Cory Gaines who write the Colorado Accountability Project today published a short piece encouraging readers to consider joining one of Colorado’s various grift boards — the Colorado Building Decarbonization Enterprise Board.
Building decarbonization is beyond stupid. First: they won't seriously look at transportation because it will impact everyone's lives. This despite the fact that vehicles cause meaningful local air pollution as well as GHG emissions.
Secondly, they could get more effective changes through the building code. How about requiring sufficient thermal mass to keep homes from overheating on summer days, and stay warmer on winter nights? And having solar gain requirements/home orientation rules? Single family new construction can achieve 95% passive solar heating/cooling in our climate. Just have a little mini-split heat pump for the balance. And let us keep our gas stoves! Electric stoves contribute to peak load. I don't think that the electric grid can handle electric stoves in everyone's homes any more than the grid could handle more than limited home charging of EVs.
The US electric utility industry has been working on multiple fronts to promote "all-electric everything" for decades, though I don't think they expected to have to do it with renewables and storage.
Replacing functioning appliances and equipment is never economical.
Retrofitting houses to minimize energy consumption is a $50,000 - 100,000 per unit expense, probably not recoverable through operating cost savings.
I am Steve Heins, eighty-one years, a spark in the vast fire of being,
No college degrees to hang on my wall, no parchment to claim my worth,
Yet Columbia whispered, two French courses shy, and I learned from the world’s own books.
I have been a small-town boy, dirt under my nails from golf, chasing greased pigs through county fairs,
Six times I won, the crowd roaring, the mud my crown, my youth a wild, unbridled song.
I have swung clubs as a scratch golfer, danced on basketball courts, my body a rhythm of motion,
I have drifted, interstate highways my veins, several truck stop restaurants my temples, high plains and low my congregation.
Then, Big-city college man, I claimed the NYC neon pulse, skyscrapers my stars, Yet I wandered, self-indulgent, a distant father, my heart sometimes lost in the haze.
Auto-didact, I stormed Ivy halls, no gatekeeper to bar my way,
Scholar, student, historian, I devoured books, art, music—pages my kin, symphonies my breath.
I have been a poet, words my chisel, carving truth from the stone of days,
A poetry aficionado, lover of verses that sing the soul’s quiet and its storms.
Lost soul, I’ve roamed, yet found my place in the vastness,
Eighty-one years, I stand, a blizzard of one, my life a canvas of collisions, still painting.
2. Career
I am a business writer, economist, my pen a torch in the dark of markets,
Researcher, communicator, I weave stories for the weary, the hopeful, the seeking.
Wall Street knew me, mutual fund communications, shaping wealth’s pulse,
I spoke to traders, to dreamers, my words a bridge between chaos and clarity.
I am the Blizzard of One, storming broadband’s gates, defying Goliath’s shadow,
Internet Open Access my banner, freedom my cry, a digital dawn for every voice.
Practical environmentalist, I named myself, no dogma to chain my sight,
Energy efficiency my craft, lighting the world with a realist’s spark.
Chicago Climate Exchange, I was there, building markets for carbon’s weight,
Paris, I stood in its ancient halls, speaking to the EU’s schemers, my vision for emissions a map.
Lobbyist, I walked fifty states, D.C.’s marble my battleground,
For natural gas, for nuclear’s hum, I fought, my voice a gadfly’s sting.
Technology theorist, I dreamed in clouds, saw the future in circuits and code,
Bakken Basin, I spoke, The Weekly Word my stage, Professor Heins my name.
With experts—geologists, physicists, skeptics—they joined me, their truths a chorus,
We broke the noise, our podcast a fire, burning for sane energy, for human thriving.
ESG I weigh, fair and balanced, my skeptic’s eye unfooled by greenwashed hymns,
Political organizer, pain in the ass, I stir the pot, I wake the sleeping.
Tens of thousand articles, my ink a river, The Word Merchant’s flood across nations,
Curator, I gather truths, feeding allies—scientists, journalists—with light against the dark.
Self-financed, unbowed, at eighty-one, I am the storm that never quiets,
Sane energy my job, my cause, my heart’s unyielding vow.
This is my confession, my map, my open book,
Steve Heins, poet, fighter, a life of words and wars, still singing.
Building decarbonization is beyond stupid. First: they won't seriously look at transportation because it will impact everyone's lives. This despite the fact that vehicles cause meaningful local air pollution as well as GHG emissions.
Secondly, they could get more effective changes through the building code. How about requiring sufficient thermal mass to keep homes from overheating on summer days, and stay warmer on winter nights? And having solar gain requirements/home orientation rules? Single family new construction can achieve 95% passive solar heating/cooling in our climate. Just have a little mini-split heat pump for the balance. And let us keep our gas stoves! Electric stoves contribute to peak load. I don't think that the electric grid can handle electric stoves in everyone's homes any more than the grid could handle more than limited home charging of EVs.
Signed,
Jeff from Fort Collins
The US electric utility industry has been working on multiple fronts to promote "all-electric everything" for decades, though I don't think they expected to have to do it with renewables and storage.
Replacing functioning appliances and equipment is never economical.
Retrofitting houses to minimize energy consumption is a $50,000 - 100,000 per unit expense, probably not recoverable through operating cost savings.
https://edreid.substack.com/p/decarbonizing-buildings
https://edreid.substack.com/p/decarbonizing-buildings-2
https://edreid.substack.com/p/decarbonizing-buildings-3
1. Life
I am Steve Heins, eighty-one years, a spark in the vast fire of being,
No college degrees to hang on my wall, no parchment to claim my worth,
Yet Columbia whispered, two French courses shy, and I learned from the world’s own books.
I have been a small-town boy, dirt under my nails from golf, chasing greased pigs through county fairs,
Six times I won, the crowd roaring, the mud my crown, my youth a wild, unbridled song.
I have swung clubs as a scratch golfer, danced on basketball courts, my body a rhythm of motion,
I have drifted, interstate highways my veins, several truck stop restaurants my temples, high plains and low my congregation.
Then, Big-city college man, I claimed the NYC neon pulse, skyscrapers my stars, Yet I wandered, self-indulgent, a distant father, my heart sometimes lost in the haze.
Auto-didact, I stormed Ivy halls, no gatekeeper to bar my way,
Scholar, student, historian, I devoured books, art, music—pages my kin, symphonies my breath.
I have been a poet, words my chisel, carving truth from the stone of days,
A poetry aficionado, lover of verses that sing the soul’s quiet and its storms.
Lost soul, I’ve roamed, yet found my place in the vastness,
Eighty-one years, I stand, a blizzard of one, my life a canvas of collisions, still painting.
2. Career
I am a business writer, economist, my pen a torch in the dark of markets,
Researcher, communicator, I weave stories for the weary, the hopeful, the seeking.
Wall Street knew me, mutual fund communications, shaping wealth’s pulse,
I spoke to traders, to dreamers, my words a bridge between chaos and clarity.
I am the Blizzard of One, storming broadband’s gates, defying Goliath’s shadow,
Internet Open Access my banner, freedom my cry, a digital dawn for every voice.
Practical environmentalist, I named myself, no dogma to chain my sight,
Energy efficiency my craft, lighting the world with a realist’s spark.
Chicago Climate Exchange, I was there, building markets for carbon’s weight,
Paris, I stood in its ancient halls, speaking to the EU’s schemers, my vision for emissions a map.
Lobbyist, I walked fifty states, D.C.’s marble my battleground,
For natural gas, for nuclear’s hum, I fought, my voice a gadfly’s sting.
Technology theorist, I dreamed in clouds, saw the future in circuits and code,
Bakken Basin, I spoke, The Weekly Word my stage, Professor Heins my name.
With experts—geologists, physicists, skeptics—they joined me, their truths a chorus,
We broke the noise, our podcast a fire, burning for sane energy, for human thriving.
ESG I weigh, fair and balanced, my skeptic’s eye unfooled by greenwashed hymns,
Political organizer, pain in the ass, I stir the pot, I wake the sleeping.
Tens of thousand articles, my ink a river, The Word Merchant’s flood across nations,
Curator, I gather truths, feeding allies—scientists, journalists—with light against the dark.
Self-financed, unbowed, at eighty-one, I am the storm that never quiets,
Sane energy my job, my cause, my heart’s unyielding vow.
This is my confession, my map, my open book,
Steve Heins, poet, fighter, a life of words and wars, still singing.