MS December 2021 Media Brief Staff Picks

The artifacts that I contributed to the December 2021 media brief were found through weekly google news searches using the following keywords: ““Philadelphia energy”, “energy assistance ``''Philadelphia climate change”.  I searched for “Philadelphia energy” and “Philadelphia Climate change” because I track energy-related news in Philadelphia for another one of my responsibilities as a researcher for the Energy Rights Project. Every few weeks I update “Philadelphia News You Can Use”, which is a PECE essay on energyrights.info which pulls together news reports and other media related to household energy in Philadelphia. From searching these keywords I found the artifact titled “Report explores a decarbonized future for PGW, cites its current structure and business model as challenges”. I was also familiar with PGW’s diversification study prior to this keyword search, and because the decarbonization of the largest municipal gas utility in the country is significant energy and climate change news in Philadelphia, our team decided that I would be the individual following this transition and uploading all relevant artifacts relating to it. The diversification study outlines a number of challenges facing the city and PGW for its decarbonized future, including the complicated regulatory structure governing the utility, ensuring protections for Philadelphia’s low-income population, and supporting PGW’s aging natural gas infrastructure. Personally, I'm interested in seeing how the diversification study engaged with PGW employees and how their perspectives are represented in this report.