In Noah’s second year as a MAP Fellow, he worked on a number of NRDC priorities, including:

Developing and deploying best practices for advancing energy efficiency through utility regulation with particular emphasis on adequate measurement and evaluation: Noah spent a great deal of time working on California efficiency evaluation, measurement, and verification (EM&V). While California continues its leadership in deployment of energy efficiency as a resource, increasing controversy over measurement threatens to disrupt this commitment. He focused on encouraging an adequate, timely system for airing and settling disputes over measurement to allow the state to move forward with reasonable estimates of savings impacts.

Maintaining the Green House Gas (GHG) legal framework in California: Most of his work in this area focused on SB 1368. After a year and a half hiatus, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) again took up the issue of developing a meaningful system for evaluating investments at “retained generation” (power plants already owned by load serving entities (LSEs) in CA that do not meet the emissions performance standard). He wrote comments and lobbied the CPUC, promoting scrutiny of these investments and then negotiated with Southern California Edison (SCE) to develop a set of criteria under which most of these investments would be subject to “necessity” review- to ensure that they were essential to maintain plant reliability.

Appliance standard and building code enforcement and legal defense: With the new administration came a unique opportunity to improve federal enforcement of appliance standards. Noah worked to advance this opportunity through providing information on non-compliant products and information on necessary changes to Energy Star and minimum standard enforcement regimes

Reducing mercury emissions through energy efficiency: Although the bill did not pass, NRDC moved the ball forward in educating the legislature and state agencies in the benefits of efficiency in minimizing mercury impacts. They also developed a tool for evaluating the mercury savings from efficient lighting.

Other projects:

• Clean energy in Chile: Noah continued working on the NRDC campaign he helped launch in 2006 to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency in Chile. The threat of large hydro in Patagonia remains and the country faces a rash of coal power plant investment plans.
• Once-through cooling: He led NRDC’s advocacy on the CA state water board’s development of a policy to phase out once-through cooling at existing power plants.
• Academic publications: He co-authored an American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) publication with colleague and MAP Fellow, Lara Ettenson, on energy efficiency, market transformation, and lighting policy.

“Working at NRDC was my dreamjob in law school and this fellowship got me in the door and kept me here for two years. I now have a staff position at NRDC and am able to continue the important work of promoting clean energy solutions to the onslaught of environmental threats from continued reliance on fossil fuels.”

Noah Long

“…Noah is now a part of NRDC’s regular energy program staff. Noah not only accomplished a great deal of productive work while in his role as Sustainable Energy Fellow (see answers to next question), he has become an integral part of the Institution. He has kept us all on our toes as we tackled some new and complex technical and policy issues and it is our great luck that he will continue to do so far into the future.”

Sheryl Carter, Co-Director Energy Program
Peter Miller, Senior Scientist
Natural Resources Defense Council