The documentary Sacred Cow was released in January 2021 and explores the ways that ruminants (cows) and well-raised meat can play an important role in solving our climate crisis (I’ll be interviewing director Diana Rodgers on a grasslands webinar in March). The film’s central argument is that the real threat … [continued]
A decade or so ago, I came across an article in the local paper about a retired school teacher who owned some land a couple hours east of my city of Portland, Oregon, and spent his golden years planting trees. He had planted 10,000 trees up to that point, aiming … [continued]
I’ve been following San Jose’s Mayor, Sam Liccardo, for some time. In 2019, I heard from environmentalists in California about how he was instrumental in getting all-electric building legislation through the city council of the nation’s 10th largest city. I’ve also been tracking San Jose’s nation-leading efforts in clean electricity and electric vehicles.
In past articles, we’ve profiled some of the key technologies that are essential to the all-electric modern home of the future: heat pumps for space heating; induction stoves for incredibly precise and fast cooking; electric cars for pollution-free transportation; and heat pump water heaters for hot water. To this list we now add the electric fireplace.
Community solar is the idea that folks who can’t install solar panels on their rooftops — either because their roof isn’t in good shape or they don’t have the upfront capital or they rent and don’t own their home — can essentially buy solar panels at a solar farm (usually off in a field somewhere relatively nearby), receive credit off their utility bills, and take part in growing their solar energy locally.
I decided to look into community solar, interview some people involved in the program, and sign up myself to see how it’s going and to better understand how community solar works in general.
The announcements are coming so fast it’s hard to keep up. In mid November, San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors voted to ban natural gas in new buildings. On December 2, Oakland’s city council did the same. And yesterday, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan …
Two friends recently bought electric cars for their families after thinking about it for a long time. Beyond wanting to congratulate them, and click my heels together like Gene Kelly in Singing in the Rain, I felt the need to describe, in detail, just how big a deal this EV purchase is, beyond platitudes like “EVs are so amazing for the world.” So I wrote them a letter.
A couple of weeks ago, CleanTechnica profiled an important way to electrify everything equitably.
In the 1950s, when nuclear energy was booming and hydroelectric dams were laying across rivers like tourniquets, the all-electric home became a thing. It didn’t matter that the electric heating technologies of the time were vastly inefficient. The promise of electricity that was “too cheap to meter” meant that people could use it to their heart’s delight.
