When Grist writer Tik Root set out on a journey to decarbonize his home, he didn’t intend at first to document the effort. As a journalist covering climate, he’s had years of experience reporting on electrification, energy, and technology — and demystifying those often complex topics for the average consumer. But the decision to write about his own experiences as a homeowner attempting to ditch fossil fuels came about two-thirds of the way through what amounted to more than a yearlong process.
“I said, ‘OK, if I spend all my days on this and I’m learning so much, maybe other people will learn something, too,’” he recalled.
Still, that doesn’t mean that renovating a home to be more climate-friendly is easy, or cheap, as Tik and his wife discovered. Even a pair of climate journalists encountered obstacles and tough decisions over the course of a process that took several times longer than they initially expected.
“Build in time,” Tik recommends to anyone pondering similar upgrades. “It’s gonna take longer than you think.”
He chronicled his and his wife’s experiences in a first-person feature for Grist, which published today — and he shared a few of his top takeaways for Looking Forward. In addition to budgeting more time than you think you’ll need, Tik recommended leaning on family and friends who have been early adopters of things like heat pumps, induction stoves, and solar panels.
“It’s only a matter of time — if not already — before someone on your block has a heat pump, and if you ask them about their process, you could probably skip a whole lot of steps,” he said. Shortly after he and his wife installed heat pumps on their two-story home in Burlington, Vermont, a neighbor who had noticed the contractor’s truck in their driveway called to ask about it and see if she could hire the same installer. “I think my neighbor probably saved three months of work,” Tik said. “And my friend is just about to do the same; my dad will do the same.”
A home’s heating system is the big-ticket item, in terms of financial investment and emissions-saving potential. For Tik and his wife, the journey leading up to installation involved a comparison of different models of heat pumps, a lengthy detour exploring rooftop solar (to offset some of the energy demands, and cost, of their new all-electric systems), and a brief moment of panic when they feared they’d have to upgrade their electrical panel. They worked through each of these decisions one by one, culminating in a successful — even joyful — installation in early January.
The heat pump setup that Tik and his wife chose is a “mini split” system. It consists of three condensers (one for each floor), installed outdoors, and ductwork in the attic to reach the upstairs bedrooms. Phillip Martin
We’ve pulled an excerpt from Tik’s feature below (lightly edited for clarity), highlighting some of the other, lower-lift projects that he and his wife tackled to begin weaning the full house off of natural gas. Check out the full feature, with all its twists and turns, here.
— Claire Elise Thompson
Our first foray into discarding gas was installing a heat pump water heater. It works a bit like an air conditioner in reverse by drawing warmth from the surrounding air to bring water up to temperature, and the technology is growing in popularity. Not only are heat pumps energy-efficient, they can also do a bit of dehumidification, which our musty basement sorely needed. The process went deceptively smoothly.
We gathered several quotes — something the [director of research for the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America] and others told me is critical to managing costs. The lowest was $2,825 to install a 50-gallon tank, a price that was on the high end of Energy Star guidance but hundreds less than the others. A $600 instant rebate from the state and an $800 post-purchase one from the city brought the cost to $1,425. I happened to have a friend who needed one too, so we both got another $150 off for doing them together. The IRA provides a tax credit of 30 percent of the total cost (up to $2,000), though we won’t get it until after we file our taxes.
All told, the bill will come to $428, plus a couple hundred more to have an electrician wire it. Installation took less than a day and the water heater is now humming happily in our basement. Although the emissions savings will be negligible because we still need our boiler for space heating, it was a confident first stride toward reducing our dependence on gas.
Buoyed by the success, we took aim at the stove and the dryer.
Electrifying appliances isn’t yet a major climate win. The average dryer uses around 2,000 cubic feet of natural gas a year, with CO2 emissions roughly equivalent to driving about 300 miles. Gas stoves consume about the same amount. At best, going electric fully displaces those greenhouse gases. But the advantages are even smaller beyond Vermont, where local utilities aren’t as clean. The nation still generates 60 percent of its electricity with fossil fuels (43 percent of that from natural gas) and until that changes, junking a gas stove is roughly a wash for the planet.
Our main motivation for jettisoning gas appliances was the blinking light on our air purifier. We’d read the research showing that cooking over gas produces benzene and nitrogen dioxide. But seeing that little diode change from a soft blue to a harsh red every time we cooked was a menacing reminder of the risks. It grew even more unsettling when we found out we’d become parents, as gas stoves have been linked to nearly 13 percent of the nation’s childhood asthma cases.
The consensus among climate experts and, perhaps equally importantly, chefs is that the best alternative is an induction stove, which uses electromagnetic energy to heat cookware. It requires less energy than a traditional electric range and offers greater temperature control. But as we started exploring options, we quickly realized the technology doesn’t come cheap. The least expensive models start at around $1,100, or almost twice the price of a basic gas stove. Advocates of the tech say prices should come down as it becomes more widespread, but that didn’t do us much good, and our city’s rebate was just $200. We hoped Black Friday would further blunt the financial blow, though that meant waiting a few months. We used the time to weigh whether we wanted features such as a convection oven (we did) and, come November, headed to Lowe’s.
Given my proclivity for buying power tools I don’t need, my wife hustled me directly to the appliances. Alas, the store had just one induction model on display, and it wasn’t the one we wanted. But the conventional stoves were similar enough that we could get a sense of how the induction version might feel in the kitchen. After much pressing, twisting, hemming, and hawing, we chose a Samsung induction model with knobs rather than buttons, which we knew from a relative’s experience could be finicky. The list price was $2,249, but we got it for nearly half off with the holiday sale.
On the way out, we solved our dryer dilemma when we happened upon a well-reviewed electric model similarly marked down to just $648. We pulled out our phones and compared it to a heat pump dryer, which would have used less electricity and spared us the trouble of installing another outlet and a vent. But aside from being considerably more expensive (even with an extra state rebate), the heat pump version had just half the capacity. Given the mountains of laundry newborns produce, we chose the traditional tech, with the hope that larger models are available next time we need a dryer.
Leaving the store, I nearly blew our savings on a track saw. Good job I showed restraint, as installing outlets to power our purchases was much more expensive than expected. The electrician charged more than $600 for the stove hookup, and the dryer outlet, when our basement revamp is ready to accommodate it, will likely run about the same. Although that’s about two-thirds the cost of appliances, we saw the benefits of ditching gas almost immediately.
My wife does most of the cooking and swoons when she switches on an induction burner. Water boils far faster than with the gas stove and even more quickly than in our electric kettle. “It feels almost instant,” she said. “The bubbles are crazy.” The heat is also precise enough to keep pasta sauce at a simmer and food perfectly warm while we gather our dinner plates.
Best of all, it’s been months since we’ve seen the red light on our air purifier.
CORRECTION: In last week’s newsletter, about alternatives to synthetic fabrics, we failed to note that textile recycling company Renewcell filed for bankruptcy last month. Next steps for the company, its patented technology, and its stores of recycled material are uncertain.
Although Tik and his wife ultimately decided against putting solar panels on their roof, they are now looking into community solar — an arrangement that lets neighbors buy into a larger solar installment in a centralized location, like a school or a church. Here’s one such project on Crystal Spring Farm in Brunswick, Maine. The panels are cooperatively owned, and they provide energy to the farm as well as several nearby families that wouldn’t otherwise have access to solar power individually.
Santander exploited loopholes in its own climate policy in order to help raise billions for facilities relying on fracked U.S. gas. The bank then quietly watered down the same policy, making it easier to finance fracking directly in future, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, or TBIJ, can reveal.
The financing was for projects relating to liquified natural gas, or LNG, terminals, huge industrial plants that take gas — much of it from the region’s many fracking sites — and cool it into liquid form before loading it on to tankers to be shipped around the world.
If all the Gulf Coast’s numerous LNG projects are completed, they would form a “carbon bomb” with associated annual emissions of over a billion metric tons of CO2, more than that of Russia. Local residents have complained of air pollution, dirty water, and serious health risks for their families.
Last year, Santander was one of the banks involved in raising at least $28 billion for LNG terminals on the Texas and Louisiana coastlines. At the time, its policy prohibited the financing of projects involved in the expansion of oil and gas extraction from fracking. While the LNG projects did not directly involve fracking, they rely on fracked gas and form an essential part of the production and distribution process.
Earlier this year, Santander then changed its policy without announcing it publicly. A footnote was added to its “prohibited activities” section, stating that exceptions in relation to fracking “may be considered” subject to factors including energy security and local development.
The bank also rowed back on its acknowledgment of the “foundational” role of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, in international climate agreements such as the Paris Accord. The IPCC is recognized as the world’s most authoritative scientific body on the causes and consequences of climate change.
The news follows TBIJ’s revelations that Santander helped coordinate a billion-dollar bond to expand the operations of PetroPerú, a national oil company with a major pipeline slicing through vital wetlands supposedly protected by the bank’s climate policy.
Santander told TBIJ: “While we cannot comment on specific clients or transactions, all financing decisions are guided by a strict policy framework approved by our board of directors. Our lending policies are reviewed regularly by the board to ensure the bank can support clients and markets in different stages of transition and help stimulate the growth needed to enable the required investment.”
Quentin Aubineau, a policy analyst at financial campaign group BankTrack, described Santander’s policy as “highly problematic.” Its prohibited activities focus narrowly on gas extraction, he explained, but new LNG terminals — which the policy allows the financing of — require an increase in extraction to make them economically viable.
“Even if these transactions did not breach Santander’s ESG [environmental, social, and governance] policy, they highlight Santander’s lack of ambition,” he said, adding that the exclusions for some unconventional oil and gas projects are “highly insufficient.”
Ulf Erlandsson, CEO of the Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute think tank, said Santander’s lending operations looked like a “nominal breach” of its policies and had cost the bank some credibility.
He added that the bank’s practices were “largely in conjunction with a number of other European institutions with far-reaching sustainability commitments” since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which he said has “shifted the table on energy in Europe.”
Problematic projects
LNG development on the Gulf Coast was spurred by the country’s fracking boom in the mid-2000s, but operations have ramped up particularly again in the wake of the Russian invasion, with the U.S. moving to present itself as an alternative global source of gas. There are five terminals in operation, four more being built, and another seven that have been green-lit.
But the climate consequences are huge, and in January, Joe Biden paused the approval of any new projects.
As well as encouraging the expansion of fracking activity — a hugely polluting process that contributes to global heating — the LNG facilities that Santander has helped finance have also caused issues more locally.
The Calcasieu Pass LNG project in Louisiana, for instance, which raised a $1 billion bond with banks including Santander last year, has been linked to near-constant gas flaring, excessive emissions, and the risks of explosion. Venture Global LNG, which owns the plant, has said it is not fully operational due to faulty power equipment.
Roishetta Ozane, who lives inland from Calcasieu Pass and is Gulf fossil finance coordinator for Texas Campaign for the Environment, told TBIJ that doctors said local air and water pollution had caused an increase in her 18-year-old epileptic son’s seizures.
“He goes fishing but he can’t eat the fish,” she said. “Because I’m afraid if he gets too much mercury in his system, too much of the other pollution in the water, that is going to further exacerbate his seizures.”
Last year, Santander helped lead on a $7.8 billion finance package for the Plaquemines LNG project in Louisiana, which is poised to become one of the largest fracked gas export terminals in the U.S.
The terminal has already drawn millions of gallons of water away from the local municipal supply. Total greenhouse gas emissions from burning fracked gas as a result of expanding the terminal would be equivalent to 42 coal plants, according to an analysis by the environmental group Sierra Club.
Members of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe protest outside the White House against fossil fuel activity in Texas.
Allison Bailey / NurPhoto / Alamy
Santander was also part of a banking collective that lent $7 billion to Port Arthur LNG, a terminal being built in southeast Texas. Bigger still was the $12 billion package for the Rio Grande terminal near Texas’ border with Mexico, which Santander was also involved in. That project is served by pipelines that pass close to Garcia Pasture, the ancestral land of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe, which challenged the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for not adequately measuring the LNG plant’s environmental impacts.
Santander told TBIJ it is “fully committed to supporting a fair and secure green transition.” It added: “We also set clear emissions reduction targets across a range of high-emitting sectors.”
Sempra Infrastructure, the company behind Port Arthur, told TBIJ it was committed to providing “secure, reliable energy” and was exploring options to lower the carbon intensity of its LNG. It said that LNG “will continue to play a key role in both developed and emerging markets worldwide.”
TBIJ made several attempts to contact Venture Global, the owner of the Calcasieu Pass and Plaquemines projects, and Next Decade, which owns Rio Grande LNG, but the companies had not responded by the time of publication.
Aubineau said Santander and commercial banks in general should not only exclude companies developing new oil and gas exploration and production from their financing policies, but the companies developing infrastructure that supports increased production too.
Erlandsson said: “With controversy also domestically on U.S. LNG terminals, to the degree that even the Biden administration has put a pause of further LNG terminal expansion, arguments that this type of financing generates material adverse effects cannot be brushed off.”
For Ozane and her community, the banks financing the LNG buildout on the Gulf Coast are deliberately putting profits over people: “While communities of color and low-income communities are fighting for our lives on the front line of climate change, these banks continue to fund the fossil fuel industries. They continue to target low-income, low-wealth Black, Indigenous, and other people of color communities, treating us like collateral damage to corporate profiteering.”
This story was produced by Grist and co-published with The Guardian.
My wife and I live in a green, two-story colonial at the end of a cul-de-sac in Burlington, Vermont. Each spring, the front of our home is lined with lilacs, crocuses, and peonies. The backyard is thick with towering black locust trees. We occasionally spot a fox from our office windows, or toddlers from the neighborhood daycare trundling through the woods. It’s an alarmingly idyllic home, with one exception: It runs on natural gas.
The boiler, which heats our house and our water, burns it. So do the stove and the dryer and even the fireplace in the living room. Some 60 percent of American residences are similarly reliant on gas, the primary component of which is the potent greenhouse gas methane. This dependence on fossil fuels didn’t particularly faze us in the past. When we had to replace the furnace in our last place in late 2018, it was the easiest option. Same for the other appliances. At least it wasn’t oil, we told ourselves. It didn’t help that our contractors weren’t well-versed in alternatives and that our decisions were sometimes necessarily made in haste. When we did have time to explore switching to cleaner sources, the price tag often gave us pause. Can an induction stove really be that expensive?
Five years later, the landscape had shifted. The world was climbing dangerously toward 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming, and residential energy use accounted for one-sixth of all planet-heating emissions in the United States. We also wanted to start a family, and burning methane indoors can have potentially profound effects on human health. Then came the Inflation Reduction Act, which unleashed billions of federal dollars to help make cleaner technologies more ubiquitous and affordable than ever before. By early last year, we were ready to decarbonize.
I harbored no illusions that it would be the simple “five-step” process some advocates imply it is. But, as climate journalists, my wife and I figured a few weeks’ research and planning ought to get us most of the way there. What unfolded was more than a year of cascading decisions and obstacles that strained our wallets, tested our notions of comfort and sacrifice. While the late nights buried to my knuckles in spreadsheets calculating the payback periods on heat pumps and solar panels were, dare I say, fun, my nerves began to fray when the solar company we wanted to hire abruptly went out of business. They nearly broke when I saw what all of this would cost and shattered when I thought we’d have to upgrade the electrical panel. My wife found her limit when we were forced to choose between cutting emissions or cutting trees.
Frazzled and flustered, I sought help.
“I’m not surprised,” David Lis with Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships said of my predicament. Once people discover that going electric is an option, most run headlong into the complexities. “Your experience of having to navigate a lot of market actors is a big barrier.”
With each step, however, we became increasingly confident that decarbonization was possible. The question quickly became whether we were willing to bear the cost.
Every year, homes in the U.S. produce nearly 900 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s about twice as much as all of France. One-third of those emissions are the result of directly burning natural gas and other fossil fuels onsite. The remainder comes from generating the electricity residences consume.
Our house is fairly typical. It was built in 1940, with three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and 1,672 square feet of living space. We combust about 65,000 cubic feet of gas each year keeping warm, cooking meals, and doing laundry, or about the norm in the Northeast. Going electric would shift those emissions to the cleanest grid in the country; almost all of Vermont’s electricity comes from renewable sources. Those savings are why climate advocates often push people to “electrify everything.” But doing that can, as we found out, become comically complicated.
Cristina Spanò
“It’s definitely important to have a plan going in,” said Cora Wyent, director of research for the electrification nonprofit Rewiring America, which recently released a personal electrification planner to help people plot their path to decarbonization. I reached Wyent about halfway through ours and wished I had found her sooner. Making a roadmap, she said, helps folks maximize incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, or IRA, some of which can be redeemed multiple times because they reset annually. It also can help avoid unexpected, and often costly, electrical work to ensure your house can supply the needed power, said Wyent. “Making a plan can also help you stay within the limits of your electric panel.”
As for what to prioritize, she says that depends on your motivation. If your goal is minimizing greenhouse gas emissions, for example, ditching fossil fuel heating would likely have the largest impact. Those concerned about indoor air quality might prefer to start with appliances (particularly stoves). If in doubt, electrifying whenever something breaks is often the simplest pathway to a lower-carbon home.
“When it dies, electrify,” quipped Wyent. That approach means paying only for things that need replacing anyway, and can split the unwieldy into smaller, more manageable projects. It’s where we decided to start early last year when our water heater was aging to the point of hazard. Then we’d turn to the stove and our heating system, in no particular order. The dryer was less urgent, but needed to go for us to disconnect the gas line. We also knew we wanted to get as much work done as possible while we were making other renovations, especially because we now had a baby on the way. We were in the fortunate position of having enough cash from the sale of our previous home that financing wasn’t an immediate barrier, so long as we decided an investment was worth it.
Our first foray into discarding gas was installing a heat pump water heater. It works a bit like an air conditioner in reverse by drawing warmth from the surrounding air to bring water up to temperature, and the technology is growing in popularity. Not only are heat pumps energy-efficient, they also can do a bit of dehumidification, which our musty basement sorely needed. The process went deceptively smoothly.
We gathered several quotes — something Wyent and others told me is critical to managing costs. The lowest was $2,825 to install a 50-gallon tank, a price that was on the high end of Energy Star guidance but hundreds less than the others. A $600 instant rebate from the state and an $800 post-purchase one from the city brought the figure to $1,425. I happened to have a friend who needed one too, so we both got another $150 off for doing them together. The IRA provides a tax credit of 30 percent of the total cost (up to $2,000), though we won’t get it until after we file our taxes.
All told, the bill will come to $428, plus a couple hundred more to have an electrician wire it. Installation took less than a day and the water heater is now humming happily in our basement. Although the emissions savings will be negligible because we still need our boiler for space heating, it was a confident first stride toward reducing our dependence on gas.
Buoyed by the success, we took aim at the stove and the dryer.
Electrifying appliances isn’t yet a major climate win. The average dryer uses around 2,000 cubic feet of natural gas a year, with CO2 emissions roughly equivalent to driving about 300 miles. Gas stoves consume about the same amount. At best, going electric fully displaces those greenhouse gases. But the advantages are even smaller beyond Vermont, where local utilities aren’t as clean. The nation still generates 60 percent of its electricity with fossil fuels (43 percent of that from natural gas) and until that changes, junking a gas stove is roughly a wash for the planet.
Our main motivation for jettisoning gas appliances was the blinking light on our air purifier. We’d read the research showing that cooking over gas produces benzene and nitrogen dioxide. But seeing that little diode change from a soft blue to a harsh red every time we cooked was a menacing reminder of the risks. It grew even more unsettling when we found out we’d become parents, as gas stoves have been linked to nearly 13 percent of the nation’s childhood asthma cases.
The consensus among climate experts and, perhaps equally importantly, chefs is that the best alternative is an induction stove, which uses electromagnetic energy to heat cookware. It requires less energy than a traditional electric range and offers greater temperature control. But as we started exploring options, we quickly realized the technology doesn’t come cheap. The least expensive models start at around $1,100, or almost twice the price of a basic gas stove. Advocates of the tech say prices should come down as it becomes more widespread, but that didn’t do us much good, and our city’s rebate was just $200. We hoped Black Friday would further blunt the financial blow, though that meant waiting a few months. We used the time to weigh whether we wanted features such as a convection oven (we did) and, come November, headed to Lowe’s.
Given my proclivity for buying power tools I don’t need, my wife hustled me directly to the appliances. Alas, the store had just one induction model on display, and it wasn’t the one we wanted. But the conventional stoves were similar enough that we could get a sense of how the induction version might feel in the kitchen. After much pressing, twisting, hemming, and hawing, we chose a Samsung induction model with knobs rather than buttons, which we knew from a relative’s experience could be finicky. The list price was $2,249, but we got it for nearly half off with the holiday sale.
On the way out, we solved our dryer dilemma when we happened upon a well-reviewed electric model similarly marked down to just $648. We pulled out our phones and compared it to a heat pump dryer, which would have used less electricity and spared us the trouble of installing another outlet and a vent. But aside from being considerably more expensive (even with an extra state rebate), the heat pump version had just half the capacity. Given the mountains of laundry newborns produce, we chose the traditional tech, with the hope that larger models are available next time we need a dryer.
Leaving the store, I nearly blew our savings on a track saw. Good job I showed restraint, as installing outlets to power our purchases was much more expensive than expected. The electrician charged more than $600 for the stove hookup, and the dryer outlet, when our basement revamp is ready to accommodate it, will likely run about the same. Although that’s about two-thirds the cost of appliances, we saw the benefits of ditching gas almost immediately.
My wife does most of the cooking and swoons when she switches on an induction burner. Water boils far faster than with the gas stove and even more quickly than in our electric kettle. “It feels almost instant,” she said. “The bubbles are crazy.” The heat is also precise enough to keep pasta sauce at a simmer and food perfectly warm while we gather our dinner plates.
Best of all, it’s been months since we’ve seen the red light on our air purifier.
Cristina Spanò
With the relatively small stuff tackled, that left our biggest energy glutton: the heating system.
Heating and cooling account for more than half of a typical home’s energy use, according to Department of Energy data from 2020. Given that our gas meter hardly budges during our northern Vermont summers, it’s safe to assume the vast majority of our methane usage goes toward heating. That amounts to about 3.6 metric tons of planet-warming gases annually, or roughly what we’d spew driving 9,200 miles. That carbon footprint would largely disappear if we went electric.
We started with a home energy audit to ensure we didn’t have any major weatherization issues to fix. Sealing leaks, experts say, can be among the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reduce your energy bills and carbon footprint. The auditor deemed our house moderately porous — no surprise, given its age — but didn’t see anything obvious to plug. He said it wasn’t bad enough to warrant a big investment like new windows, but he did suggest insulating the basement, which we’ll get to eventually.
Our basement, with a boiler and old water heater. Tik Root
Our boiler, like other modern gas heating systems, converts around 90 percent the energy it uses to heat. That sounds great until you realize that heat pumps can be two to five times more efficient. This seeming feat of alchemy is possible because heat pumps transfer heat rather than create it — they push warmth into a building to bring the temperature up, or draw warmth out of to cool it. Heat pumps are also great for retrofitting a home because they can be used with or without ducts in the floors or walls.
They come in two basic flavors. To extract, or sink, heat, ground-source heat pumps rely on a network of tubing buried a few feet to a few hundred feet underground, where temperatures rarely fluctuate. Also known as geothermal, these systems circulate a mixture of water and antifreeze through the loop and back to the house. Air-source models instead utilize ambient air as their source.
Geothermal systems are more efficient, quieter, and last longer than their air-source counterparts. Because subterranean temperatures remain relatively constant, the weather also doesn’t affect how they operate. Although the buried piping can last 50 years or more (the components inside the house last about half that), installing it requires expensive drilling or digging. Contractors told us that outfitting the average home with geothermal can run $25,000 to $45,000 or more, even with government rebates and incentives.
“The higher upfront costs are the main reason I typically don’t talk to people about geothermal,” Wyent told me. But, if you can afford the initial financial hit and plan to be in your house long enough to reap a slower payback, they’re definitely worth considering. “The efficiency is fantastic.”
Compared to geothermal, air-source models use more power, have a lifespan of around 15 years, and lose some efficiency in very cold weather. But they generally run tens of thousands of dollars less — a factor that helps make them much more common, with sales outpacing gas boilers last year. It largely drove our decision as well. (Not that any of the geothermal installers I called were particularly convincing. A couple outright told me I shouldn’t do it.)
Because our house currently has baseboard heaters rather than ducts, we gravitated toward a “mini split” system. It consists of a condenser, installed outdoors, and an indoor unit called a “head,” with a thermostat and a fan that blows hot or cold air. The first contractor we spoke with suggested stationing two condensers outside and five heads throughout the house. He recommended systems designed specifically for colder climates,which are guaranteed to operate at temperatures well below zero.
That guy never followed up with a quote, though. The next bid came in at $25,950, which felt high. We gathered two more estimates, the lowest of which landed at $19,637. That included a few state rebates applied at the time of purchase; add in a $2,500 city rebate and the $2,000 IRA credit we’ll get at tax time, and the final cost will be about $15,000.
But there was a hitch: We heard that heat pumps could drive our electricity bills to untenable levels. Indeed, an estimate from Efficiency Vermont, the states’ energy efficiency utility, pegged the system’s consumption at 10,000 kilowatt-hours annually in heating alone. At our current rate of around $0.17 per kilowatt-hour, we’d spend $1,700 annually compared to the $1,100 or so we spend burning gas to keep warm.
That would make heat pumps too expensive to operate.
As we pondered how to make heat pumps affordable, the sun came to mind. It emits more than enough energy to power the world, and each gigawatt of power we harness from that star can avoid hundreds of thousands of tons of greenhouse gas emissions. The U.S. is increasingly tapping this essentially inexhaustible resource, with generation jumping from 5 gigawatts in 2011 to over 145 in 2022. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association, 7 percent of homes nationwide now sport photovoltaic panels. We hoped that becoming one of them could help lower our energy costs.
We asked our neighbors who installed their system, and a lovely salesman came by to prepare an estimate. Pointing to the peak of our roof, he noted that the ridge cap was getting wavy — a telltale sign that a new roof is in order. Given that the solar panels we would install are warrantied for 25 years, we’d want to take care of that now, because removing and replacing them down the line would be outrageously expensive. That sent me back to the phone to seek even more quotes, this time from roofers. The best of them came in at $10,000. Yet another project and expense, but an unavoidable one if we wanted solar.
By the time we sorted out the roof, the founders of the solar company had retired and shuttered the business. We had to negotiate with another installer called SunCommon and landed on a 26-panel system, with a capacity of 10,530 kilowatt-hours and a price of $31,765 before rebates. That’s slightly less than the average price per watt in our area and thousands less than the company’s initial estimate — another win for haggling.
Vermont doesn’t offer incentives for installing photovoltaic panels, but the IRA extended the 30 percent federal tax credit through 2032, bringing our eventual outlay to $22,236. The installer claimed we could lump the cost of the roof into that credit, but our accountant said IRS rules clearly exclude it. (The myth is persistent enough that everyone from solar companies to Reddit users are posting about it.) In any case, the next step for us was to have SunCommon verify that the satellite imagery it used to estimate the system’s output aligned with the realities of our roof.
A technician arrived on a dull gray morning in early December. After grabbing a few gadgets, tools, and a ladder from his truck, he spent the better part of two hours poking, prodding, and climbing on our house. Did we meet all the roof set back requirements? Are our rafters strong enough to support panels? How much shade is there? The answers to these questions and others could affect how much energy we could expect our array to generate.
The results would lead to one of the toughest decisions in our journey.
Black locusts start to leaf out each spring and become bushy caricatures of a tree within weeks. More than a dozen of these gorgeous giants horseshoe our backyard, providing a home to at least one owl, an assortment of songbirds, and, come winter, a roost for a murder of crows. At over 100 feet tall, they cast long shadows — not quite long enough to reach the front of the house, where 14 panels would soak up enough rays to return 83 percent efficiency. But the 12 panels at the rear would see only enough sunlight to perform at 55 percent of their potential, substantially lower than what SunCommon recommends to make an installation worthwhile.
With all that leafy cover, our system would be expected to produce just 6,900 kWh per year — much less than the company’s model predicted. Cutting down half a dozen or so trees would gain as much as 2,000 kWh a year, but come at a financial and climate expense, since trees are carbon sinks. Moreover, my wife would just as soon lose a limb of her own than needlessly fell a tree.
The black locusts would stay put. With that decision made, we finally had enough information to calculate what electrification would cost us — and whether it was worth it.
My spreadsheet, named HOME DECARBONIZATION in all caps, is a mere three tabs across. Two of them examine the merits of different size solar arrays — the entire roof, or only the sunnier front side — while the third is dedicated to the various heat pump configurations. Despite its meager size, it took hours to build. I’d find myself waking at all hours to fix an equation, adjust a parameter, or gaze into the grid hoping for answers. It was an affront to the hope that, as Lis at Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships put it, the marketplace will present an “easy, affordable choice to decarbonize” — a utopia he acknowledges we have yet to reach.
Cristina Spanò
No matter the benefits that an electrified home powered by renewable energy provides, the expense can range from daunting to laughably unattainable. The IRA seeks to address these inequities by providing billions of dollars in funding, much of it targeted at those without the means to make the transition off fossil fuels. That money is expected to become available in the months ahead and could, for example, cover the entire cost of a heat pump or induction stove for low-income families. Some states or cities also offer income-based financing — in Vermont, for instance, interest rates start at 0 percent.
One of Wyent’s favorite suggestions, that almost anyone can take, is to buy an induction hot plate, often for less than $100. They are essentially a single-burner induction stove and, she said, “an electrification project that works for renters, too.” Energy audits are another great place to start, she suggested, as they can pay for themselves in utilities savings (plus there’s a federal tax credit of up to $150). But even for homeowners ready to take larger steps, the process can entail a lot of hand-wringing.
“More guides would certainly be helpful,” said Wyent. I turned to my spreadsheet to help maneuver the maze.
As I tweaked the cells, they quickly showed me that, if we were to go solar, installing the full system made the most financial sense. Although only putting panels on the front was tempting, installation costs wouldn’t drop proportionally. Certain design, permitting, wiring, and other outlays are largely fixed, making each panel successively cheaper. Assuming they operate for the 25 years they’re warrantied, going all-in would fix our electricity rate at $0.136 for 6,900 kWh annually. Doing just the front system would raise that figure to $0.142.
To evaluate the returns on a full system, I assumed our electric rate would continue rising at the state average of 2.28 percent annually and that our system’s productivity would degrade at the warrantied rate of 0.5 percent per year. Given that, the system would pay for itself in about 17 years and net more than $14,000 in energy cost savings after a quarter-century, for an annual rate of return of around 2 percent on our initial investment. That doesn’t factor in labor costs for any repairs (the warranty only covers parts) or the expense of replacing our roof earlier than planned. Financing the system at current interest rates — which are currently starting around 7 percent — also would cut into any financial gains. Paying cash is offset by the opportunity cost of doing something else with that money, such as investing in the stock market, which often sees long-term annual returns north of 8 percent.
Perhaps most relevantly, the climate benefits of going solar are limited in Vermont, because the grid is already so clean. Rewiring America’s model showed that our system would eliminate about a ton of carbon emissions annually, or roughly what a car generates driving 2,500 miles. Given our other concerns — from aggressive sales tactics to the need to replace our roof — we decided to hold off until we can find a way of bringing the overall price down. We may also explore community solar, which allows individuals to invest in larger projects.
“You’re in a particularly unfavorable area for rooftop solar to net out economically,” Wyent said. The technology makes more sense for people in other locales; she lives in California and estimates a household with a $500/month electricity bill in Los Angeles can save $62,000 over 20 years with a $0 solar loan. “The investment makes sense on financial merit alone.”
Although disappointed that solar didn’t work out, we found comfort knowing we didn’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars right before our baby arrived. And we remained optimistic about heat pumps. But that math was a bit more complex, so we turned to Efficiency Vermont for help. Almost immediately, senior engineering consultant Matt Sharpe noticed that our design, with two condensers and five heads, wasn’t as efficient as it could be.
The ideal ratio for air-source heat pumps is one outdoor unit for every indoor unit, Sharpe explained. This ensures that the system is running steadily, rather than in short, inefficient spurts. But that isn’t always achievable, especially with larger systems such as ours — which would require an unsightly five outdoor units around our home. Instead, he suggested installing three condensers, one for each floor, and ductwork in the attic to reach the upstairs bedrooms. Beyond being tidier, it would consume 30 percent less energy than the initial proposal. Although the redesigned system would run $3,000 more, the city offers an extra $1,750 in rebates for ducted systems like this, and making this switch would reduce our annual heating costs by about $600, to around $1,100, accelerating the payback period.
This would bring the operating costs of heat pumps to about the same as the gas boiler. And, in the long-run, it would likely lead to savings, several experts told me. As more people ditch natural gas, they said, the cost for remaining customers could rise more quickly than electricity rates. “Both sides are going to be trending more expensive … [but] electricity rates are historically much more stable than natural gas prices,” said Lis.
Still, there is little chance we’ll recoup our $15,000 investment in heat pumps on operating costs alone. That doesn’t include the gas hookup fee of 88 cents per day that we pay to keep the boiler on standby, which Efficiency Vermont recommends doing at least for a couple of winters to ensure the heat pumps can handle the load job on the coldest days. (We plan to keep the baseboard heaters on the first floor awhile longer for that reason.)
Our contractor suggested we install three condensers, one for each floor, and ductwork in the attic to reach the upstairs bedrooms.
Phillip Martin
Of course, the new ductwork and wiring will outlive the heat pumps; that’s money we won’t have to spend again. And eventually, heat pumps allow us to get rid of the baseboard heaters, which I find unsightly and limit how we arrange our furniture. Heat pumps also provide air conditioning, which we’d been poised to purchase as Vermont summers grow hotter with each year. That would be an outlay we could sidestep.
Removing the one-time expenses brings the price tag of our heat pumps to around $10,000. That’d be an easy choice if our boiler was broken, as a gas system plus an air conditioner would be about the same outlay. But because it could last another decade or two, that reasoning is largely moot. From a climate perspective, though, getting rid of gas is a bonanza.
Just before Christmas, we cut a check to Phillip Martin of Red Merle Mechanical and scheduled him for early January. Then we put the electrician on notice that he would need to hook up the heat pumps — a conversation that left me queasy.
He asked for the model numbers of the units, hung up to do the math, and called me back. “Bad news,” I recall him saying. Our additions — the stove, the dryer, the heat pumps, and an electric vehicle charger — were pushing our home’s 200 amp panel beyond its maximum capacity. It was exactly the sort of problem that Wyent had said could happen— and an upgraded panel would be at least $5,000.
The terror very nearly caused me to cancel the whole project. Amid my panic, I called Sharpe at Efficiency Vermont, who eased my worries. The problem, he reassured me, is both common and relatively easy to remedy with what’s called a circuit splitter, which allows two devices to safely use a single breaker. It reduces the maximum load on the panel by automatically alternating between two high-powered appliances that typically would not be used at the same time — say, an induction stove and an electric vehicle charger. (We typically charge our plug-in hybrid overnight.) It would be just $750 to install one.
With disaster averted, Martin showed up in his white truck, pulling a trailer laden with shiny heat pump parts. His first job was to run the ductwork in the attic and cut vent holes in the ceilings. We scheduled the work for while we were out of town and out of his way. I got a text message telling me our home’s thick plaster ceilings were chewing through drill bits and saw blades. Eventually he got through, installed the ducts, and then lined up the condensers in a neat row under the deck. We came home in time for the final wiring.
Our home’s attic ducts, as photographed by our contractor.
Phillip Martin
“I don’t know who’s more excited, me or you,” Martin said as he programmed the thermostat. With a rush of warm air, our heat pumps whirred to life. That night, the soft hum of a fan replaced the clanking of our baseboard system. In the morning, my wife and I took a saw to the water lines feeding the upstairs baseboard heaters and tossed them into a pile in the backyard. Removing them meant we could finally set up our baby nursery. And, with every cathartic heave, we weaned ourselves off natural gas. When we were done, I switched the boiler off.
Then came a call I didn’t expect so soon. Our neighbor had seen Martin’s truck in our driveway and wanted to hire him. Within weeks, she had heat pumps too. My father says he’s next.
Plastic pollution and global heating are caught in a “vicious circle” of one feeding the other, a new study by researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technology has found.
The mutually reinforcing relationship increases global heating, plastic waste, the degradation of materials and the leaching of chemicals into the biosphere, a press release from KTH said.
“Polymer materials, mainly plastics and rubbers, are notably sensitive to temperature and moisture fluctuations. As temperatures rise, polymers undergo thermal expansion, leading to inferior properties,” the researchers wrote in the study.
Rising global temperatures will cause everyday plastics to deteriorate more quickly, resulting in increased demand. Producing additional plastic products will lead to more greenhouse gas emissions, driving up temperatures, explained Xinfeng Wei, a polymeric materials researcher at KTH.
“A self-reinforcing cycle is formed, creating a vicious circle between climate change and plastic pollution,” Wei said in the press release.
One effect of global warming is faster deterioration of plastics, which results in higher carbon emissions, said researcher Xinfeng Wei, unpacking plastic pellets here in the polymer materials lab at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. KTH / David Callahan
Plastics were responsible for 3.4 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 — roughly 1.8 billion tons — primarily due to their conversion from fossil fuels and their production, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said. That amount is predicted to double by 2060.
The study, “Plastic pollution amplified by a warming climate,” was published in the journal Nature Communications.
The feedback loop described by the researchers links the greenhouse gas emissions with moisture, heat and the weakened structural bonds of polymers like rubber and plastic that are formed from chains of large molecules.
“The higher the increase in temperature, the more the materials’ properties are compromised,” Wei said.
When temperatures reach between 73.4 and 104 degrees Fahrenheit, Wei said common plastics like polyvinyl chloride and polyethylene become more than 20 percent less stiff. The deterioration means polymer products — from clothing and appliances to auto parts — need to be replaced more frequently, resulting in increased manufacturing rates and volumes. The effects range from unreliable food packaging to waterways contaminated by microplastics, Wei said.
Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other hazardous compounds such as flame retardants, antioxidants, lubricants, plasticizers, UV/heat stabilizers and colorants can also be released. The leaching, evaporation and diffusion of VOCs into soil, air and water is accelerated by heat.
“A warmer atmosphere increases the evaporation of moisture and can also hold more water vapor,” Wei said in the press release. “The combined effects of rising temperature and moisture create very challenging conditions for these polymers.”
In order to address the dual challenges of climate change and plastic pollution, the researchers encouraged a mobilization of efforts in all sectors of the lifecycle of plastics.
Transportation is the largest source of planet-warming gases in the United States, which makes reducing tailpipe pollution as quickly as possible essential to meeting our climate goals. The Biden administration took a huge stride toward that goal Wednesday when it unveiled the tightest limits the nation has ever placed on vehicle emissions.
The rule, which follows three years of deliberation among regulators, automakers, and others, places increasingly stringent standards on the amount of CO2 and other pollutants cars can emit. The goal is to further electrify the country’s fleet through 2032, when President Biden hopes to see every other car sold be electric or a plug-in hybrid.
“Three years ago, I set an ambitious target: that half of all new cars and trucks sold in 2030 would be zero-emission,” Biden said in a statement posted on social media. “Together, we’ve made historic progress. Hundreds of new expanded factories across the country. Hundreds of billions in private investment and thousands of good-paying union jobs. And we’ll meet my goal by 2030 and race forward in the years ahead.”
The guideline, which takes effect with the 2027 model year, drew support from automakers and the leader of one industry trade group appeared with Michael Regan, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, as he announced the regulation. Standing alongside gleaming chargers and spotless electric vehicles — underscoring the point of the new rule — Regan called the regulation “the strongest vehicle pollution technology standard ever finalized in United States history.”
Should the regulation survive the inevitable legal challenges — Louisiana’s Republican attorney general told the New York Times she plans to fight it in court — it will avoid more than 7 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions over the next 30 years, according to the EPA. Those gains will inevitably boost public health as well.
“EPA just took a critical step to address climate change and reduce air pollution,” Harold Wimmer, president and CEO of the American Lung Association, said in a statement. “Stronger limits on pollution from cars, pickups, and SUVs will improve the air that everyone breathes and help prevent future health harms from climate change.”
How automakers meet the new guideline is up to them, as the rule is agnostic of the technologies they use to do so. Despite fearmongering from some corners of society and a specious warning from a fossil fuel trade group that the rule is an “EPA car ban,” EVs are but one approach. Plug-in hybrids and increasingly efficient internal combustion engines are other options, as the regulation only requires automakers to meet increasingly strict average emission limits across their entire product lines.
Still, the industry has made a major push into electrification and sold a record 1.2 million EVs last year. Sales slowed in recent months, however, and the new regulation will require a tenfold increase in sales within eight years. John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, called that a “stretch goal” but said Wednesday, “The future is electric.”
The EPA’s standard is less aggressive than what was included when it proposed the rules in April, a concession the Biden administration made to automakers and the United Auto Workers. Manufacturers worried the original pace was too fast, and workers worried about job security. Electric vehicles tend to have fewer parts — meaning fewer people are needed on assembly lines — and many factories are located in right-to-work states hostile to organized labor.
“I know I’ve been a thorn in your side this last year,” Bozzella, whose organization represents 42 automakers and industry suppliers, told Regan from the stage during Wednesday’s event. “But it’s only because automakers are committed to electrification, and we want this transformation to EVs — our shared goal, by the way — to succeed over the long haul.”
Tempering the guideline will likely lead to a slower near-term ramp up in vehicle electrification, but the final rule nonetheless positions the sector to see EVs account for 67 percent of sales by 2032, according to a memo from the Alliance for Automotive Innovation.
While climate advocates by and large applauded the new guideline, many felt the Biden administration should have acted more aggressively.
“This rule falls far short of what is needed to protect public health and our planet,” Chelsea Hodgkins, a senior policy advocate with Public Citizen, said in a statement. The organization issued a report noting the vast resources the industry expended to weaken the rule, and said, “EPA is giving automakers a pass to continue producing polluting vehicles.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists also expressed disappointment, noting that “the science is clear on both the urgent need to cut climate-endangering emissions and the fact that we can make the cuts we need. We don’t have many opportunities to reduce transportation pollution, and it’s disappointing that this rule falls short of what’s possible.”
Still, any slack that may come from the federal effort may be picked up by the states. California plans to ban the sale of new internal combustion vehicles by 2035. Eight states have followed suit, pointing the way toward what is possible.
“The WMO community is sounding the Red Alert to the world,” said Celeste Saulo, WMO secretary-general, as Reuters reported. “What we witnessed in 2023, especially with the unprecedented ocean warmth, glacier retreat and Antarctic sea ice loss, is cause for particular concern.”
The report confirmed that last year was the planet’s warmest on record, with a global average temperature of 1.45 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average.
“Never have we been so close – albeit on a temporary basis at the moment – to the 1.5° C lower limit of the Paris Agreement on climate change,” Saulo said in the press release.
Nearly a third of the world’s ocean was experiencing a marine heat wave on the average day in 2023. By the latter part of the year, heat wave conditions had affected more than 90 percent of the ocean at some point, impacting ecosystems and food systems.
“Sirens are blaring across all major indicators… Some records aren’t just chart-topping, they’re chart-busting. And changes are speeding-up,” said António Guterres, United Nations secretary-general, in a video message.
Preliminary data has shown that extreme ice melt in Europe and western North America has led to global reference glaciers suffering the largest ice loss since records began in 1950, the press release said.
The maximum Antarctic sea ice extent was one million square kilometers below the last record year — a deficit equivalent to an area the size of Germany and France combined.
“The climate crisis is THE defining challenge that humanity faces and is closely intertwined with the inequality crisis – as witnessed by growing food insecurity and population displacement, and biodiversity loss,” Saulo said in the press release.
According to the report, climate and weather extremes are aggravating factors in acute global food insecurity, which affected 333 million people last year in 78 countries monitored by the World Food Programme.
Displacement continued to be triggered by weather events in 2023, demonstrating how climate extremes can create novel protection risks and undermine resilience in the world’s most vulnerable populations.
The report did offer hope in terms of renewable energy generation to achieve decarbonization goals. Renewables capacity increased to 510 gigawatts last year — up nearly 50 percent from 2022 — the highest rate in the last two decades.
The Copenhagen Climate Ministerial on March 21 and 22 will bring together climate ministers and leaders from across the globe for their first meeting since COP28. One focus will be to enhance nations’ Nationally Determined Contributions before the deadline in February of 2025, as well to reach a financing agreement at COP29 to put climate plans into action.
“Climate Action is currently being hampered by a lack of capacity to deliver and use climate services to inform national mitigation and adaptation plans, especially in developing countries. We need to increase support for National Meteorological and Hydrological Services to be able to provide information services to ensure the next generation of Nationally Determined Contributions are based on science,” Saulo said in the press release.
Researchers at Drexel University have shared promising findings on the development of a self-heating concrete, which could not only save people the hassle of shoveling out the sidewalk on a snowy day, but it could also reduce the use of salt to deice walkways.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), salts used for deicing can runoff into local waterways, leading to contamination. High chloride levels in the water can be toxic to aquatic life, while salts on sidewalks and roads accumulate and can kill the wildlife on land that eat them. These salts can also damage roads, vehicles, bridges and other infrastructure, leading to $5 billion in repairs per year in the U.S.
The researchers’ self-heating concrete is currently in use on Drexel’s campus by way of two 30-by-30-inch slabs of the material, which they have been developing for the past 5 years. The two slabs on campus have been in action for the past 3 years.
In field tests, the slabs have so far been effective in keeping snow, sleet and ice buildup at bay, even when the rest of the surroundings have needed to be shoveled or salted.
“One way to extend the service life of a concrete surfaces, like roadways, is to help them maintain a surface temperature above freezing during the winter,” Amir Farnam, associate professor in the College of Engineering, whose Advanced Infrastructure Materials Lab leads the research, said in a statement. “Preventing freezing and thawing and cutting back on the need for plowing and salting are good ways to keep the surface from deteriorating. So, our work is looking at how we can incorporate special materials in the concrete that help it to maintain a higher surface temperature when the ambient temperature around it drops.”
The concrete material uses a low-temperature liquid paraffin to help the slab release heat, even when the outdoor air gets colder. The researchers combined the liquid paraffin directly into the concrete mix for one slab; for the other slab, the team treated a lightweight aggregate made up of small pebbles and stone pieces with liquid paraffin. They also created a control slab of traditional concrete.
Then, it was time to begin testing. The slabs have experienced 32 times when temperature dropped below freezing and five times when snow fell over 1 inch. For the two slabs with the liquid paraffin, they maintained a temperature of 42 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 10 hours when temperatures dropped below freezing.
The slab that contained paraffin mixed into the concrete heated up faster, but did not stay warm for as long, while the slab with the treated aggregate was slower to warm but held its warmer temperature for longer. The team published their findings in the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering and will continue their research to better determine how this material could be effective long-term.
The development of a self-heating concrete is one of several options experts are considering as alternatives to winter salts. Some other materials that have been used or tested for deicing include grape skin compounds, pickle or cheese brine and coffee grounds, although these alternatives may have negative environmental impacts as well. Heated snow mats and electric snow blowers could also be considered for snow removal.
Gloria Alonso Cruz had only just started working on environmental justice issues at a community organization in Stockton, California, when she learned about a proposal to sell wood pellets from the town’s port to overseas energy markets.
Golden State Natural Resources plans to construct two wood pellet plants in Lassen and Tuolumne counties, about 250 miles north of Stockton, with the goal of exporting a million tons a year. While forest-based biomass may sound innocuous, every part of the pellet production chain bears an environmental justice or pollution risk, says Rita Vaughan Frost, forest advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council.
First, trees are logged and stacked on trucks to be driven to processing facilities. There, the wood is turned into small pellets, similar to rabbit food. Then, diesel trucks transport the material hundreds of miles to a shipping facility and export terminal, like the Port of Stockton — where storage poses a fire risk. The pellets are later shipped to markets in Europe and Asia, where they’re burned to create electricity, generating carbon emissions.
Golden State Natural Resource’s proposal would allow it to harvest trees from forests within 100 miles of the two processing plants. This radius includes sixteen national forests in a region known for its critical biodiversity. A 20-year master stewardship agreement established with the U.S. Forest Service will allow the company to harvest from public lands through 2045, when the state is slated to achieve carbon neutrality.
Many might be surprised to learn that burning wood pellets causes more pollution per unit of electricity than coal does, says Shaye Wolf, the climate science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “It’s worsening the climate emergency at a time when we’ve got to be rapidly cutting those carbon emissions,” Wolf says.
In Stockton, the threat of logging exports compounds environmental injustices that already exist. State laws don’t prevent companies from building polluting facilities in already overburdened areas, nor is there any statute or legal framework that forces corporations to consider federal goals of transitioning toward renewable energy sources.
This means there are no federal or state guardrails to protect against the fact that “developers are not accounting for cumulative impacts, [or] the fact that these natural resources are finite,” Cruz says. In fact, Stockton already has a lot of pollution: It ranks in the 90th percentile statewide, according to CalEnviroScreen, an environmental hazard mapping tool. Compared with other cities across California, Stockton’s has some of the highest overall exposure to toxins like ozone, particulate matter, and groundwater threats.
Cruz says that is intentional, noting the communities of color and farmworkers who live and work in the state’s Central Valley have always shouldered the public health consequences that industries leave in their wake. In fact, California funneled public funds to the biomass industry in the 1980s and 1990s to support the construction of factories in low-income communities. Now, the wood pellet biomass industry and Golden State Natural Resources are poised to make the situation worse.
In 2015, the state approved a new law that requires polluting corporations, like the wood pellet industry, to pay for environmental justice projects in disadvantaged cities like Stockon, but advocates like Cruz argue that corporations shouldn’t be allowed to pollute in the first place. Across the state, at least four active biomass plants are in census tracts that face the worst pollution burden.
Looking at how the biomass industry currently operates in the Southeastern United States heightens residents’ worries. Companies there have a track record of preying on overburdened, under-resourced communities, says Vaughan Frost.
In the South, pellet mills are 50 percent more likely to be placed in communities of color that fall below the state poverty line. Although the industry likes to talk about providing jobs, in one North Carolina community, the poverty rate actually increased after a wood pellet production plant began operations.
Wherever pellet mills take root, pollution soon follows. A powerful odor, akin to plastic burning in a campfire, often emanates from these processing facilities. Heather Hillaker, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, says that processing the wood creates volatile organic compounds, which mix with other pollutants to create ground level ozone and smog. Processing facilities also release toxins like formaldehyde, methanol, and acrolein, substances that can cause cancer even in small doses.
Hillaker warns that federal standards established by the Clean Air Act don’t take into consideration the multiple forms of pollution that overburdened communities face, she says.
“I’ve not really seen the pellet industry directly address, in any kind of meaningful way, the environmental justice impacts of their operations in the South,” Hillaker says. She explains they often argue “We are complying with our permits and therefore we’re not causing any harm.” But she says, “That’s not an accurate representation of what’s actually happening in these local communities.”
Vaughan Frost is concerned that Golden State Natural Resources will similarly undermine the health and wellbeing of California communities.
Vaughan Frost believes the industry is “exploiting the state’s traumatic experience of catastrophic wildfires to sell their plan.” The company claims that cutting down forests will provide less fuel for wildfires — a claim that the state of California has historically parroted. Many scientists disagree. One recent study found that in fire-prone western states, emissions related to broad-scale thinning biomass harvest were five times greater than those related to wildfire. California also has a history of lumping in wood pellet biomass as a “renewable” energy source, which critics say obfuscates the compounding climate threats of the industry. She says these claims — that logging can prevent wildfires and create renewable energy — are a distraction from legitimate wildfire prevention strategies, like home hardening and vegetation management.
Advocates worry that once the forest is gone, recovery will be difficult. The wood pellet industry will soon be making incursions throughout the Sierra Nevadas, a much-loved mountain range that regularly draws outdoor tourists. Though the industry pledges to replant what they log, as climate change intensifies, there’s no guarantee monoculture saplings will be able to provide the same ecosystem services that the logged forest once did.
With abundant wind and solar energy available, Vaughan Frost says, “We do not need to sacrifice California forests and communities for this.”
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 3 million members and online activists. Established in 1970, NRDC uses science, policy, law, and people power to confront the climate crisis, protect public health, and safeguard nature. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Bozeman, MT, Beijing, and Delhi (an office of NRDC India Pvt. Ltd). Learn more at http://www.nrdc.org and follow on Twitter @NRDC.
