Town of Brookline to ban fossil fuels going forward
I live in Brookline, MA, and my town just recently voted to ban the use of fossil fuels for new construction and large renovations.
I’m curious of GBA’s readers thoughts on this, heating costs compared to natural gas for new construction (a lot of 5000sf+ new construction here). I applaud taking a big first step to reducing our carbon emissions, but can’t help to see the downfalls as well as it relates to heating with all electric. More demand will cause even higher electric utility costs that have risen 4% a year consistently.
Wouldn’t something like a townwide solar or insulation program have a much bigger impact on emissions? Convert all town-owned properties first as an experiment? I don’t have the numbers on how many installs per year this would effect, but I have to imagine it’s pretty low, and contractors will try to find a way to get around the ban by using pre-existing hook ups. Restaurants and retail may also prove to be a challenge.
Kevin
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The Martha Stewart's of the world will be upset because they won't be able to install a "commercial range".
I don't know if it will impact construction or not. I would imagine that people who build 5k sq/ft homes in Brookline MA are not price sensitive to heating/cooling costs.
These big homes use a lot of energy per person.
I’d be curious how they would heat a 5000SF home- I can’t imagine at those prices someone would want a ductless head in every one of their 6 bedrooms with miles of Refrigerant piping through the home and crappy CoP hooked up to a multisplit. Could you even use miniducts across a footprint that large? One plus is with a massive roof they could tack on a decent sized solar array, any idea what type of electric offset we would be looking at?
For new construction and multiple bedrooms, ducted units make the most sense. 2-3 slim duct systems could easily cover a 5000sf home.
A medium sized propane tank would easily serve a “commercial range” and grille.
good point. Perhaps the manufacturers of these ranges will over a propane conversion kit
We are 60 km from the nearest piped gas. All the restaurants out here use propane. Coupled with a propane generator, it makes them power outage proof.
We have a Wolf range on Martha's Vineyard that has happily been using propane for 20 years....don't know about conversion kits, but when you buy new, you specify natural gas or propane. We use gas for the range and hot water. We have what I think is about an 80 gallon tank. We have heavily seasonal use, and moderate off-season use, and the tank gets filled about twice a year.
Here is an article without a paywall:
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2019/11/21/brookline-gas-oil-ban
Cooking ranges seem to be exempt.
Wolf ranges must’ve done some hard lobbying.
Cooking ranges in most homes don't consume a lot of gas, so it isn't really a big deal if someone is willing to pay the initial and monthly hookup fee only for the gas range.
It’s a bad idea. I don’t like to see regulations like this. Regulations like this tend to be driven by a lack of understanding of overall system issues and a simple minded focus on only one small part of a complex issue. If nothing else, natural gas isn’t really a “fossil” fuel, contrary to popular belief.
The bigger issue is in many cases is that the direct use of natural gas for heating is actually more energy efficient in terms of total energy used to accomplish the end result. For example, a HUGE proportion of electricity generation in New England is currently coming from natural gas. This is unlikely to change anytime in the near future. I’m basing this on actual generation data from the ISO and not the predictions of anyone lobbying for any particular renewable energy project.
Electric resistance heat uses MORE natural gas to accomplish the same amount of heating in a home compared to burning the natural gas in the home directly. My guess would be electric resistance heat supplied by electricity produced by natural gas is probably used at least twice, and probably three times or more as much natural gas compared to using the natural gas in the home for heating directly.
Heat pumps are a different story, but often require different designs and many people won’t want wall mounted minisplits. It’s true that heat pumps will in general be more efficient in terms of useful heating BTUs delivered per unit energy consumed, but they aren’t always the best choice in every situation.
The last issue is if the existing electric utility has sufficient capacity to handle the increased load, and how quickly that load is likely to ramp up. Historically, people have tended to resist the utilities upgrading their infrastructure. New England also has some of the highest average electric rates due to generation capacity constraints and a lack of natural gas pipeline capacity to allow for additional generation.
As I said, it’s a complex issue with no easy answers, but regulations like this are attempts at “easy” answers to these difficult problems that tend to result in undesirable consequences.
Bill
>"More demand will cause even higher electric utility costs that have risen 4% a year consistently. "
Residential retail electric rate inflation in MA is nowhere NEAR "...4% a year consistently..."! It's not even close to that with any of the utilities in MA. That type of inflation rate is often used by PV sales-droids as a scare tactic, and to inflate the "lifetime savings" numbers in the spreadsheets, but it has absolutely no bearing on reality.
Residential retail electricity in MA hasn't even kept up with the base rate of inflation, though there was a major price spike (that has since abated) related to the Polar Vortex cold snap event 0f 2014. Boston area retail electricity was about 20 cents after the price hike in late 2014, dropped to about 19 cents for 2015-2016, jumped to about 21 cents in 2017 (OMG a 10% hike in one year- it's unaffordable! :-) )- which is still cheaper after inflation than 20 cent electricity was in 2014, then up to about 22 cents for 2018, down a hair with the latest rate adjustment for 2019.
https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-england/images/53720.gif
Over the longer term it's been both more and less volatile when looking at 5-10 year time windows, but on an inflation adjusted basis electricity in in Brookline is cheaper now than it was in 1989. Whatever the future holds, I'm not betting on "...4% a year..." year-on-year. The rise of zero marginal cost rewewables is putting downward pressure on wholesale electricity pricing, and as the offshore wind gets built out that will be even more true.
Right now most local distribution grids are underutilized in winter, and giving it more heat pump load will improve the overall throughput on those assets. At the relatively low construction rates in Brookline it will be a long time before the all-electric mandate for new construction requires major capital improvements on the existing infrastructure (unless Brookline goes all Kendall Square on us, which doesn't seem to likely.)
>"Wouldn’t something like a townwide solar or insulation program have a much bigger impact on emissions?"
Emissions-wise running the gas through a combined cycle gas plant at 50% net thermal efficiency to the load means it only takes a COP of a bit less than 2 to have the same thermal efficiency of a condensing gas furnace/boiler. A cold climate heat pump can beat that at Brookline's ~+9F outside design temperature, and even a minimum-legal efficiency HSPF 8.5 heat pump will beat that on a seasonal average.
And the ISO-New England grid isn't going to be dominated by combined cycle gas for more than another decade or two, as more offshore & onshore wind, local solar, and transmission lines tapping into Canadian hydro get built. The first tranche of offshore wind investment in MA is already committed, and came in at pricing less than half of what was anticipated. With newer-bigger offshore turbines just now going into production (Haliade-X, anyone?) the subsequent rounds are going to be even cheaper. The MA grid has seen a bump in cc gas due to nuclear and coal retirements, but the background trend of PV and wind is continuing to scale, and has a net result of LOWERING peak wholesale electricity pricing, leading to modestly lower rates overall.
No matter how much insulation & weatherization improvements get installed or local solar gets built in Brookline it won't have anywhere near as big an impact on net emissions as simple going all-electric with heat pumps on new construction. While the marginal cost of efficiency improvements on leaky buildings is cheaper than the grid resources need to cover the additional all-electric load, those improvements are already cost-effective at current natural gas pricing, made even more cost effective by MassSave subsidies.
>"I’d be curious how they would heat a 5000SF home- I can’t imagine at those prices someone would want a ductless head in every one of their 6 bedrooms with miles of Refrigerant piping through the home and crappy CoP hooked up to a multisplit."
Hydronic & ducted-air ground source heat pumps are already standard go-to solutions for the gold-plated houses, though ducted air source heat pump solutions are still reasonable for the rest. For the lower loads of code-min new construction you can cover a LOT of house with a single 4-6 ton Carrier Infinity w/Greenspeed, at an HSPF north of 11, and "normal" sized houses can be covered with 2-3 ton versions that might have been served by a 1-2 stage condensing gas furnace.
With a whole city the density of Brookline creating a cluster of local demand it might attract the likes of Google/Alphabet spinout Dandelion Energy (https://dandelionenergy.com/ ), with it's cookie-cutter lower cost pretty-good ground source heat pump solutions. To date they've concentrated their marketing to Hudson Valley townships with a higher density of oil & propane-fired hot air heating systems. The gas-hookup hiatus due to gas infrastructure capacity limitations in Westchester County NY probably has them hopping right now, but suburban/urban Boston could be a similarly attractive expansion opportunity.
My attitude is "uhhh, I guess that's one way of doing it?"
It's certainly not going to be a rapid method. And it's not going to impact any of the existing population living in existing houses, which is why it's politically viable with existing voters. It's at least a symbolic incremental gesture in favor of slowing down their own contribution to global warming at a local level. At some level, generating economies of scale in heat pumps is very useful to the population as a whole.
If you want to actually address the problem, though, sometime this century, you have to start to deal with the population who already own houses. My impression is that this kind of legislation is just not a path that's going to lead us productive places, and it's going to take us an inordinate amount of effort to get anywhere. It's an issue of housing stock turnover and a general issue of ideals-driven micromanagement: There's a very high ratio of public effort and debate to actual change here.
Ultimately large carbon taxes are just ridiculously better, more efficient incentives & problem-solving techniques than trying to address the problem with building codes, particularly after we stopped building new houses for the most part. Changing the price of hydrocarbon fuels substantially forces people to make rational, informed choices about their energy usage and it gives them a real reason to change what they're doing. It *lets* them keep polluting if they really need to, but it *nudges* them in the direction of not polluting.
Carbon taxes are based on a guess of the arbitrary cost of carbon on the environment at some arbitrary point in time in the future. It doesn't matter how many PhD's justify one figure over another. In the end it's just a guess. It's worse than guessing the cost of eggs 5 years from now.
Let me put if this way. You have the power to levy a carbon tax on a $20T economy. You're going to base your decision on two of three economic models which all differ in the outcomes.
Model A: 100 yr window, carbon will have a small if not positive impact (70 percent confidence).
Model B: 300 yr window, carbon may have a marginally negative impact (50 percent confidence) requiring a tax of $20/tonne.
Model C: 50 yr window indicates a severe negative impact (40 percent confidence) requiring a tax of $200/tonne.
Which outcomes would you choose and how would you justify it?
>"Ultimately large carbon taxes are just ridiculously better, more efficient incentives & problem-solving techniques than trying to address the problem with building codes, particularly after we stopped building new houses for the most part. "
Good luck getting THAT passed, given Jay Inslee's level of success even after multiple bites at the apple for carbon fee-bates in WA.
An unfortunate legacy of the Reagan/Laffer years was the spawning of a large cohort anti-tax cranks, making solutions like carbon taxes impossible to pass despite being widely supported by economists of all political stripes.
Brookline's measure is far from a total solution (and wasn't intended to be), and is just the frost on the tip of the MA carbon iceberg when looking at the fully legislated/mandated 80% reduction below 1990 levels by 2050 target. It's more of just an acknowledgement that building any NEW gas infrastructure or equipment with an anticipated lifecycle of 30 years or greater is counter to the mandated goal. Installing equipment that's likely to become a stranded asset before end of life is just stupid. Most heating equipment installed in 2020 is likely to have failed by 2050, but that's not necessarily true for equipment installed in 2030. This is just a starting point. Did Brookline jump the gun? Maybe, but maybe not.
At some point before 2035 the state will have to get involved to meet those targets, disallowing fossil-burners as replacement equipment, not just in new construction. That's likely to turn into a major foot-fight no matter how that gets rolled out, but maybe by then even the most ardent climate change deniers will have relented. (I'm not holding my breath on that one either.)
The total impact of that policy change in Brookline is pretty small, having on of the LOWEST housing start rates of any city or town in eastern MA at less than one new housing permit per thousand residents.:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DXfqbNpVoAE1OIs.jpg
...and its not just a choice of fossil fuel vs. electric space heating appliances in buildings. Upping airtightness and insulation requirements might be a (more?) useful way to curb fossil fuel usage.
Maybe require Passivhaus/PHIUS or similar low space-heating requirements in upscale construction in this upscale urban town?? It appears that European cities are way ahead of us in implementing low-load heating/low energy-usage in new buildings.
Hi Robert,
You may already be aware of this: Massachusetts has incredibly awesome programs that dramatically lower the cost of adding insulation, doing air sealing work, replacing lightbulbs, and replacing drafty windows with more efficient ones. And they do this with free energy assessments. It’s really wonderful!
However, having taken advantage of all of the prescribed energy conservation prescriptions offered through the plan, my own 1934 cape remains poorly insulated. So I’m hopeful that Massachusetts will get even more aggressive with this effort by making it affordable for older housing stock to be retrofitted to PHIUS standards.
In terms of available subsidies for home energy conservation, I’m not aware that other states have as good as we do here, in the Great State of Massachusetts.
Here’s some more info about the programs: https://www.masssave.com/
Happy Thanksgiving,
Kris Anderson of Arlington, MA
I do not like forced single sourcing. While it is just one city and unlikely to cause problems, done on a wider scale could cause 'market distortions'
I am not going to say this is a bad idea, but it is not what I would have done.
Condensing gas furnace/boiler is pretty efficient at using fossil fuels, and our grid is 2/3 gas now.
until they can stop the computers putting a foot of foam under passivhaus', I cannot see mandating that, but I think mandating efficiency improvements is more useful than defining the sources of energy
>"While it is just one city and unlikely to cause problems, done on a wider scale could cause 'market distortions' "
Are you somehow holding on to the notion that regulated utilities are something resembling a free market?
In New England just about 50% of the TWH generated in a year within the ISO-New England grid operation region is from combined cycle natural gas. And here there is already "...market distortions..." due to contracted-for capacity of pipeline capacity between the gas utilities and power utilities, which drives up the spot price of electricity (to crazy levels) when the pipeline limitation constraints are hit during cold snaps.
Since a heat pump with a COP of 2 is more efficient than a condensing gas burners, the effect on gas pricing isn't going to be much affected by going all-electric, since it's about the same amount of gas needed to cover the peak heating loads whether burned at the generator or in a condensing gas furnace/boiler. As the already legislated and committed offshore & onshore wind & solar in New England gets built the peak demands for gas will fall quite a bit in an all-electric situation, much less so if new and replacement heating equipment is still natural gas. But the average peak price of electricity during cold snaps will be coming down no matter what with the build out of offshore wind, due to the high correlation of high wind with the onset of cold fronts in the region, and the already mandated electricity storage capacity in Massachusetts (which constitutes half the electricity market in New England.)
To lower the peak price of natural gas would require more pipeline capacity, but in order to meet the legislated carbon reduction targets in this region building that capacity would become a stranded asset well before it could ever be paid off, which is why the last serious proposal for pipeline capacity upgrades was shot down by the Massachusetts Attorney General after quite a bit of analysis.
Even if all New England states passed the same law as Brookline today, since it only applies to new construction and full-gut rehabs the market effects wouldn't create more a tiny ripple on the "...market distortion..." of rising tsunami of zero marginal cost renewables slated to go onto the ISO-NE grid, that will be driving the spot market pricing of electricity down.
>”And here there is already "...market distortions..." due to contracted-for capacity of pipeline capacity between the gas utilities and power utilities, which drives up the spot price of electricity (to crazy levels) when the pipeline limitation constraints are hit during cold snaps.”
That’s not a market “distortion”, that’s a legitimate issue of supply and demand.
I do totally agree with you regarding utilities being quite different than a typical free market. Utilities are essentially regulated oligopolies, with generally very long timeframes for project payoffs. It’s really a regulated heavy industry with few players and a regulated monopoly at the retail level. The ISOs and opening up the large transmission networks to independent power producers is a step in the right direction, but I question the viability of a fully distributed system.
Regarding the lack of pipeline capacity in the northeastern US in general, I suspect that FERC will likely preempt the state level regulators at some point in the not too distant future to alleviate the supply constraints in that region. I don’t think new wind generation alone is going to be enough to solve the energy supply issues in that region.
Bill
>"That’s not a market “distortion”, that’s a legitimate issue of supply and demand."
I was being facetious by calling it a "distortion". But in fact the way gas is allocated in the region IS distorted, where unused capacity by the gas utilities isn't freed up for use by power generators. Since some of the gas utilities in MA are also in the power generation biz there have been instances where they have been called out by the AG for creating (intentionally or otherwise) and profiting from reserving more capacity than needed, resulting in abnormally high spot market prices.
>"Regarding the lack of pipeline capacity in the northeastern US in general, I suspect that FERC will likely preempt the state level regulators at some point in the not too distant future to alleviate the supply constraints in that region. "
I doubt very much that the FERC is going to wade into it, at least on in the ISO-NE region. (Maybe in the NY-ISO they will.) Efficiency, peak storage, demand response, and fuel switching is what's going to relieve the pipeline constraints in the near term, transmission lines and offshore wind is what going to fix it in the intermediate and longer term. The demand response market under the ISO-NE implemented after the Supremes blessed FERC Order 745 is still less than 2 years old, but is already being felt. The Massachusetts Green Peak Energy Standard is still pre-natal, but likely to come to pass under the current administration's term. (https://www.mass.gov/service-details/clean-peak-energy-standard ). The Massachusetts Energy Storage Initiative is also just barely getting off the ground. The transmission line from Quebec through Maine to the Massachusetts market is looking like it will pass the remaining hurdles soon.
So what, exactly would the FERC be trying to fix (and how) by overstepping state regulators in New England?
The only people who REALLY pushing for major gas pipeline upgrades across New England are those interested in an LNG export market, but so far they don't seem willing to pay for it. (Though they'd be thrilled if the electrical ratepayers picked up the tab, a concept that the MA AG shut down in no uncertain terms.)
>" I don’t think new wind generation alone is going to be enough to solve the energy supply issues in that region."
Clearly not, which is why all that other (non-gas) stuff is also happening at the same time.
[edited to add]
This bit of analysis by the DOE is a bit dated, but even restricting it to a 100m hub height in water depths less than 60m the net annual technical potential for offshore wind in Massachusetts is about 350 twh. See the bar graphic about 3/4 of the way down th page:
https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/computing-america-s-offshore-wind-energy-potential
That's about 2-3x current annual usage for all of the ISO New England grid, and more than 6x the current annual usage of Massachusetts. Even if only 5% of it ever gets built it will make a huge difference on peak energy pricing during Polar Vortex disturbance events by easing existing gas pipeline constraints. (The more recent Polar Vortex events were already well managed by other means.)
FWIW- the hub height of GE's Haliade-X is 135 meters, which is enough to make a significant boost in capacity factor (previously estimated to be north of 50%) and overall levelized cost of energy. So the real technical potential is quite a bit higher.
While nobody is pushing for a wind-only solution for energy supply issues the region, a wind-only solution COULD technically do it all, at a cost substantially lower than a fleet of new light water reactors, and unburdened by a soon-to-be-stranded (for local use anyway, if the RGGI commitments are to be met) higher capacity gas pipeline.
The grid operator's own analysis shows that 2/3 of the proposals for new generation are wind, with a preponderance of onshore wind in Maine, and offshore in Massachusetts, stablized with the build out of more transmission line capacity (of course- that's their biz), with only 15% of new resource proposals being natural gas. Their annual summary out look had a lot of pre-digested bits on how it's likely to play out here, and they tend to be more conservative & slower than the reality on the ground has been moving:
https://www.iso-ne.com/static-assets/documents/2019/03/2019_reo.pdf
As a sidenote/example
10 years ago when I renovated my 70's 'stupid house' [27 percent glass to floor area] no one made me increase the 1 inch of foam on the roof, R11 wall insulation, 300 sq ft of uninsulated overhang, r2 glass or 1970 60 percent oil boiler.
I have mentioned before that ducted mini splits were not quite there yet, but even so, it would have been cheaper to buy the 2 additional required head units than what I paid for a condensing oil boiler. [edit if I had been forced to go electric]
But would that have reduced my fossil fuel use?
Hi Kevin,
I live a few towns over from you, in Arlington. I’m so happy to see that Brookline passed this by-law!
Developers will be forced to get creative with their HVAC design and the whole area could benefit from that. Area installers might learn from this. Heat pump manufacturers might get feedback that they are responsive to. Maybe as demand for the equipment increases, installations will become less expensive?
I’ve attached a PDF with an explanation of the article that went before Brookline’s Town Meeting. Maybe you haven’t seen it. In that case, hopefully you’ll find it to be helpful. See pages 31-43.
Best Wishes,
Kris Anderson
Arlington, MA 02474
Thanks for passing that along- an interesting read. I think it is a first step and starts a conversation, when in reality it's only affecting .5% of the population per year. Renovations require change to over 50% of existing square footage to trigger it, and most additions won't qualify for replacement however the new space will have to be conditioned on it's on.
I have a hard time believing home builders will do what's best for the homeowner- as their hot water heater table shows that a ASHP hot water heater costs over 3x more than a resistance hot water one, and a homeowner would be stuck with 2.5x the annual operating costs if the contractor went with cheap electric resistance one.
The article makes a good point about the cost to the homeowner in the grand scheme of things, as new construction single family homes start at $1.5m for 3000sf+, homeowners that unlikely to be worried about annual operating costs. Not that it is fair to the homeowner to carry the burden, but if we are trying to make a change, these are the people who can afford to do it, compared to the working or low income class.
It would have been better to mandate higher energy standards. I wonder if the electrical infrastructure can handle the loads? Before all you needed was a small gen to supply power to your gas heating. Now you will need a much larger unit. Plus modern gas heating appliances are very efficient with reduced emissions. Did they really claim that offsetting the gas usage to power plants is an improvement?
I agree, adding insulation or something like that is a better option than mandating particular energy sources. The issue with shifting the energy use from natural gas to electric in the home doesn't consider where the electricity is ultimately coming from. This is the problem I usually see with regulations like this: the regulators/activists proposing the new law/idea/whatever have not considered the impact of their idea ON THE ENTIRE SYSTEM, usually because they don't understand it. The people proposing the new rule are usually well intentioned, but they lack the understanding needed to design a real solution.
This same issue came up when electric cars were first becoming more mainstream. When I first got my Volt, people would say "ooo, it'll be so clean with just electricity!". The problem is that it's really just shifting the energy source from the usual gasoline/oil over to electricity which in my region is sourced primarily from coal. There are advantages to that in terms of national energy policy, but not so much if you goal is to reduce the need to use a fuel that has to be burned. If you were in the pacific northwest with electricity sourced primarily from hydroelectric plants, then you really WERE shifting away from burning fuels.
These are complex issues and the usual problems I see are due to people focusing on only one small part of a large and complex system. I too would like to see less burning of fuel to supply people's energy needs, but the way to actually achieve that is not always obvious.
Bill
Biggest issue is the back up for hydroelectric generation is STILL natural gas and with forcing people to walk away from propane/natural gas leaves people in closer climates in fire straights if a blackout happens. But when a person has gas available all you need is a solar/battery/generator back up to maintain till infrastructure gets repaired.
Hydroelectric generation is not typically “backed up” by other energy sources. Hydroelectric installations are in fact often designated black start sites for the regional grids in their areas.
Wind and especially solar are typically backed up by other energy sources since these sources are variable, and in the case of solar, not always available (nighttime).
Hydroelectric is rather unique in that it is a renewable energy source, probably the first one to be used on a commercial scale, and also behaves as conventional generation in that it is fully controllable. Hydroelectric is also unique in that the green energy advocates often don’t mention it as a renewable energy source even though it is.
Bill
I suspect that is more because it is hard to call something "green" that requires flooding large areas. Example would be the 158,000 acres covered in water for the Hoover Dam. Of course electricity was just one of the "products" of the dam. Control of the river's annual flooding being the other.
Everything has tradeoffs. With the exception of the relatively low-output “run of the river” hydroelectric systems, hydroelectric plants require dams and reservoirs.
Wind requires very large areas too since the largest wind turbines can only be placed at a density of up to around four per square mile. I personally am not a supporter for wind, except for off-shore installations, because it ruins the landscape. Wind turbines are VERY large and obtrusive, and also noisy. Large wind farms ruin naturally beautiful and quiet rural locations in my opinion.
I like the idea of rooftop solar, since the roofs are already there. Yay! No tradeoff apparently, but... solar only works during the day. So solar has a downside too. Solar’s big advantages in my opinion are that you can “hide” solar installations on many existing structures on rooftops, so no additional land is needed. Solar power produces no noise. Solar power output peaks right around the same time as peak grid demand which is another plus. Nighttime comes around to ruin all our fun, but at least that part is VERY predictable so it’s easy to plan for.
Anytime you engineer anything you have to make tradeoffs. Which tradeoffs are made are often based on what is most important in a particular installation or to a particular designer. Nothing is perfect, unfortunately.
Bill
Nathan, correct. Plus it great to still have hot water with a gas heater when the electricity goes out. Older steam boilers used to run off of a thermo couple alone so you still had heat also, but I guess they are looking out for our safety by complicating things.
It's psuedo green crap ordinances that will hurt consumers and stress already strained electrical infrastructure.
Rather than blaming the fossil fuels, why not put the blame where it really belongs. Ban the ignorant law makers and politicians that are behind this ploy and whatever agendas they are pushing for, from which they no doubt-ably gain from, and who is behind the pushing.
On a personal level I applaud the effort. I am trying to convert my 1980 home in NJ to electric. Within the next year I will have a PV system, a heat pump water heater, mini splits and charging for an electric car. It is not cheap but money is cheap now.
On a community wide level I wonder if it is the best idea. Perhaps a better approach would be to charge a new construction fee and use the money to provide more efficient HVAC and better insulate some of the old housing in poor neighborhoods in Brookline or nearby communities. I am confident that this would have a higher carbon reduction per dollar and really help struggling communities.
On a commercial level, this will add to the already significant regulatory burden in Mass and is another reason for businesses to move South where they can build cheap and blast the AC all day. That is why in the end a national approach to climate change is essential to success.
Having stated these concerns, I hope it succeeds. Maybe the best thing about this is that it will keep the issue in the minds of the residents and help change the consciousness of people
The way I see it, this is a like minded group of people got themselves appointed to a commission with the intent of forcing their point of view on anyone daring to live in their town.
People with other opinions will choose to live elsewhere and the town will slowly become an echo chamber where radical ideas somehow seem normal, in the now safe space.
Walta
Brookline banned plastic bags and styrofoam coffee cups (Dunkin) years ago. Just recently Massachusetts instituted their plastic bag ban and this week Dunkin’ finally switched to more environmentally friendly cups. Intentions can be good or at least start the conversation on positive change.
Maybe...Or maybe this represents the ethos of the community and the locals will not see it as so radical. There actually are communities in places like New England where what people might label as progressive ideals are very popular and don’t have to be “ forced” on the populace any more than some places force almost everyone in the town to go to church on Sunday or refuse to allow bars and liquor stores.
As I posit in my post above, I am not sure it will work as intended and it may discourage businesses that are bottom line focused and have cheaper alternatives. Then again, maybe it will attract others who want to live like that.
Nick if it was the "ethos of the community" they would be mandating this for EXISTING homes. I expect most of the people who voted for this already have their final home. So instead they are increasing costs for anyone new entering into said "community". Not themselves.
Implying this is against the will of the people can only be posited by someone who has never been to Brookline
So does the entire town get to decide if it goes all electric? Or is it just a few who make the decision?
Welcome to representative democracy
Vote
or complain
or both
Kristen Anderson,
Yes agree that MASS Save is a great resource!
https://www.riseengineering.com/?utm_campaign=general-branded&utm_medium=paid-search&utm_source=adwords&utm_content=phrase&gclid=CjwKCAiA_f3uBRAmEiwAzPuaMx77DEeqGWHHkOibIyMLtoUP7yBPtRGI8YcXwRGNE4WrY_iAvWHpChoC5OkQAvD_BwE
I've used RISE in MA and RI for insulation, air sealing, lightbulbs, thermostats and refrigerators. RISE supplies at a discount, sometimes free, depending upon resident's income. It would cost me more to buy the insulation materials than it costs for RISE to supply and install!
https://www.riseengineering.com/our-services
Agree we should be noting these great resources when we recommend insulating and air-sealing at least for our area.
Congratulations to Brookline! The bottom line is that we need to pretty much stop burning fossil fuels in ten years. Some towns have actually passed commitments to become carbon neutral by X year, but passing resolutions does not reduce emissions, to do that we need action which will need to be regulated into existence. Whether Brookline's method is the best way to proceed, it is a start.
A piece of land in my area was recently rezones for commercial development, and shortly after there was a proposal to require all new development to be all electric. Sounds drastic, from one viewpoint, but what is the alternative?
2008 was our last fossil fueled build; since then all out homes and retrofits have been NZR all electric utilizing minisplits. We've had no problems and have seen no downsides to these units, and see no problem with builders learning to use them. They are a huge technological advance in HVAC and for the comfort of the homeowners from my viewpoint. And the size of the homes makes no difference about whether you can use them or not.
In terms of fears about fuel costs rising, every new homeowner should be installing PV panels on the roof; it make financial sense from day 1, and within ten years when the the panels are paid off, your costs for electricity goes to -0- along with your need to pay attention to it.
Solar panels don’t always make economic sense, and whether or not they zero out your electric costs depends on net metering arrangements and the overall electric load of your home. There is also the additional cost for the solar system, which in some cases may be money that have been allocated to some other system that would have ultimately resulted in greater overall energy savings (possibly additional insulation). There is also geography: solar makes a lot more sense in sunny places like San Diego or Denver than it does in often cloudy places like Chicago or Detroit.
The issue with mandating any of these “solutions” by way of regulations is that this is essentially a way of micromanaging issues, often by the people who least understand the problem, or the impacts of their “solutions”. In the particular case of Brookline, and this would apply pretty much anywhere in the US, shifting towards all-electric everything is shifting the load over to electrical generation that is primarily using the same fuel (natural gas) which ends up being less efficient overall. This is an example of what I mean by people not fully understanding the overall system.
And I’d be careful with the “we only have 10 years” argument. This is the third cycle of “we only have 10 years” that I am aware of over the past several decades. Arbitrary timelines and panicked responses aren’t a good way to arrive at the best decisions regardless of the issue in question.
Bill
What do you suppose the solutions will look like in 20 years after 20 years of doing nothing at all?
I think what you consider panicked responses will be regarded as a drop in the bucket
Keith the issue is making sure the drops are going into the right bucket. Shifting fossil fuel usage from one location to another does nothing to reduce the environmental impact.
They would have been far better served to mandate higher insulation levels. To require testing and measures to reduce air leakage. To require equipment such as hrv/erv. Or perhaps, just perhaps, mandating upgrades to EXISTING buildings? But I expect that would have been hard to push through a vote!
Nathan
Please read my replies
Do you remember the claims of a pending Ice Age back in the 1970's?
Why limit yourself to the 1970s (when merely six times as many climate scientists were predicting long term warming than were predicting cooling)?
I'm sure you can find people predicting a pending ice age right now, today, based on anything from asteroid strikes to nuclear winter or an increase in volcanic activity.
Because that's as far back as I can remember?
Global cooling was getting quite a lot of press back then. Time and other periodicals (ex Science and Mechanics) ran stories and there was various books about it. Then in the 1980's it switched to global warming and then the message changed from global warming to climate change.
I suppose the upside to know nothings posting here is that it means that this website has enough reach that they notice
I have my complaints with climate science that I can argue at cocktail parties and barrooms at length. However today, 2019, complaining of ice age warnings of 50 years ago does not even rise to the level of barroom conversation
>"However today, 2019, complaining of ice age warnings of 50 years ago does not even rise to the level of barroom conversation"
Apparently you haven't been drinking enough! :-)
I will take up that challenge
[burp]
It's a matter of context Keith. With in the context of "near term doom and gloom" climate predictions you have generations which have been been fed the same story for decades and each time the predictions were incorrect and each time the policymakers said this time was different.
So my point is that there is reason why some, generally older, people are skeptical. Part of the problem is that climate science is wildly complex and the press will focus on the absolutely worst case scenario even if that scenario falls into the realm of 2 percent probability.
It is worth adding that many people focused only on climate change are advocating, usually without realizing it, for a reduced quality of life. There was another post in this thread about people needing to learn to live with less reliable electric power and energy shortages, for example.
There is other research out there saying that all of the carbon emissions reductions if fully implemented would result, maybe, in an overall average planetary temperature reduction of some few hundredths of a degree C over the next century or so. This small of a reduction is not actually measurable with any real accuracy at these scales. The economic impact, however, would be very severe and would act to reduce the overall quality of life for most of the population. That’s a very large and certain downside with a very small and relatively uncertain upside. Some other studies show that an overall planetary temperature a few degrees higher would make much more land available for agriculture which could potentially be a good thing.
The “maybe” I mentioned is because the total contribution of carbon dioxide to planetary temperature is not entirely understood contrary to popular belief. Water vapor is a much, much larger contributor. A lot of these things aren’t as certain as is often presented. Measurements over a few decades can’t necessarily be extrapolated out to show trends over geologic timescales such as the approximately 55,000 year climate cycle.
I’m not really trying to advocate for or against anything with this post, I’m just trying to point out that these are VERY complex systems that are NOT entirely understood with absolute certainty, and there are no easy answers. My own opinion is to try to be as efficient as possible within your financial ability. This way you only really have upside, since everyone can agree that getting the most out of the energy you use is a good thing. I also try to actually achieve this in my own home, as I suspect most others on this forum also do. I have a problem with people who demand others implement expensive solutions they’re not willing to implement themselves.
How the energy you use is generated and where it is sourced are the complicated issues. Trying to be as efficient as you can with the energy is relatively easy.
Bill
>>So my point is that there is reason why some, generally older, people are skeptical. <<
John, I am skeptical, but I am not stupid, I do not ignore all scientific evidence because I do not understand it. No, I do not like the term 'scientific consensus' but that is not an excuse to ignore all scientific reason
Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life, son.
Dean Wormer, Animal House
>"In the particular case of Brookline, and this would apply pretty much anywhere in the US, shifting towards all-electric everything is shifting the load over to electrical generation that is primarily using the same fuel (natural gas) which ends up being less efficient overall."
But the fact it it is NOT necessarily "...less efficient overall...", or even more expensive, though one can point to particular household applications and technologies in some locations where it might be:
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/a-texas-sized-gas-for-electricity-swap
To cost to download the full analysis for Texas is the sharing of a modest amount of personal information with Pecan Street:
https://www.pecanstreet.org/electrictexas/
By extension, it's not going to bring down the grid either, even though historical peak loading patterns are likely to change. That is especially true given such a pipsqueak start, which gives the grid system time to adapt to changes in use patterns and overall volume/throughput.
>"The issue with mandating any of these “solutions” by way of regulations is that this is essentially a way of micromanaging issues, often by the people who least understand the problem, or the impacts of their “solutions”."
Brookline's only prescription is to disallow burning of fossil fuels in new or deep-rehab residential applications. They are not prescribing or mandating which "solutions" will be replacing that fossil burning, allowing the market to decide.
Brookline's residential electricity and gas rates are both roughly twice the numbers used in the Pecan Street analysis, and given the differences of insolation & wind patterns between Texas and Massachusetts the optimal grid-mix solutions and storage types/durations going forward will evolve differently, but simply stopping the burning of fossil fuels at homes in Brookline will not generate more emissions, and won't necessarily be more expensive than previously.
Carbon neutral? Is that like gender neutral? Remember when they introduced the carbon tax? Their big joke since most things on earth contain carbon, so tax it all. All things revert and recycle. Maybe everybody and every animal should just stop exhaling to solve the problem, then cut down all the flora so what little carbon there is cannot be used up by those greedy plants.
>"Remember when they introduced the carbon tax? "
I don't, actually? Do you? (At least not in the US. )
Australia imposed a carbon tax under a prior administrations, swiftly repealed by Tony Abbot's cadre of hard-corps climate deniers (and fanciful-carbon accounting practices in the Aussie coal lobby.) The UK legislated a carbon tax a handful of years ago that stuck, which has been credited for speeding up the transformation of their grid.
California's carbon cap & trade market is viewed by some as a tax, as well as the RGGI carbon emission limits/targets, but it's not nearly as simple as a straight ahead $xx.xx/ton tax.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/02/climate/pricing-carbon-emissions.html
We've had a carbon tax here in BC for years. Seems to work fine and do what it was intended to do.
>" Seems to work fine and do what it was intended to do."
Imagine that- solution that is nearly universally favored by economists across the political spectrum actually works!?! Maybe they know something! :-)
It's frustrating that even fee-bate versions of a carbon tax they kept running up the flagpole by referendum on your southern border was shot down multiple times, even with support from Governor Inslee:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Initiative_732
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Initiative_1631
Go Brookline !! The climate is changing, follow the fish.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/29/climate/climate-change-ocean-fish-iceland.html
>"Global cooling was getting quite a lot of press back then. Time and other periodicals (ex Science and Mechanics) ran stories and there was various books about it. Then in the 1980's it switched to global warming and then the message changed from global warming to climate change"
Gotta call BS on this one. Yes, there were a few articles in the popular press regarding cooling issues related to sulfur and aerosols, but eve in the early 1970s in the scientific press for every "global cooling" scientists there were six projecting long term global warming related to greenhouse gas emissions.
And in the 1980s the bigger concerns were acid rain resulting from those sulfur emissions that were responsible for most of the "cooling problem" (dealt with by the EPA) and depletion of ozone in the upper atmosphere (address by the Montreal Protocol in 1987). Global warming was still pretty much a back-burner issue until the 1990s.
It seems the only current press dragging up 1970s vintage popular press articles on the cooling issues and promoting them are the Murdoch press outlets (including Fox), usually presenting it as if that was the scientific consensus of the era for the long term outlook, which is the exact opposite of reality. There was NEVER a scientific consensus behind notions of global cooling.
If you've somehow been sucked in by the global cooling consensus myth being promoted by Murdoch press (and some of the fossil fuel industry lobby), it's worth spending 10 minutes of your life on this entertaining retrospective:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XB3S0fnOr0M&feature=BFa&list=PL029130BFDC78FA33&index=37
Yes I remember that acid rain was an issue, but Global Warming was on the horizon in 1987 (Time ran an article on it) and in 1988 Dr. James Hanson (NASA) gave his global warming testimony to the US Senate.
As I said to Keith my point wasn't that global cooling is a viable alternative scenario but it was instead an example of the never ending near term catastrophic climate predictions which have been hoisted upon the populace for decades. You can't do that and expect the populace to buy into it.
@ Keith Gustafson | Dec 03, 2019 06:31pm | #63
>>So my point is that there is reason why some, generally older, people are skeptical. <<
"John, I am skeptical, but I am not stupid, I do not ignore all scientific evidence because I do not understand it. No, I do not like the term 'scientific consensus' but that is not an excuse to ignore all scientific reason"
- Agree. I think it's naive to suggest that man made emissions are not contributing to changes in the climate. I'd just rather not concentrate on the outcome which has a 2 percent probability rather than the outcome which has 60 percent probability.