Background of the Gorge Clean Energy Coalition: In 2018 Hood River County adopted a prescient Energy Plan, Goal 1 of which is to reduce fossil fuel usage by 30% by 2030, 50% by 2040, and 80% by 2050. These reductions correspond to annual energy savings of around $12 million, $25 million, and $52 million, respectively--who doesn’t want to save millions? And increase resilience and reduce toxic and climate emissions?

However, as of 2025, we’ve reduced the county’s fossil fuel usage by less than 3%. The main fossil-fuel users are households and businesses who could be reaping those savings but haven’t yet adopted the clean-energy (electrified) options. The Hood River County Energy Council, a volunteer group who advise local municipalities and community partners on implementing the Plan, recently teamed with the Columbia Gorge Climate Action Network to build a wide coalition to tackle Goal 1 with much more public education and outreach. Electrify Oregon's coaching network is a key contributor to the coalition, Sustainable Northwest will be collaborating on community engagement plans, and we expect more groups in the Gorge to join as this Gorge Clean Energy Coalition evolves, hopefully also spreading to Klickitat and Wasco Counties.

Clean-energy options now enable numerous household and community benefits:

• Economic savings: The average US household would save over 50% on their annual energy costs by electrifying their transportation and house. The most economic approach for most households is to plan to replace the old vehicles and appliances with zero-emission options when replacement becomes necessary; and the capital (upfront) costs of clean-energy options keep dropping.

• Cleaner air: If typical in-home air with a gas cooktop was outdoors, it would be illegal. Air pollution from oil and gas causes 90,000 premature US deaths annually. We’ve lived with fossil-fuel emissions so long that we tend to accept it—but’s it a huge health impact.

• Comfort and safety: Replacing a gas furnace with an electric heat pump provides 3-5X better energy efficiency plus air conditioning. Additionally, heat-pump space heating options keep expanding, enabling greater comfort in more rooms. Removing gas appliances and gas service removes explosion risks.

• Energy resilience: We’ve become so dependent upon grid electricity that a power outage usually shuts down most businesses and creates small or major hassles for households. Now standard home battery systems enable islanding from the grid, and the increasingly popular vehicle-to-home (V2H) capabilities of electric vehicles (EVs) will allow the much larger EV battery to provide household energy storage and transport.

• Incremental climate mitigation: While the climate (greenhouse gas or GHG) emissions of a household or city or whole state are a tiny fraction of global GHG emissions, whole countries are accelerating their decarbonization because clean energy is cheaper. This is the only clean-energy benefit that is not local and immediate.

To address the challenge of creating widespread public interest and adoptions of clean energy, local non-profit organizations have joined the Gorge Clean-Energy Coalition to coordinate efforts and leverage their resources.