By Whitney Bauck for Bloomberg News.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

A new program in Denver offering rebates for electric bikes has become so popular, you’d think the city was giving away free Broncos tickets.

Residents this month scooped up the latest lot of 400 vouchers within minutes of them becoming available on the city’s online portal. It was the fifth round of the monthly program, which was first launched in April. Even Grace Rink, the city’s chief climate officer who touts the program as a way to help Denver reach its climate goals and reduce air pollution, was surprised by how much of a hit the rebates would become.

“We thought there would be some interest in owning e-bikes — we just had no idea it would be as popular as it has been,” Rink said. “For those of us who have made our careers in government and have tried to tell people about all the programs we have, we know it's hard to get the word out. This one wasn't hard. People jumped on it right away.”

The rebate program offers Denverites between $400 and $1,700 off the purchase of an e-bike. It’s been so successful that the city is now increasingly being looked to as a model by the rest of the country as local communities take on more initiatives to reach net-zero emissions targets. 

E-bikes feature battery-powered motors that assist riders as they pedal, allowing a broader range of people to make more and longer trips than traditional bicycles. While e-bikes have typically attracted less attention than electric vehicles, they’re more financially accessible to a wider swath of people and can help to reduce traditional car traffic and emissions. 

The Denver initiative grew out of a 2020 vote in which residents approved a 0.25% sales tax increase to provide $40 million in funding per year for climate action, meant to move the city toward its goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2040.

When the office of Climate Action, Sustainability & Resiliency (CASR) first launched the rebates, the program reached capacity with more than 3,000 applicants in just weeks. Demand was so high that the city retooled its approach and is now offering the rebates on a limited monthly basis.

What Makes Denver Unique?

While there are a smattering of state and local initiatives that offer e-bike rebates throughout the country, the Denver program stands out for a few reasons. First, the vouchers are offered on a sliding scale, with the biggest benefits reserved for the lowest-income individuals. Rink said income qualification is a crucial part of the program because it bakes equity into climate action.

The vouchers also offer a discount at the point of sale, rather than as a tax rebate that recipients have to wait to get cash back from. That’s another key part of lowering the participation barrier for low-income riders, said Noa Banayan, director of federal affairs at the Boulder, Colorado-based advocacy group PeopleforBikes.

Other distinguishing factors include the size of the rebate — at as much as $1,700, it’s one of the largest in the US.

Another essential feature has been the city government’s partnership with local retailers, which helps to ensure that the bike vouchers are incentivizing recipients to keep money circulating in the local economy.

In New York, advocates for the NY Ride Clean Rebate, which would extend the state’s Drive Clean electric car rebate program to e-bikes, have pointed to Denver as proof that these kinds of programs can work. The New York bill, which would provide an immediate 50% rebate to anyone buying an e-bike for as much as $1,100, passed in the state senate but then died without a vote in the assembly last year. Organizers are pushing it once again in 2022.

“The main takeaway from Denver is that the idea is incredibly popular and that people are incredibly eager to adopt it,” said Darren Goldner, one of the leaders of the Ride Clean effort who helped draft the New York bill. “E-bikes are game-changers that can break through car dependency and open up mobility to people who can’t afford cars. They’re a class leveler that facilitates sustainable transportation for members of the working class.”

What Are the Hurdles?

Denver’s program won’t be a perfect fit for every city. Increased investment in infrastructure, including protected bike lanes and safe bike storage, are crucial for increasing the appeal and safety of using e-bikes for regular transportation. But that can come with a high price tag. “Even a mile of bike lane can cost in the millions of dollars,” said Rink, Denver’s chief climate officer.

But considering that transportation is the second-largest source of emissions for cities like Denver, the costs can be worth it. That’s especially true when factoring in that about 75% of car drives within the city “are just one person driving alone,” and that the “majority of trips are less than six miles from home,” Rink said. An e-bike can easily be swapped for a car on those kinds of trips.

 “If cities are asking, ‘How do we very quickly and effectively reduce the emissions within our city,’ they're going to realize that e-bikes have the best ROI for that problem,” Rink said, referring to return on investment.

The question, though, is whether the rebate program is actually reducing car use. So far, the early data looks promising.

Ride Report , a micromobility-focused technology company, has been tracking the e-bike use of 70 rebate recipients who voluntarily downloaded the company’s app. According to Michael Schwartz, the head of customers and policy, rebate recipients are traveling an average of 3.26 miles per e-bike trip, with 90% riding at least once a week and 70% riding daily.

Andrea Coyle is one of the Denver residents who’s benefited from the program. She and her wife both bought e-bikes using city vouchers with the goal of replacing two car trips a week. But they’ve exceeded their own expectations, and instead find themselves riding “most days,” Coyle said.

Coyle, who received a $400 voucher, deals with chronic fatigue and sports-induced asthma. Riding on an e-bike makes hilly or longer outings more doable for her. And she and her wife are eager to take advantage. There’s “a car trip almost every day that we're replacing,” she said.


Whitney Bauck wrote this article for Bloomberg News.


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A diverse coalition of groups is opposing an initiative in Washington that could upend the state's push to make buildings greener and more efficient. Initiative 2066 would stop the state's efforts to transition from natural gas and halt local efforts to do the same.

Kerry Meade, executive director of the Washington state-based organization Building Potential, said the initiative would also roll back back energy-efficiency programs that utility companies are running to help people save on energy costs and install efficient equipment.

"It would pull a lot of funding away from those sorts of programs that support people in being able to cost effectively do that, and a lot of that money actually goes to more low-income and moderate-income customers," Meade said.

Meade noted that equipment like electric heat pumps is less costly than equipment that runs on natural gas. Unions, environmental groups and health organizations are among those opposing the measure. Supporters of the initiative say it will ensure Washingtonians have a choice if they want to use natural gas.

Leah Missik, Washington deputy policy director with Climate Solutions, said it's concerning that the initiative would take away cities' ability to decide on this issue.

"It also is a direct attack on local control. It would prevent local communities, local governments from passing policies around their own communities' energy choice in a way that makes sense to them," she contended.

Missik added that there are many benefits to the state - and the climate - for moving away from natural gas.

"We are future proofing, we are making sure we are resilient as we move along the pathway to more clean energy and protecting folks from the climate crisis and its impact that it's having right now," she continued.

As Ohio continues to embrace clean energy solutions, the debate over its economic and environmental impact remains a focal point for residents.

With solar energy manufacturing on the rise and more jobs emerging in the sector, clean energy is reshaping Ohio's economy.

Tony Zartman, director of programs and operations for the Ohio Conservative Energy Forum, highlighted why the development is significant for the state.

"We are highly concerned with the development of clean energy," Zartman explained. "We want those jobs here in the U.S., we want those jobs here in Ohio and we want the ability to strengthen our grid so that we have national security."

While some critics question the costs, the shift is evident. Ohio's manufacturing sector, ranked third nationally, now employs 9,600 workers in clean energy. However, concerns about energy reliability and balancing new projects with the state's power needs persist.

As more solar manufacturing facilities come online and energy demand grows, ensuring a stable and self-sufficient energy grid has become a pressing concern. Ohio is already importing power from other states, a situation that may worsen without continued investment in local energy production, Zartman contended.

"Ohio uses more power, electrical power, than what we produce," Zartman stressed. "We are now importing power eventually, the new push for electric cars and doing away with gas stoves. We don't have enough now."

Ohio's clean energy growth not only brings economic benefits but also challenges in managing energy resources. As the state leads the Midwest in utility-scale solar power capacity, the future of energy in Ohio is at a crossroads. With more than $6 billion in capital investments and thousands of jobs at stake, the clean energy industry is poised to shape Ohio's economic landscape for years to come.

By Jennifer Oldham for Sierra.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

Pumps hissed, a camera oscillated, and wind whistled through oil and gas wells at the Methane Emissions Technology Evaluation Center at Colorado State University. The mechanical symphony could be the soundtrack to a revolution in our ability to detect and measure methane, the invisible, odorless "super pollutant" responsible for a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The United States is the world's largest producer of oil and gas and its biggest emitter of methane-much of it leaks from oil and gas operations. A raft of new federal and state laws require energy companies to monitor and fix emission leaks. That's why companies are lining up to test methane-detection devices at the Fort Collins facility.

"Things are moving quickly-people have realized legislators aren't messing around," said Ryan Brouwer, facility manager at the testing center. "We have 12 different companies testing now. I am booked until the fall, and we have a waiting list."

Brouwer showed off high-pressure tanks that feed gas into wells, other tanks, and separators. Their valves, pipe joints, and other fittings leak the methane-the main component of "natural gas"-into the air. Then finely tuned handheld sensors, softball-size devices mounted on hefty tripods, and equipment attached to drones and aircraft go to work. These sensors report their readings of the rate, location, and duration of leaks to center scientists, who then compare them with data on the known releases.

Why all the fuss? Because methane is an enormously powerful greenhouse gas, 80 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat. As an article from the Rocky Mountain Institute put it, "If CO2 pollution wraps one blanket around the earth, methane pollution is like wrapping the earth in over 80 blankets." Studies show that eliminating these emissions would lead to immediate benefits for the climate and public health.

The concentration of methane in the atmosphere today is two-and-a-half times preindustrial levels, and accelerating. Agriculture is the largest anthropogenic source (all those belching cows, mostly), followed by oil, coal, gas, and bioenergy, which account for 46 percent of emissions. Rotting organic material in landfills is another major contributor.

Of these offenders, the emissions from fossil fuels are perhaps the easiest to deal with, as it's largely a matter of plugging leaks. According to the International Energy Agency, methane emissions from fossil fuels must drop by three-quarters this decade to meet the Paris Agreement climate goals. Hence the race at the Colorado State center to develop and improve methane-detecting sensors on the ground and in the air. As these technologies improve, scientific studies are finding that earlier calculations widely underestimated the actual amount of the gas in the atmosphere.

"We saw so much variability in methane emissions across the regions," said Evan Sherwin, who led research at Stanford University for a paper published in Nature in March. "If we compare our numbers to the Environmental Protection Agency's numbers, ours were three times higher."

Sherwin worked with a team from Stanford, Kairos Aerospace (now Insight M), and other labs to conduct aerial surveys over six hydrocarbon-producing regions, taking a million measurements over Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. They estimated that the operations emitted 6.2 million tons of methane a year-equivalent to all the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use in Mexico.

"We found [that] as low as .05 percent of oil and gas production facilities are responsible for half or more of emissions," said Sherwin, who is now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "We really do now have the tools to find the bulk of the emissions that matter pretty rapidly."

In addition to worsening the climate crisis, methane emissions represent an annual loss of $1 billion to the gas companies. The prospect of recovering that leaking gas is incentivizing energy companies worldwide to fix methane leaks discovered by satellites. Six years ago, energy companies in the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative invested in the satellite company GHGSat; they've used the satellites to help detect and quantify leaks in Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, and Kazakhstan. After the results were confirmed with on-the-ground testing, local operators fixed the leaks, said Bjørn Otto Sverdrup, chair of OGCI's executive committee.

"Three problems we discovered were approximately equal to a million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent," he said. "It's like taking away close to 250,000 cars." Methane detection and measurement, he concluded, "is now at a point where we may be able to start moving the needle at scale." Indeed, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows that the methane increase in the atmosphere in 2023 slowed from the record growth earlier this decade. Even so, the year marked the fifth-highest increase since 2007.

More than a dozen satellites now orbit the planet scanning for methane plumes. Some are privately owned; others are operated by governments and nonprofits. Data from select satellites are available on the International Methane Emissions Observatory's online data portal.

Mark Brownstein is a senior vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund, which developed its own methane-detecting satellite, MethaneSat. "This is data that will provide the most comprehensive amount of emissions and the rate at which they are being emitted," he said. "We see this data as being incredibly important to hold countries and companies accountable to commitments they've made."

Satellites have limitations though. They can't see past cloud cover or over water, and they have time constraints on how much data they can collect from any one location. Consequently, said Dan Zimmerle, the director of Colorado State's methane center, all types of sensors are needed to make progress in fixing leaky oil and gas equipment and spotting flares that fail to fully combust all the gas being vented.

Zimmerle's operation is set to receive $25 million from the Department of Energy and industry partners to modernize equipment, standardize testing solutions, and support field trials of methane-sensing satellites. The team is searching for locations to test how the satellites are performing.

"We will put up a test release," Zimmerle said. "They will task on it, we will get a report from them that says what they saw, and we will compare it to the real thing."


Jennifer Oldham wrote this article for Sierra.


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