raging

Leveraging State Clean Energy Funds for Economic Development


State clean energy funds (CEFs) have emerged as effective tools that states can use to accelerate the development of energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. These clean energy funds, which exist in over 20 states, generate about $500 million per year in dedicated support from utility surcharges and other sources, making them significant public investors in thousands of clean energy projects.

However, state clean energy funds’ emphasis on a project finance model—which directly promotes clean energy project installation by providing production incentives and grants/rebates—is by itself not enough to build a statewide clean energy industry. State clean energy funds also need to pay attention to other critical aspects of building a robust clean energy industry, including cleantech innovation support through research and development funding, financial support for early-stage cleantech companies and emerging technologies, and various other industry development efforts.

As it happens, some of these state clean energy funds are already supporting a broader range of clean energy-related economic development activities within their states. As more and more states reorient their clean energy funds from a project finance-only model in order to encompass broader economic development activities, clean energy funds can collectively become an important national driver for economic growth.

To become true economic development engines in clean energy state clean energy funds should:

  • Reorient a significant portion of their funding toward clean energy-related economic development
  • Develop detailed state-specific clean energy market data
  • Link clean energy funds with economic development entitites and other stakeholders in the emerging industry
  • Collaborate with other state, regional, and federal efforts to best leverage public and private dollars and learn from each other's experiences

Downloads

Authors

Image Source: © Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
      
 
 




raging

How Stella McCartney is encouraging people not to buy new clothes

With a renewed partnership between the fashion label and resale consigner The RealReal, McCartney is coaxing consumers into a circular economy.




raging

EPILEPSY FOUNDATION LAUNCHES “TALK ABOUT IT!” PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FEATURING ACTOR GREG GRUNBERG, ENCOURAGING AN OPEN DIALOGUE ABOUT EPILEPSY - Talk About It! PSA with Greg Grunberg

Talk About It! PSA with Greg Grunberg




raging

EPILEPSY FOUNDATION LAUNCHES “TALK ABOUT IT!” PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT FEATURING ACTOR GREG GRUNBERG, ENCOURAGING AN OPEN DIALOGUE ABOUT EPILEPSY - Talk About It! PSA with Greg Grunberg

Talk About It! PSA with Greg Grunberg




raging

US tweets support for Taiwan, enraging China

The United States tweeted its support for Taiwan’s participation in the United Nations Friday, provoking a sharp response from China expressing “strong indignation and firm opposition.”




raging

Leveraging React for Easy Image Management

React is a good tool when it comes to building flexible and reusable UI components. However, it’s “one of those libraries” that cannot handle all the tasks involved in building a full fleshed UI project. Other supporting tools - such as a recently announced React SDK from Cloudinary - are available to provide solutions that the React core cannot.

In such cases where media (images and videos) becomes a heavy task to handle, Cloudinary simplifies the process with the new React SDK. Let’s build and image library with Cloudinary and React using the Cloudinary’s React SDK.

Prerequisites

The only requirements for using Cloudinary in your existing React project are to install the React SDK and the upload widget. If you do not have an existing React project and want to try these examples, take the following steps:

1. Install Dependencies

We need a minimal amount of dependencies so we can focus on building a media library and not structuring a React app:

{
  "name": "img-library",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "watch": "webpack -d --watch",
    "build": "webpack",
    "serve": "serve ./public"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "MIT",
  "devDependencies": {
    "babel-core": "^6.18.2",
    "babel-loader": "^6.2.9",
    "babel-preset-es2015": "^6.18.0",
    "babel-preset-react": "^6.16.0",
    "serve": "^1.4.0",
    "webpack": "^1.14.0"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "axios": "^0.15.3",
    "cloudinary-react": "^1.0.1",
    "react": "^15.4.1",
    "react-dom": "^15.4.1"
  }
}

React (and React DOM) must be used since we are making a React app. The cloudinary-react dependency is Cloudinary’s React SDK, which we will soon see how it works. axios is a tool for making HTTP requests and, in our case, we will use it request images from the Cloudinary server.

# Install dependencies
npm install

2. Setup Webpack

Webpack is our build tool. Only minimal settings are required to have a build running and our React app compiling:

// ./webpack.config.js
var webpack = require('webpack');
var path = require('path');

var BUILD_DIR = path.resolve(__dirname, 'public');
var APP_DIR = path.resolve(__dirname, 'src');

var config = {
    entry: APP_DIR + '/index.jsx',
    output: {
        path: BUILD_DIR,
        filename: 'bundle.js'
    },
    module : {
        loaders : [
            {
                test : /.jsx?/,
                include : APP_DIR,
                loader : 'babel'
            }
        ]
    }
};

module.exports = config;

Basic configuration - an entry, output and loaders to handle the React .jsx files.

3. Entry Points

We need to create an entry point, as we specified in the Webpack configuration, and another entry point for the browser, which is an index.html file:

// ./src/index.jsx
import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';

class Main extends Component {
    render() {
        return (
           <div className="main">
               <h1>Scotchage</h1>
           </div>
        );
    }
}

render(<Main />, document.getElementById('container'));
<!-- ./public/index.html -->
<html>
<head>
    <!--Stylesheet-->
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
</head>
<body>
    <!--Container for React rendering-->
    <div id="container"></div>
    <!--Bundled file-->
    <script src="bundle.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

4. Create Cloudinary Account

You need a Cloudinary account to continue with these examples. Sign up for free and store your credentials safely as shown on the dashboard:

Uploading Images

Before using the React SDK to deliver images from the Cloudinary servers, let’s use the awesome Cloudinary upload widget to upload images. First, we need to add this widget to our index.html:

<!-- ./public/index.html -->
<html>
<head>
   . . .
</head>
<body>
    . . .
    <!-- UPLOAD WIDGET -->
    <script src="//widget.cloudinary.com/global/all.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
    <script src="bundle.js"></script>
</body>
</html>

Next, we create a button, attach an event to it and upload an image once the button is clicked:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';

class Main extends Component {

    uploadWidget() {
        cloudinary.openUploadWidget({ cloud_name: 'CLOUD_NAME', upload_preset: 'PRESET', tags:['xmas']},
            function(error, result) {
                console.log(result);
            });
    }
    render(){
        return (
            <div className="main">
                <h1>Galleria</h1>
                <div className="upload">
                    <button onClick={this.uploadWidget.bind(this)} className="upload-button">
                        Add Image
                    </button>
                </div>
            </div>

        );
    }
}

render(<Main />, document.getElementById('container'));

The uploadWidget member method is the handler invoked by the click event to handle our image upload by calling cloudinary.openUploadWidget. openUploadWidget takes a config object and the upload callback handler. The config object must have at least cloud_name and upload_preset properties with valid values. You can read more about Cloud Names and Upload Presets.

Delivering Images with SDK

The Cloudinary React SDK has three major components, Image, CloudinaryContext and Transformation:

  • Image: This component is responsible for the actual delivery of images. It takes the image ID and asks the server for this image. When the image is provided, it is also responsible for painting the image on the browser.
  • Transformation: This component is used to apply transformations to images delivered with Image.
  • CloudinaryContext: You can specify Cloudinary configuration for each image on the Image component. This can be tedious when you are dealing with multiple images. CloudinaryContext allows you to apply configuration to a group of Images.

Most times you would end up with a structure like this:

<CloudinaryContext>
    <Image>
        <Transformation />
        <Transformation />
    </Image>
    <Image>
        <Transformation />
    </Image>
</CloudinaryContext>

Back to our demo app, we can request an image from the Cloudinary server and display it with the following components:

import React, { Component } from 'react';
import axios from 'axios';
import { CloudinaryContext, Transformation, Image } from 'cloudinary-react';
import { render } from 'react-dom';

class Main extends Component {
    constructor(props) {
        super(props);
        this.state = {
            gallery: []
        }
    }
    componentDidMount() {
    // Request for images tagged xmas       
axios.get('http://res.cloudinary.com/christekh/image/list/xmas.json')
            .then(res => {
                console.log(res.data.resources);
                this.setState({gallery: res.data.resources});
            });
    }
    uploadWidget() {
       // . . .
    }
    render(){
        return (
            <div className="main">
                <h1>Galleria</h1>
                <div className="gallery">
                    <CloudinaryContext cloudName="CLOUDNAME">
                        {
                            this.state.gallery.map(data => {
                                return (
                                    <div className="responsive" key={data.public_id}>
                                        <div className="img">
                                            <a target="_blank" href={`http://res.cloudinary.com/christekh/image/upload/${data.public_id}.jpg`}>
                                                <Image publicId={data.public_id}>
                                                    <Transformation
                                                        crop="scale"
                                                        width="300"
                                                        height="200"
                                                        dpr="auto"
                                                        responsive_placeholder="blank"
                                                    />
                                                </Image>
                                            </a>
                                            <div className="desc">Created at {data.created_at}</div>
                                        </div>
                                    </div>
                                )
                            })
                        }
                    </CloudinaryContext>
                    <div className="clearfix"></div>
                </div>
            </div>

        );
    }
}

render(<Main />, document.getElementById('container'));

Take one more look at the upload code:

 cloudinary.openUploadWidget({ cloud_name: 'christekh', upload_preset: 'idcidr0h', tags:['xmas']},
            function(error, result) {
            . . .

Each image is tagged with xmas, which serves as a way to request images with this tag as a collection. This is exactly what we are using the axios library to do when the component mounts:

axios.get('http://res.cloudinary.com/CLOUDNAME/image/list/xmas.json')
            .then(res => {
                console.log(res.data.resources);
                this.setState({gallery: res.data.resources});
            });

axios uses promises, so whenever the promise resolves in our case, we have a payload of images. We take advantage of React state to update our UI with the fetched resources.

Down to rendering, we configure the CloudinaryContext with our cloud_name, iterate over the gallery state that stores the images and displays them using the Image component. We also apply few transformations using the Transformation component.

For security reasons, Cloudinary will not allow you to make such request from the client unless you tell it to. The best way to go is to use the admin API via a backend SDK and then send the resource list to the client.

Updating State with New Uploads

We are able to upload images and request for images to be displayed on the user’s browsers. Here is how we update the displayed images instantly when the user uploads a new image:

uploadWidget() {
        let _this = this;
        cloudinary.openUploadWidget({ cloud_name: 'CLOUDNAME', upload_preset: 'PRESET', tags:['xmas']},
            function(error, result) {
            // Update gallery state with newly uploaded image
                _this.setState({gallery: _this.state.gallery.concat(result)})
            });
    }

Rather than logging the uploaded image information to the console, we update the gallery state, which bears the list of requested images, by concatenating the uploaded result to the gallery.

Image Management Simplified

Image uploads, transformation and delivery has never been easier. These tasks have been a serious challenge for developers. Cloudinary has created a way to abstract all this hard work, enabling you to simply plug and play.




raging

Popular Gyms Threaten Health by Encouraging Tanning Beds

Popular gym chains across the country not only use persuasive post-holiday marketing campaigns, but they're also undermining public health warnings about the dangers of indoor tanning.




raging

Are you leveraging LinkedIn?

After a bunch of conversations with a few friends, I realized that everybody seems to be logging onto Facebook on a daily basis. For a few it could be on an hourly basis. But LinkedIn as a platform...




raging

Canada: Leveraging Training and Skills Development in SMEs - An analysis of two urban regions Montreal and Winnipeg

This paper looks at a study carried out among 80 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in two Canadian cities, Montréal and Winnipeg, based on a survey and case studies, which show the importance of innovation among Canadian SMEs. These innovations in turn create new demands for skill development, both through formal training and in informal activities.




raging

Working Paper: Leveraging the Smart Grid: The Effect of Real-Time Information on Consumer Decisions

This report reviews the literature on the impact of real-time information provision on consumer decision-making. In addition, it describes the results of a study in which about 7000 households in Ontario, Canada were provided with in-home displays linked to smart meters that provided real-time feedback on electricity consumption.




raging

OSAA-OECD high-level event on leveraging pension funds for financing infrastructure development in Africa

Addis Ababa - Part of the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, this event explored strategies to leverage Africa’s pension funds and other sources of private financing to develop Africa’s infrastructure. Ways to improve the investment climate in Africa using the recently updated Policy Framework for Investment were also be addressed.




raging

OSAA-OECD high-level event on leveraging pension funds for financing infrastructure development in Africa

Addis Ababa - Part of the 3rd International Conference on Financing for Development, this event explored strategies to leverage Africa’s pension funds and other sources of private financing to develop Africa’s infrastructure. Ways to improve the investment climate in Africa using the recently updated Policy Framework for Investment were also be addressed.




raging

Restoring the financial sector and corporate deleveraging in Slovenia

Excessive credit growth, poor risk assessment and lax lending standards in the run up to the 2008 global crisis led to unsustainable debt build-up in banks and related corporates.




raging

Leveraging R&D and innovation policies to foster productivity in Czech Republic

Productivity catch-up along with deeper integration into the global economy played a central role in the convergence of the Czech incomes toward OECD countries before the 2008 financial crisis.




raging

Deleveraging: challenges, progress and policies

In the run-up to the financial crisis, indebtedness of households and non-financial businesses rose to historically high levels in many OECD countries; gross debt of financial companies rose dramatically relative to GDP. Much of the debt accumulation appears to have been based on excessive risk-taking and exceptional macro-economic conditions and therefore not sustainable.




raging

Banks’ restructuring and smooth deleveraging of the private sector in Slovenia

Slovenia is facing the legacy of a boom-bust cycle that has been compounded by weak corporate governance of state-owned banks. The levels of non-performing loans and capital adequacy ratios compare poorly in international perspective and may deteriorate further, which could require significant bank recapitalisation.




raging

Australia Improving but far Behind NZ in Leveraging Mature Age Workers - 29 Jun

Australia jumped five places to 15th in OECD rankings for employment of mature age workers.




raging

STEM Skills Key to Leveraging Young Workers - 17 Nov

Australia has slipped four places to 17th in OECD rankings for employment of under 25-year-olds with a focus on STEM skills.




raging

Ryan Lochte sister: Video shows Megan in raging racist rant

The footage, from 2008 but uploaded on YouTube this week, shows Megan Lochte Torrini, left, blasting the Chinese in an unbelievable five minute racist tirade where she uses the slur 'chinks' at least six times.




raging

Lucas Torreira provides encouraging injury update after being ruled out for 10 weeks

Lucas Torreira has provided Arsenal fans with a positive update on his recuperation after he sustained a fractured ankle in the FA Cup win at Portsmouth.




raging

Selena Gomez introduces her new puppy Daisy to the world while encouraging fans to stay home

Selena Gomez hopped on Instagram Live to tell her 171 million followers how she has been spending her time amid the COVID-19 pandemic and California's Safer at Home initiatives.




raging

Sam Armytage sends encouraging message to WW members trying to lose weight amid COVID-19 pandemic

Sunrise host Sam Armytage is currently taking time off the show with a respiratory infection during the COVID-19 pandemic. 




raging

Supermarkets are accused of encouraging coronavirus hoarding

One disgusted customer at the Sainsbury's store in Mansfield, photographed the display containing toilet rolls, crisps, water, and pasta as well as 'mega packs' of detergents and disinfectant.




raging

Tesco emails customers encouraging them to visit stores instead of shopping online

The retail giant encouraged healthy shoppers across the UK to go to stores to buy groceries in order to help those who are more vulnerable.




raging

Jessica Ennis-Hill and Mo Farah lead the sports stars encouraging the nation to stay fit

Britain's top sports stars including Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill, Sir Mo Farah and Ben Stokes have encouraged the nation to stay fit during the coronavirus lockown.




raging

Raging forest infernos in Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are now 'close' to exploded nuclear reactor

Wildfires burning through radioactive forests in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone in Ukraine are getting ever closer to the exploded nuclear reactor (pictured, forest fires in the famed Exclusion Zone).




raging

Bankrupt Scotty T is SLAMMED for encouraging fans to quit their jobs and earn money from GAMBLING

Ex Geordie Shore star Scotty T has been slammed for encouraging fans to quit their jobs and earn more money from gambling, one month after being declared bankrupt.




raging

'Bale gets into a hole': Spanish press still raging at Gareth Bale's flag stunt mocking Real Madrid

Gareth Bale appeared to mock his club team Real Madrid during Wales' 2-0 victory over Hungary on Tuesday evening by holding a flag that read: 'Wales. Golf. Madrid...in that order'.




raging

Liam Payne is accused of 'fetishising' bisexuality by RAGING fans in new single Both Ways

Liam Payne's fans have been left outraged after accusing him of 'fetishising' bisexuality in his new tune.




raging

Self-exiled founder Pakistani opposition party appears in UK court for 'encouraging terrorism'

Altaf Hussain, who lives in Mill Hill, north London, faced Westminster Magistrates' Court today after a speech he made over the phone was played on loudspeaker to his supporters in Karachi.




raging

F1 is not pretending to take the moral high ground but it is encouraging slow reform in Gulf states

COMMENT BY JONATHAN MCEVOY: I wonder whether F1 - and the other sports being lured there - might not play a constructive role in helping the kingdom towards improvement.




raging

Taron Egerton left 'raging' after discarded cigarette causes a fire at his London apartment block  

The Rocketman star, 30,was reportedly left 'raging' after a discarded cigarette caused a fire at his luxury London apartment block, near the BBC Television Centre in White City on Friday.




raging

Raging Ryan Babel throws himself to the floor and rolls around as he mocks Allan Nyom's overreaction

Babel was so incensed by the reaction of the former West Brom defender that he decided to copy his action, falling to the floor and rolling around before mocking his opponent with a fake cry.




raging

Why the Bull Market Will Keep on Raging

Mary Ann Bartels, CIO of portfolio solutions at Merrill Lynch, says low interest rates will continue to support U.S. stocks, and emerging market stock valuations are "the best on the planet."




raging

Plasma Therapy showing encouraging results in COVID-19 patients: Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal

Delhi is the second worst affected state/UT after Maharashta from the coronavirus.




raging

[ASAP] Leveraging Hierarchical Self-Assembly Pathways for Realizing Colloidal Photonic Crystals

ACS Nano
DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.9b07849




raging

Enhancing Retirement Success Rates in the United States [Electronic book] : Leveraging Reverse Mortgages, Delaying Social Security, and Exploring Continuous Work / Chia-Li Chien.

Cham : Palgrave Macmillan, c2019.




raging

Facebook marketing : leveraging Facebook's features for your marketing campaigns / Brian Carter, Justin Levy

Carter, Brian, 1973-




raging

Visual content marketing : leveraging infographics, video, and interactive media to attract and engage customers / Stephen Gamble

Gamble, Stephen, author




raging

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Encouraging Self-sufficiency for Newly Arrived Migrants) Bill 2018 [Provisions] / The Senate, Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Australia. Parliament. Senate. Community Affairs Legislation Committee, author, issuing body




raging

Why Averaging 95% From the Free-Throw Line is Almost Impossible

The very best basketball free throw shooters can sink the ball about 90 percent of the time. What would it take to get to 95 percent? WIRED's Robbie Gonzalez steps up to the foul line with top shooter Steve Nash to find out.




raging

Winning on HR analytics [electronic resource] : leveraging data for competitive advantage / Ramesh Soundararajan, Kuldeep Singh

Soundararajan, Ramesh, author




raging

Creating the innovation culture [electronic resource] : leveraging visionaries, dissenters and other useful troublemakers in your organization / Frances Horibe

Horibe, Frances




raging

The executive guide to high-impact talent management [electronic resource] : powerful tools for leveraging a changing workforce / David DeLong and Steve Trautman

DeLong, David




raging

Prescribing Social Services: Leveraging Data to Diagnose and Treat the Social Determinants That Affect Health

This post describes how health care systems and providers have been—and can be—critical partners in collecting and acting on social determinants of health data.




raging

Pro Java 9 games development: leveraging the JavaFX APIs / Wallace Jackson

Online Resource




raging

Jewellers witness encouraging response from customers on their digital platforms for Akshaya Tritiya

Mr. Ajoy Chawla, CEO, Jewellery Division at Titan Company Limited said, "All 328 Tanishq stores remain shut this year and hence it would be unfair to compare numbers with last year. But the overall customer response to tanishq.co.in from key metros and even with tier-2 and tier-3 towns has been extremely encouraging.




raging

Enhancing Retirement Success Rates in the United States: Leveraging Reverse Mortgages, Delaying Social Security, and Exploring Continuous Work / Chia-Li Chien

Online Resource




raging

Tracking towards 2020 : encouraging renewable energy in Australia / Australian Government, Clean Energy Regulator

Clean Energy Regulator (Australia), author, issuing body




raging

The global challenge of encouraging sustainable living : opportunities, barriers, policy and practice / edited by Shane Fudge, Michael A. Peters, Steven M. Hoffman, Walter Wehrmeyer