the green bank might be able to get a few million dollars in bond funding but it's it's very unlikely to be able to pull in that sort of funding up front the the Maine public employee retirement system could invest into a green bank and they have over a billion dollars invested in fossil fuels so it's a huge opportunity to divest our retirement system from the fossil fuels and reinvest into clean energy project directly in the state the the there's a federal bill in congress to create a national climate bank which would have funding that could be provided to state level green banks they could be funded through a credit enhancement where the state can provide bonding authority to the green bank or they can receive non-profit or foundation grants and then and then the less likely end of the spectrum the Maine general fund the state budget I'm sure is going to be very very restricted for the next few years with the pandemic going on so that is probably not an option and the Connecticut green bank gives some funding through the the the regional greenhouse gas initiative or REGI and most of the REGI funds in Maine are going towards efficiency Maine and funding their programs so again probably not a good source of funding because we don't want to pull from efficiency Maine we we want to create new funds within the within the clean energy sector and so in terms of divesting and reinvesting Maine PERS I actually led a webinar on this for Earth Day but they have over a billion dollars invested in fossil fuels as of December 31st and sadly I think that's probably dropped by 30 or 40 percent so far this year just because the the fossil fuel industry has been hit hardest by the the market recession and in my mind Maine PERS should not have any fossil fuel investments I went into a lot of detail on that in my previous webinar but it's funding climate change it's funding fossil fuels and all of those companies are based out of Maine so that's all investments that are leaving the state reinvesting that through the Maine clean energy fund would keep those funds in the state circulating in Maine creating local tax revenue and creating local jobs so it could have a much greater impact in addition to returning interest and and increasing the retirement fund for for the retirees of Maine and there's potential for for those funds to be invested directly into the local homes and businesses the concern is that to require Maine PERS to divest from fossil fuels will probably need a constitutional amendment to the Maine Constitution so it's a little bit more it's a bit it's certainly a bigger push to achieve that than than doing something that just requires legislation and the governor's signature because the constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds majority my understanding and so then the the federal green bank um the the bill has been introduced both in the house and the senate um and i've got the bill numbers there i i'd highly encourage you all to reach out to our senators and our representatives and encourage them to support these bills um and there's discussion of having this be included in one of the next bailouts um it seems likely that there's going to be another federal bailout and um there's a big push to try to include this in that and make sure that if we're funding an economic recovery that they're specifically funding for solar and clean energy and creating a green jobs throughout the country um and so the idea with the federal green bank is that it'll be capitalized with 35 billion dollars and over the next 30 years they'll be able to leverage a trillion dollars in private capital to have over a trillion dollars in total investments over the next 30 years um in clean energy and climate recovery projects um and so that could be one of the biggest things um to actually move forward and and fund the solutions that we that we need throughout the country um and then i there's additional resources the Connecticut Green Bank has a very um accessible website um it's not there's not a lot of really technical difficult to digest information i've i've reviewed their annual report each of the last few years and it's just fantastic it's a great summary of some of the impacts that they've had and uh and i use that for some of the information that i included in the presentation tonight um the coalition for green capital um we worked closely with them in Nevada they provided uh they actually conducted in Nevada we passed the green bank in two stages first we passed a study and then and then took up the study in the interim between legislative sessions and then came back in the subsequent session and and passed the green bank and the coalition for green capital led the green bank study that we did in Nevada and so i worked closely with Jeff Shubb on on that and and then replicated the uh the legislation that we passed in Nevada for for the bill that we um that we introduced in Maine and clearly with the session ended prematurely the the green bank wasn't created this year um but i would love to see it become a priority for the governor in terms of an economic recovery in the state and this seems like something that if there's an emergency session or a special session to address the the pandemic to me that would be a great opportunity to include a statewide green bank to fund fund the solutions and help to create jobs in inefficiency and clean energy throughout the state um and i see a question um for the bill numbers and so i'll just type those in the chat box and um that that is my presentation um and so we can transition to questions i think great thank you david yeah um keep posting questions in the chat um we have david here for about another 20 minutes or so we're going to do our best to also get questions off facebook if there are any um but yeah we'll we'll prioritize the ones in the chat and then see where we get we will end at eight the formal presentation but if there are extra questions david has said he has a couple extra minutes um and we can have that discussion then so with that yeah um are there any questions or comments david do you uh do you see the chat or i'll yeah okay um can read it out love the so the question do you want to read it and i'll answer um sure yeah however you want to do it but just so everyone can hear um would the green bank be able to fund very large projects um yeah no that's a really interesting question um internationally there's about a dozen countries that have green banks um and the uk green investment bank funded some of the largest offshore wind projects in the world off the coast of scotland um and so there's definitely the potential for the green bank to fund large large scale projects and offshore wind and those types of things as well great um yeah there's okay great yeah people are people are asking now okay how do you compare the difference between connecticut's wealth and population to main's um so um it's been a while since i looked at it but i think that connecticut has about three or four times more people than main does so about three or four times more households and businesses and all that sort of thing um and so to me the the important thing isn't the per capita size of it it's it's the overall funding size and um if connecticut's putting 40 million dollars a year into their green bank programs main could have the equal impact and and fund at the same level and really the more funding that can go into it you know within within reason the better because climate change i mean um it's going to cost 40 to 50 billion dollars or more to transition just the state of main to 100 clean energy um and so we need massive investments um and you know if if 7600 solar installations are done in main each year that's just a greater portion of the of the total homes in the state um i don't see any any limits due to our due to our population um or the or the wealth um in in our state great question becky thank you for that um susan asks how can organizations like the sierra club help to promote the green bank initiative and i know david i'm sure you'll tell us at the end how we can all help but um yeah how can the sierra club help um so the the sierra club uh can help by they they have a lobbyist typically at the legislature and so specifically supporting the legislation and lobbying and talking with legislators to encourage them to support the bill um the sierra club can actually we had a conversation earlier today with dan burges the director of the governor's office of energy um that the sierra club set up um on this topic and the consumer-owned utility um and so the the sierra club has great resources and a fantastic network of volunteers um and and so being able to lobby at the legislature or with the governor and and make it happen great thank you um greea asks please speak to the reception the bill received in the last main legislative session yeah um the the bill it only was only introduced in committee um and it was a it was a complicated bill and took a while to get out of the revisor's office um and so we had a very short window in the in the last session in 2019 we had a very short window i think i think we had the bill out of the revisor's office three days before it was introduced in committee um and so typically you want to have the final bill to go and talk to people about and here's the language and and um and so it was just very very rushed um last year and um but the the committee was generally supportive but decided to roll it forward to this year because there were concerns about um again the revisor's office made some edits to the bill um that created its own board of directors but also assigned it to work underneath Efficiency Main who has their own board of directors and so things like that that need to be worked out so that Efficiency Main wouldn't be reporting to two different boards of directors one for the green bank and one also for everything that they do um and so they rolled the bill forward to this year um and it was introduced in committee um this year because of the ongoing work of the climate council the energy utilities and technology committee um decided to make it into a resolve and assign the climate council to investigate financing solutions and the green bank further um in their work um statewide um and so it wasn't created and you know we we didn't have uh you know the whole thing put into place um but there's certainly steps forward and and positive action and we had some really good reception from the um from the legislators on the energy utilities technology committee okay um peter asks how does david silkman's um i think it's richard silkman uh analysis cover the concept of a green bank and i assume talking about um dr silkman the economist who wrote a report on a vision for a zero carbon economy yeah and um i haven't read all of richard silkman's report yet uh but i i've been to a couple presentations that he's given and i and i've read parts of it um and his his solution looks at how main can transition to 100 clean energy across all sectors including transportation by 2050 um and it's the most in-depth economic analysis that's ever been done of that in the state of main um and probably one of the best in the country and his analysis doesn't specifically at least from from what i've seen of it it doesn't specifically identify how things will be funded um but he does make assumptions in terms of interest rates and um the cost of capital to implement the projects and one of the big things that that he found is it's only possible like financially it's only possible to transition to 100 clean energy statewide if we can finance at a 3 interest rate if if the transition to 100 clean energy is is paid for through utilities that are getting 12 or 13 guaranteed profits and so finance at 12 or 13 rather than at 3 it will literally cost twice as much to transition main to 100 clean energy over the next 30 years and it makes it cost prohibitive um within his analysis he found that we can transition to 100 clean energy spending the same amount that we're currently spending over that time period um so transitioning from paying for heating oil imported from out of state to paying for the the loan on a heat pump system and those types of things um but his his analysis was based on financing at 3 interest which is something that i think i mean it depends on the specific program but the green bank should be able to make possible um but i would not see the green bank funding the entire transition to clean energy in the state um but it would certainly be one piece of the pie and and helping to fill some of the some of the needs that don't exist in other market sectors thanks david thank you peter for that question um what is another question what about the establishment of a public bank in maine i assume a general public bank yeah um and so um i've been involved on the on the edges on the periphery um i know some people that are very keen to create a state statewide public bank um looking at the state of north dakota is the only state with a with a statewide bank that is a public bank and um and there's a lot of benefits to to doing that um but it's an entirely different topic like there are two separate things the green bank um and and really that's why the term clean energy fund is is kind of where things are transitioning to um because the green bank is not a bank and cannot um perform the same types of financial transactions that that a typical bank can um and a public bank would not necessarily be investing in in clean energy projects um and so i think it's a great idea but it is uh at this point entirely separate from creating a public bank versus creating a green bank yeah that's really interesting um so last asks does the main climate council have a position on green banks it's very timely the climate council's working groups are putting together their recommendations right now yes um and the the green bank has been proposed in at least two of the working groups um it's been proposed in both the energy working group and the the building's infrastructure and housing working group um and i have not been able to participate in all of the climate council's workings um but one of the things that that i that i do know is that the energy working group has created a subgroup focused on financing and um and that actually came up in our conversation with the governor's office of energy today um and i'm planning to get more involved with that group um but at this point i think that the climate council is primarily focused on um the solutions kind of the brick and mortar type solutions of different projects and programs um and i think that the financing piece of it will probably come after um but but it's definitely part of the discussion and a green bank is is part of the discussion in multiple working groups of the of the climate council okay yeah um i looks like we might have caught up to the questions in the chat we have another couple minutes here if anyone has any other questions then we'll kind of learn how to get more involved in this and then um yeah if we do have some extra time it seems like a small enough group where we could ask a couple other questions off offline as well but um are there any other from facebook or anyone else with questions or or additional comments yeah someone did ask ye about the link yes i will post this um to our community conversations page which i'll put the link to in the chat and i also have put a couple other links to things that popped up including dr siltman's report um maybe we could send an email out to the people who've registered with those links so they have them directly matt yes we will do one email with all these as well um but i'll put the link to our website on the community conversations page where you can view all these videos and see upcoming schedules for the next ones um looks like another question here does the industry have the capacity and workforce to ramp up to deliver this amount of distributed renewable generation in main from john um at this point no the industry does not have the capacity to to install this amount of of energy infrastructure and that's why we need whole whole a holistic approach we need training programs we're going to need to train thousands of new um workers in the clean energy industry um depending on depending on the state and and i haven't done this analysis in main i mean but we're going to be looking at 10 to 50 thousand people getting into the clean energy sector and into um other climate solutions if if we're going to achieve 100 clean energy by 2050 if we're going to achieve the governor's climate goals there's going to be a massive retooling of of the marketplace and at this point it would take a couple hundred years for our current solar installers to install the amount of solar that we need to install in the next 30 years and so there's there's certainly a lot of of training and workforce development that will be needed both on the clean energy side and and in other climate solutions all the regenerative agriculture and and carbon sequestration in the soil and those types of things is going to be a you know probably existing farmers and and some of the existing workforce but it's going to be a whole new generation of thinking for how major industries in the state work great thank you um um there's a couple questions about participation and um i i'll if i'd like to just skip those real quick and do one question before and then we can talk about how we can all participate and get involved um there's one question about the americor recovery energy efficiency proposal that you mentioned and whether it needs a green bank as well yeah so one one of the proposals that i introduced to the to the climate council and and someone else introduced a very similar proposal and so several of us have been collaborating on refining that and and working to narrow that down but would be to create an americor program that's a statewide clean energy core that has americor volunteers that are providing door-to-door outreach to households throughout the state i helped to create a similar program in nevada and we had americor members that directly well they couldn't directly install the led light bulbs because the state lawyers were so concerned about the risk of having the members turning in a light bulb and thought that was too risky an activity but we provided over 10 000 led light bulbs to uh in low-income communities and thousands of low-flow shower heads as well as like the lowest hanging fruit for energy efficiency um and then the americor members were trained as as bpi energy auditors building performance institute energy auditors so they were uh trained as professionals in the field um and then distributing information on existing programs whether it's through the weatherization assistance program or or utility rebates or or otherwise um to help help those uh communities help people sign up for energy audits and home efficiency retrofits and and clean energy projects um and so the idea is that the the clean energy core would be a statewide um training and workforce development program that's also generating leads and and building support in the community so there's actually projects that need to be implemented and that was one of the big um drawbacks of the recovery act in 2009 that provided millions and millions of dollars across the country to fund weatherization technician training programs and energy auditor training programs but they'd have 50 or 100 people graduate um dependent i mean 10 or 20 or depending on the the state or the size of the program and and there wasn't work for them to do because there weren't households that were ready and able to pay for efficiency improvements and so thousands of people across the country were trained in energy auditing and weatherization um and then and then couldn't get jobs because there just wasn't the demand for for that type of work and so the green bank um is not necessary like those are two separate programs but the green bank then makes it easy for anyone to finance those solutions and so helps to provide another piece of the puzzle in terms of uh if an americorps member is talking to a low income household who you know spends four thousand dollars a year on heating oil but can't afford the the cost of the efficiency improvements that they need then the green bank can plug in as the the funding source to to bridge that gap and make that happen um and so they they can be very very closely integrated um but they can also operate as as separate independent programs really interesting yeah thank you for that sue and um the last two questions always the biggest ones what can we do how can we participate now that you've um got us educated and interested and you know we're all ready to make this happen um specifically what can citizens in main due to support the green bank especially those um who live in districts where there's no chance that our reps will support it um and so what's what's interesting to me is is i think that every representative should support this um because the green bank is the free market solution it's all about helping other banks to invest and and helping keep the the money flowing um in the in the marketplace and and helping to encourage and increase investment in in local jobs um it is not a handout to anyone um it's the green bank is making loans at two or three percent interest and uh and so really is the free market solution and so i really think that it helps bridge the gap that that exists in a lot of places um between the democrats and republicans in office um and and this really is the you know the free market solution to creating energy independence in the state of main um and right now statewide we spend four to five billion dollars a year importing fossil fuels from outside the state in the last decade fifty billion dollars left our state economy um to to bring in coal oil natural gas propane and you know electricity produced from fossil fuels um and so transitioning to a hundred percent clean energy is necessary to keep that money in our local economy and and keep keep our state afloat um we can't afford every decade to spend an entire year's gdp importing fossil fuels um it's you know downward spiral um for our state economy as long as we're importing fossil fuels and so we don't have any fossil fuel resources the only way that we as a state can be energy independent um is through clean energy um and the green bank is technology agnostic it can invest in any type of project um so you know it's not pitting the solar industry versus wind versus uh biomass uh we we need an all of the above uh a whole array of solutions if we're going to achieve a hundred percent clean energy both within main and and around the world um and so it's just so important to have um technology agnostic financing solutions that that can bring everyone to the table and help make sure that all the projects that need to happen can get funded okay so um reberda it looks like i don't know if you have reached out to your representative but um we can definitely i'll reach out to our representatives and um the climate council is going through their process we don't i don't know if you know david or anyone else quite how the working groups will take input but we do know that mid june in about a month there will be a public climate council meeting um so that might be a good opportunity for people to participate um the others to the editor is usually another good option any other thoughts on participating yeah um for anyone that wants to help get the public employee retirement system to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest that through the green bank into or or through other means into clean energy in main um as part of the webinar i led two weeks ago um we were encouraging people to write letters to the the board of directors for the public employee retirement system as well as to the governor to try to put that issue on the radar um and make sure that um a billion dollars of our retirement fund isn't paying for destruction of the planet and fossil fuel investments great um all right well we are just about a time here i'm just going to show um a slide that shows our next community conversation and uh just to reiterate a couple things you can do reach out to to me if you're interested in any of our volunteer teams we mentioned contacting our legislators i will send around to what we talked about tonight and all these links in one form uh many of them are in the chat box and next community conversation is Tuesday same time um with Meg Sheehan and Sandra Howard about the Hydro Quebec Megadams and the um corridor project so that will be really interesting Tuesday May 19th you can RSVP um on our community conversations page that's the same link just for all of you who are on this call um so you know you've already participated but it is helpful if you can RSVP and then we just learned today Tuesday June 2nd we'll have Steven Strong Solar Design Associates uh we'll have more on that very soon oh thank you everyone very much for taking some time with us this evening um these are going really well we're excited to keep you in these every couple weeks thank you to David Gibson and um all the other volunteer leaders at the Sierra Club and um I'm happy I don't know David if people do have a couple comments we can stop the recording and see if people are around but um I will stop the recording now officially it was on Facebook and um yeah thank you all