Net Zero Buildings and No Emissions EVs
I have some older relatives who provide an unusual model for how to live a sustainable “zero carbon” lifestyle. Their home is located near Springfield, Massachusetts. All the electricity they consume is from renewable energy, provided reliably 24/7 year-round. They drive an EV, as do the majority of their neighbors. Their home is heated with a renewable fuel that is both cheap and doesn’t leak any climate damaging hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), unlike electric heat pumps. Their clothes dryer is 100% solar powered. They eat only organic food, and recycle their waste.
Unfortunately, I never met these relatives. They are my great-grandparents who died decades before I was born. What I am describing is their life in the first decade at turn of the last century – early 1900s to be clear. That we don’t appreciate that history is unfortunate, but it is relevant. Here is a small window into that history, and how it connects the present, to our energy future.
Around 1900 a dam was built in an adjacent town on the Connecticut River. That dam provided factories and homes with hydropower. There were available dead and dying trees nearby to use for heating in winter. Their “clothes dryer” was two poles in the back yard with a length of cord stretched between them on which to hang their laundry to dry in the sun. And electric vehicles (which had a range of up to 150 miles), were more common in the U.S. than gas powered ones in the first decade of the 20th century. Interestingly another old relative of mine, a great-uncle, spent a quarter century at Thomas Edison’s West Orange Lab. He began working with Edison around the time he was developing, in partnership with Henry Ford, a better car battery (Elon Musk was 100+ years late). I got to hear his first-hand accounts of many of Edison’s inventions.
Fast forward to a defining event that happened many decades later: the 1973 Arab oil embargo. That event launched a national renewable energy movement in the U.S. (or alternative energy, as we called it back then), contributing to creation of the U.S. Department of Energy, and it led to development and commercialization of much cheaper photovoltaics (PV) and wind turbines.
Having lived through those times and fought for development of those and other renewables,
I see some lessons from that history that have urgency today, as we work to decarbonize our energy supply, including in my own progressive state of Illinois. Let me connect some dots.
The reason that my great-grandparents had hydroelectricity was the result of research efforts that Edison, and others invested in, to make that possible. Edison’s West Orange, New Jersey lab was an innovation hub, where research dollars went into solving pressing problems, like how to provide inexpensive electricity to homes and factories as they were starting to electrify. He developed the generators and Direct Current (DC) that allowed the first electric power grid. Nikola Tesla, who left Edison’s lab and went to work for Westinghouse (a corporate power of that era), helped harness Niagara Falls, allowing hydroelectricity to become commonplace.
This article summarizes some of that history.
Today’s cheap PV, and wind turbine generated electricity emerged much later, from substantial investments in research and development to make them more cost effective. Back in the 1970s they were expensive and mostly limited to niche applications. I remember organizing a regional conference to showcase “alternative energy” (I believe the first such large scale event in the Midwest), while at the University of Wisconsin, Madison in the late 1970s. The best that we could do in getting a PV array to display, was one that could be held in the palm of your hand.
Surprisingly, it was the “big bad” fossil fuel companies that largely made cheap PV possible. Exxon Mobil led that effort, and was really the first, along with ARCO, another dominant fossil fuel company at that time, to successfully develop, commercialize and create an international market for PV (in 2019, NPR did a story about that history; a link is included here).
How is all that relevant to the current efforts to decarbonize our energy supply? In a word innovation. Without it, our toolbox of solutions is limited. And with climate change posing an existential threat, we need all possible tools at our disposable if we are to prevent catastrophe. However, innovation is now a target of concerted national campaigns, surprisingly led by well- intentioned electrification advocates, to allow only one set of innovations, while preventing another. As someone who has worked on environmental issues for nearly 50 years and led high profile initiatives to decarbonize key sectors of our economy, new technologies that accelerate decarbonization, are being pre-empted by policies and laws. That dries up needed investment.
Here is the simple, but compelling narrative that underlies those campaigns. Wind and solar (rooftop and grid scale) generated electricity, with battery storage (to ensure reliability), are all we really need to decarbonize our buildings and transportation sectors. Sure, hydroelectricity can play a supporting role, along with legacy nuclear plants. But the path to decarbonization is largely solved, where we electrify virtually everything, powered primarily by wind and solar.
That is now being translated, state by state, and municipality by municipality, into foreclosing or limiting other options. Whether renewable natural gas, or hydrogen (that is not from wind), they are seen as incapable of being sustainably produced at scale. Electrification of buildings, industrial processes, cars, buses, etc., is their goal and it is a zero-sum game. It is impossible to decarbonize these fuels to much beyond 15% of current gas supply and it should be prevented. That, at least, is how the well-intentioned campaign is being pursued, including my home state.
For many reasons, and on several levels, placing all bets on “electrification only” as the solution, is not only risky, it will slow efforts to decarbonization our energy infrastructure. Here is the “tip of the iceberg” of those implications and why it is problematic. I will use Illinois as emblematic; but California, New York, Massachusetts, Washington and other states have similar initiatives.
In 2021, Illinois’ Governor signed into law the “Climate and Equitable Jobs Act” (CEJA). More than 900 pages long, it does great things to encourage energy efficiency, renewable power and the move to electric vehicles. However, in powerful ways, it also discourages a broad array of solutions. Where previously Illinois incentivized all types of renewable energy, including both baseload and dispatchable power (hydroelectric, biomass, etc.), it now allows incentives to only go to wind and solar. It also encourages electrification of space and water heating, and many other applications, whether or not it currently reduces net greenhouse gas emissions (Illinois is currently at ~15% renewables, and with most response to electricity load changes coming from fossil plants). Also not recognized is large GHG impact of HFC leakage from electric heat pumps.
CEJA additionally provides for model “stretch codes” and building performance standards (BPS), which is beneficial – except where it is used to limit or prevent some innovative decarbonization technologies, including hybrid solutions, where heat pumps and gas measures are combined to optimize savings. Provisions penalizing these alternatives are being promoted by “electrification only” advocates. They are now pushing municipalities to use building codes to eliminate most gas, or severely restrict its use, threatening implementation of decarbonized fuels and systems
One problem for Illinois and some other northern states, is winter heating loads can be three times or more summer peak demand. But our electric grid was built for peak summer cooling. With most space and water heating currently met by natural gas, that means substantial new electric generation will be needed to meet demand as we electrify. Where will that power come from? Intermittent wind and solar alone isn’t enough. Seasonal battery storage doesn’t exist.
Add the CEJA requirements to phase out most or all our fossil fuel power plants (important to decarbonization), which reliably operate 24/7 and can often ramp up and down as demand requires, we lose not only our existing capacity, we have not addressed how a large growth in electric demand will be met. Illinois’ current energy plans are based on generating 50% of our power from wind and solar within ~20 years (nuclear power, which currently generates 53% of our electricity, makes that carbon free). But that is at our existing levels of electricity demand.
We are not only simultaneously shutting down our fossil plants, we have removed all incentives for any new baseload or dispatchable renewable energy. One saving grace in that equation is our nuclear plants, which currently provide most of our carbon free power. However, they are aging plants that are expensive to operate. In fact, several key plants were slated to close, until a last-minute deal provided $700 million in subsidies to keep the plants open to 2027. Even if new federal subsidies are brought to bear, Illinois remaining nuclear plants days are numbered.
The implications of all those changes are chilling. And let’s include the transportation sector as the intent is to go all electric by 2035. A recent article in Newsweek magazine (recent article), suggests how problematic that will be, including where social costs and benefits accrue most.
If through incentives, policy and law, and building code changes, we electrify much or most of space and water heating, gas reliant industrial processes, commercial buildings, as well as cars and light duty vehicles, what does that mean for our electric grid? And for energy resilience?
Importantly, it is the disadvantaged and low-income communities that will be most affected if our electric power system fails to deliver, particularly on the coldest days in middle of winter. That is not an alarmist position; the Midwest grid system operator (MISO) has raised concerns.
However you apportion the $4.5 trillion that a recent study estimated it will cost the U.S. to shift to 100% renewable electricity for all our energy, factoring in battery storage, generating power, transmission and distribution, etc., what does that mean for low income energy bills?
I have spent my career invested in decarbonizing our energy system (as well as other sectors), but I have not defined that to include “electrification only” as the solution. That seems perilous.
Circling back to where I started – innovation. Whether decarbonizing natural gas or developing other forms of renewable energy, including those not fitting an “electrification only” box, most of these alternatives are being pulled off the table. That despite substantial investments by gas and electric utilities, large investor groups, but also from many other sources. What is emerging from R&D labs, or is in process of commercialization, are “breakthrough” technologies that are changing what is feasible. I know that first-hand as I am deeply involved in energy R&D work, and have been for many years. That encompasses everything from low and no emission burners to gas heat pumps with better cold weather performance (and a lower carbon footprint), than electric heat pumps. And repurposed oil fields where H2 is extracted, and carbon is left in the ground. Some of those developments are proprietary, so it is not yet visible to the public. Other innovative technologies and approaches are publicly available to see, for those willing to look.
Notably, decarbonized gas is not limited to just biomass feedstocks or hydrogen from carbon intensive sources (one reason only H2 from wind is recognized). Such preconceptions explain, in part, the imposition of constraints by electrification advocates; conviction that there is a ceiling on how much decarbonized gas can be generated, and/or feasibly used, with either fuel. Those assumptions are now being challenged, and innovative solutions will demonstrate their fallacy.
Even as a child, in listening to my great uncle, who was by then an old man, recall his 25 years working for Edison, I could understand a fundamental set of truths that he related to me about innovation. First, it is really hard. Second, failure will be the outcome most of the time. Third, persistence counts more than anything. And finally, everyone’s crystal ball is broken. No one can predict the future. He recounted the Direct Current (DC) versus Alternating Current (AC) battle that Edison and Tesla engaged at the turn of the last century. By allowing only one type of innovation, while trying to prevent other types, we make a harsh mistake. Let science, and demonstrated advantage, determine the winners. Preventing it harms essential progress and compromises our future world. We are only limited by imagination. Diversity of that matters.
Allen designed his first rooftop PV with battery storage system in the mid-1970s. He has since worked on energy, water, agricultural, transportation and other issues of sustainability and carbon reduction. He created California’s carbon negative renewable electricity architecture, orchestrated key elements of their biomethane program, pioneered decarbonization of trucking, among many other initiatives. He also led the U.S. Dairy industry’s national program to reduce carbon emission from farming and implement sustainable production practices. Unusually, he has worked in coal fields of Appalachia and first pursued the shut-down of coal plants in the 1980s. He currently manages energy research and development, and market transformation programs for Franklin Energy clients, encompassing the residential, commercial and industrial sectors, and has won awards for innovation. The views expressed here are his alone, and do not reflect those of Franklin Energy, its owners or managers, or any of its clients or their customers.