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| Rachel
Kutzley demonstrates a
thermal camera, a
device that can help
to identify the
leakage of heat, at
the Energy Smart Home
Expo in Columbus,
Ohio, on Oct. 25.
Credit: Dan
Gearino/Inside Climate
News |
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There
is a long-running
debate over the
relative weights of
individual and
government
responsibility in
limiting the effects
of climate change.
Now, at a time when
the U.S. government is
largely abdicating its
role, I spent a
Saturday hanging out
with a group that
focuses on what its
members can do in
their households and
community.
It was an antidote to
cynicism.
The event was the
Energy Smart Home
Expo, organized by Electrify Central Ohio and held at Ohio State
University, a few
miles from where I
live in Columbus. The
exhibitors included
rooftop solar
companies, electric
vehicle advocates,
energy efficiency
professionals and
environmental
nonprofits, among
others.
One of my first stops
was a table where
volunteer Rachel
Kutzley demonstrated
gadgets that could
help people reduce
their utility bills.
She pointed a thermal
camera at a mug of hot
tea and the camera’s
screen showed heat
leakage from the top.
At home, I could use
this to identify the
areas around windows,
baseboards and other
parts of the house
where heat is leaking.
Once I have this
information, I can
fill those gaps with
caulk or other
materials.
“That can be the best
way to bring down your
home heating costs,”
she said.
A thermal camera costs
about $150, or, if you
have a group like
Electrify Central Ohio
in your area, you can
easily borrow one for
a day.
She also had a smart
plug, which is a
device you can insert
in a wall outlet and
then you plug your
appliance or home
electronic device into
it. The plug, which
you can buy for as
little as $10, will
tell you how much
electricity the device
is using, and it can
help you identify
energy hogs in the
home that can be
unplugged when not in
use.
I asked her a version
of the question I
asked almost everyone
that day: How do you
muster enthusiasm for
saving energy at a
time when the federal
government has largely
abandoned its
ambitions to make a
shift to cleaner
power?
“We need to do the
right thing for the
next generation,” she
said.
I wanted to get an
advocate’s
perspective, and found
one just a few tables
down. Mryia Williams
is the senior Ohio
program assistant for
Solar United
Neighbors, a nonprofit
that organizes
group-buying programs
for rooftop solar and
advocates for
solar-friendly
policies.
In her spare time, she
serves as the
volunteer executive
director of Drive
Electric Columbus, a
group that promotes
EVs.
Williams’ two advocacy
passions took big hits
from the Trump
administration’s One
Big Beautiful Bill
Act, which had rapid
phaseouts of tax
credits for solar and
EVs. Ohio’s state
government isn’t much
better, having mostly
abandoned policies
that sought to
encourage renewable
energy.
So how does she keep
going?
“I’m going to get up
every day, I’m going
to go about helping
people, just like I’ve
always helped them,”
she said.
Part of what motivates
her is the belief that
rooftop solar and EVs
are doing good in the
world, and that good
has value even in
small doses.
Across the aisle from
her was Appalachian
Renewable Power, a
solar installer based
in Athens, in
southeastern Ohio.
John McNamara, the
company’s chief
operating officer,
said the phaseout of
federal tax credits is
a blow, but his
company still
anticipates a strong
2026.
A key factor, he
explained, is that the
payback period—the
time it takes for
electricity bill
savings to cover the
costs of buying
rooftop solar—is still
pretty good even
without tax credits.
This period is about
four years right now,
with tax credits, and
it would be about six
years without tax
credits.
And, utility rates
continue to rise,
which means additional
savings for consumers
who produce their own
electricity, he said.
Electrify Central Ohio
is run by two
volunteers, Madeline
Fleisher, an attorney
specializing in energy
issues, and Andy
Leber, an Ohio State
psychology professor.
They formed the group in 2022 after each of them
had completed projects
in their homes to
reduce the fossil fuel
use, and they realized
there wasn’t an easy
way for local
residents to find
answers to basic
questions.
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| Madeline
Fleisher and Andy
Leber, co-founders of
Electrify Central
Ohio, pose for a photo
at the expo they
helped organize.
Credit: Dan
Gearino/Inside Climate
News |
|
They formed a Facebook
group and host online
and in-person meetings
where the public can
share contractor
recommendations, talk
about experiences with
equipment such as heat
pumps and generally
commiserate.
I asked Fleisher if the
organization has changed
its focus now that the
federal government has
pared back much of its
support for reducing
emissions.
“What we were doing has
not changed at all,” she
said. “It has always
been about helping
people understand what
their options are in the
world today.”
Any substantial change
will eventually require
government buy-in,
Fleisher said, but there
remains a role for
individuals to make
progress in the
meantime. She noted that
about one-third of
Ohio’s carbon emissions
come from residential
energy use and driving
private vehicles. She
wanted to drive home the
point that people can do
a lot to reduce
emissions in their own
lives, even in the
absence of government
action.
Leber said it’s a false
choice to talk about
whether progress comes
through structural
changes by government or
through consumer choices
of consumers. Both are
crucial in the fight
against climate change.
“The answer is that the
government and
individuals need to do
everything they can,” he
said.
But he is also mindful
of a trope of climate
denial in which
governments and
companies blame rising
emissions on consumers
to shift responsibility
away from themselves.
It’s possible to reject
this form of climate
denial while still
realizing that
individual actions can
do a lot of good, he
said.
I’m going to end with a
treat. Among the
businesses with a table
was The
Buckeye Lady,
which specializes in
making buckeye candy, a
chocolate and peanut
butter confection that
looks like the nut from
the buckeye tree.
Alicia Hindman, the
Buckeye lady herself,
who now has a storefront
and a regional
following, was at the
expo to demonstrate the
virtues of a portable
induction cooktop. An
induction cooktop runs
on electricity, using a
magnetic field to heat
the cookware and its
contents, while the
cooktop surface remains
cool.
She stirred melted
chocolate on the cooktop
and explained why this
was preferable to
cooking with gas.
“They conserve energy,
which is really nice,
and they conserve space,
so you don't have to
house a whole stove,”
she said.
This was a recurring
theme at many of the
tables, and it offers
hope for broader
consumer adoption:
Cleaner technologies
often have advantages in
terms of quality and
lifetime costs, to the
point that the
environmental benefits
become an afterthought.
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Other
stories about the
energy transition to
take note of this
week:
The Trump
Administration
Shifts the Offshore
Wind Industry Into
Reverse: President
Donald Trump has used
the levers of
government to slow and
even stop development
of offshore wind
power, as Andrew S. Lewis reports for Mother Jones.
This story is a good
roundup of months of
actions that have
combined to cause
damage to the nascent
industry, raising
concerns about states’
ability to reduce
their fossil fuel use.
Elon Musk’s
Politics May Have
Cost Tesla 1 Million
Vehicle Sales: Yale
University economists
have issued a working
paper in which they
find Tesla’s U.S.
sales would have been
between 67 percent and
83 percent higher from
October 2022 to April
2025 if not for the
effect of CEO Elon
Musk’s partisanship,
which drove customers
away Musk’s support
for Donald Trump has
cost Tesla sales with
environmentally minded
customers who were
likely to oppose
Trump’s politics, as Akash Sriram reports for Reuters.
The Trump
Administration Seeks
to Speed Data Center
Grid Connections: The
Department of Energy
has proposed a rule
that would expand
federal control over
how large electricity
users connect to the
grid, accelerating the
building of data
centers and power
plants that serve
them, as I wrote for ICN. Among the interesting parts
of the proposal is a
60-day timeline to
approve grid
connections for
projects, if the
developer is willing
to make the data
center flexible about
the amount of power it
needs at any given
time. Companies are
going to want this
expedited approval,
which means we are
likely to see more
projects like the one
Aligned Data Centers
is planning for an
undisclosed location
in the Pacific
Northwest, pairing a
data center with a
31-megawatt battery,
as Julian Spector reports for Canary Media.
Is It Possible
for U.S. Solar
Installers to Reduce
Costs to $2 Per
Watt? One
of the big challenges
for rooftop solar
adoption in the United
States is the
inability to drive
down costs even as
panel prices decrease,
as Lisa Martine Jenkins writes for Latitude Media.
The cost of a rooftop
system here is about
$3 per wall, while
it’s $1 per watt in
Australia. A recent
report from Tesla says
lower prices are
possible through a
combination of
regulatory changes,
improvements in how
installers operate and
cost-saving
innovations in the
design of some parts.
A separate report from
the nonprofit Permit
Power found that if
installers can get
costs down to $1 per
watt, it would lead to
18.2 million more
families installing
solar and add about
200 gigawatts of
additional capacity.
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