Our energy and carbon valuing system is broken; a new approach is needed. While we are generally heading the right direction, the slow pace of progress toward a low-carbon future is just too slow to rapidly impact our net carbon reduction needs. CarbonStop offers an additional approach.
Homes:
The vast majority of residential homes and their associated technologies (heating/cooling/cooking/lighting/refrigeration/transportation) operating in the United States function off of carbon-based energy supplies. Homes are still primarily heated and cooled by utility-supplied natural gas or fossil fueled electricity and our vehicles use gasoline or diesel fuel. Even in homes with electric vehicles, the vast majority of the energy to charge the car’s batteries depend on coal or natural gas-fired electrical generation, essentially relocating their carbon emissions from the tail pipe to the utility smoke stake. While homes are becoming more energy efficient, they continue to grow in size, significantly off-setting the reductions in energy efficiency with gains in square feet of conditioned space. While new building codes increase the energy efficiency of our homes, they continue to be based on the least-cost, discounted, net present value of an energy supply with zero long-term future value because of the code change discounting approach. These approaches typically peg the value of the code change to the future value of the discounted wholesale energy supply cost, rather than on the value to the home owner or the future of our country. This same condition applies to the vast majority of energy efficiency programs now operating in the United States, limiting their carbon saving ability.
In these approaches the price of energy to the homeowner is typically not valued at the retail cost to the customer, but is instead valued at the utility’s regulated wholesale supply cost, a cost many times lower than the customer’s actual costs. Then, that wholesale cost of energy is further reduced in its calculated value because of the discounting approach approved by most regulatory agencies for residential energy technologies. These discounting approaches values future energy savings at a level of worth far below its value to the homeowner. Therefore, when compared to other, more sustainable, energy efficiency solutions (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.), they are falsely perceived as less economically efficient and are not approved for inclusion in these programs. We actually discount the value of our future carbon reductions to be essentially worthless in future years because of our discounting approach, thereby providing no impact on an energy efficiency or carbon reduction discounted-based economic decision.
Vehicles:
While our residential vehicle fleet continues to become more fuel efficient, buyers continue to move to larger less efficient SUVs and trucks. The largest single types of vehicles sold today in the United States of America are pick-up trucks and SUVs, both with high gas consumption levels. Likewise, recent roll-backs to our country’s mileage improvements have left us farther buried in our carbon-debt.
Technologies:
Although possible for each family to independently assess their carbon-based lifestyle and research and identify a series of technology and associated behavioral changes that will lead to a low-carbon or net-zero carbon lifestyle, this process is overly complex for the typical family. They need technical help. The technologies that will work well for each household are different and often technically difficult, not to mention expensive and potentially disruptive. Help determining which of the current and developing technologies would greatly help these families understand the scope and cost of each alternative. Sequencing that process is just as difficult:
- Which technologies are available in their area?
- Which technologies provide the greatest return for their goals and their budget?
- Which should be taken first, second and third?
- Which will their utility company allow them to use without code changes or utility approvals and connections?
- Which require what level of on-going maintenance?
- What will that maintenance cost?
Understanding these complexities to the degree that a family can systematically and independently take action is a difficult task despite their objective of lowering their carbon footprint successfully. CarbonStop can offer appropriate technical help.
Financial Needs:
Moving to a low-carbon or net-zero carbon lifestyle is not just technically difficult; it is often financially impossible for the typical family. They need financial help. Converting to a low-carbon or net-zero carbon lifestyle typically can cost between $50,000 and $150,000 per home or more. This level of financial burden can increase their cost of living by 20% to 100% over the short term (under 7 years). While long-term costs of ownership and operation will likely decrease, families are not able to get over the financial hump to transition into the lower cost period (~7 to 15 years away). Independently contracting with energy efficiency and renewable energy technology providers does not always serve the customer’s best interests. Sellers of energy efficient and renewable energy technologies typically are not often focused on the short- or long-term economic interests of the family. The primary objective of most all sellers of energy efficient or renewable energy technologies is profit for their firm while minimizing customer contact and call-backs. This can add unnecessary costs to their budgets, especially if the technologies selected by the customer are not their best options financially. CarbonStop can facilitate acquiring financial help.