Hi, what are you looking for?
Our Water Heaters Could Help Save the Wilderness
Show Off Your Solar & Sustainable Homes & Buildings
Sunrun Now Offering Electric Vehicle Chargers
Report: Clean Energy Jobs Benefitting Every State
Cadmium Telluride Accelerator Consortium Aims To Reduce Costs, Speed Deployment of Low-Carbon Thin-Film Solar Technologies
Report: Clean Energy Jobs Benefitting Every State
More Renewable Energy For Arizona, More Support For Climate Bill
The U.S. Power Grid Added 15 GW of Capacity in 1st Half of 2022
Prepping For The 100% Renewable Energy Grid Of Tomorrow, Today
Can Meteorological Models Correctly Characterize Daily Cycles in Wind Generation?
Decarbonizing Data Centers — It’s Fun!
Most Renewables Now Cheaper Than Cheapest Coal
Kenya Elections: Electric Mobility, Utility Scale Battery Storage, Energy Efficiency & Green Hydrogen Feature Prominently
More Electricity from Wind & Solar than Nuclear for 1st Time in USA
Funding Notice: Community Geothermal Heating & Cooling Design & Deployment
Sunrun Now Offering Electric Vehicle Chargers
Silicon Valley Startup Plans 3D-Printed Solid-State Battery Gigafactories
30 Million EV Battery Packs in 2027?
LG Energy Solution Tapping Battery Startups To Try To Poach Their Goodies
The End Of Net Metering May Be Good For Community Resilience & Nat’l Security
San Diego Electric School Bus Puts Electricity Into The Grid
Can Virtual Power Plants Provide Revenue for Householders?
ERCOT & Tesla: How Virtual Power Plants Can Help Texas Electricity Grid & Save Lives
Energy Security at the Edge of the Grid
Texan Tesla Powerwall Owners Can Help Change ERCOT’s Mind On VPPs
Our Water Heaters Could Help Save the Wilderness
Heat Pumps Proved Themselves During A Harsh Maine Winter
Decarbonizing Data Centers — It’s Fun!
Greener Air Conditioning for a Warmer World
Sensata Technologies Develops New Joystick & Controls For Urban Air Mobility
Our Water Heaters Could Help Save the Wilderness
Thousand-Year Floods & the Ford Lightning Come to Kentucky
Sunrun Now Offering Electric Vehicle Chargers
Can Tesla [TSLA] Reach $2 Trillion Market Cap By 2025?
Putting The EcoFlow DELTA Pro Power Station To A Hard Test
The Tesla App — Informing Driving & Having Fun
BioLite AlpenGlow Lanterns & Solar Charger — CleanTechnica Review
Ecoflow Wave Portable Air Conditioner Initial Review
CleanTechnica Tested: GoSun Chillest Review
Germany’s EV Share Cold Comfort Against 34% Shortfall In Overall Auto Market
UK Plugin EV Share Shrinks In July, BEVs Still Growing
French New Auto Sales Crash 37%, BEVs Still Growing
Norway’s Plugin Market Share Drops, BEVs Still Growing
Sweden’s Plugin EV Revolution Continues To March Forward
Putting The EcoFlow DELTA Pro Power Station To A Hard Test
The Tesla App — Informing Driving & Having Fun
BioLite AlpenGlow Lanterns & Solar Charger — CleanTechnica Review
Ecoflow Wave Portable Air Conditioner Initial Review
CleanTechnica Tested: GoSun Chillest Review
Tesla Q4 Shareholder Conference Call — Watch & Listen Here
Volkswagen Group — In-Depth Conference Call Highlights Company’s Focus On Transition
Bill McKibben On Unions, Tesla, & Elon Musk — CleanTechnica Interview
How To Watch & Listen To Tesla Q3 Earnings Call — Most Useful Livestream
Tesla Sales & Future of Tesla Discussion with Ride the Lightning, Starman, & EVANNEX
These solutions – renewable energy, heat pumps, electric vehicles and other electric solutions – are capable of eliminating the majority of global carbon emissions. Whenever a furnace or water heater or gas burning car is replaced with a clean electric alternative, it builds a piece of our new clean energy system and helps slow devastating climate impacts.
Those of us who love spending time in the outdoors can’t help but see what the climate crisis is doing to our wilderness. We see how global heating is wreaking havoc on our forests, melting the glaciers in our mountains and drying up our lakes and rivers.
But it’s harder to know what to do about it, as individuals. Given the enormity and urgency of the issue, what can we do that will make a difference?
Many of us answer that question by recycling and trying to consume less, but here’s the bad news — these measures are not sufficient to solve the climate crisis. To make a difference, we must also focus on the biggest single contributor to climate change: burning fossil fuels to create the energy we use every day.
This big problem needs a big solution — transitioning to clean energy and away from coal, oil, natural gas and gasoline. The good news is that it is entirely possible and cost effective to do this and all of us have a critical role to play in this essential transition.
For anything we own that burns fossil fuels, there is a zero-emissions, high-performance alternative. At Electrify Now, an all-volunteer organization, we have helped hundreds of people eliminate fossil fuels in their lives. We break it down into three steps:
By taking these steps, our energy dollars will create the solution: a new clean energy system that powers the world without carbon emissions. The alternative? Keep paying for dirty energy that is the source of the problem. Below, we spell out why these steps are so important and how you can join the clean energy movement.
US sources of greenhouse gas emissions from US EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory 2019.
The big picture: Most global carbon emissions come from our energy system. Over the last 200 years, we have created a global energy system powered by fossil fuels to provide electricity, transportation, and heat on demand. Over 80% of heat-trapping carbon emissions in the world are produced by burning fossil fuels. Even in developing countries, the majority of emissions come from this same source. This system includes our own homes, our cars, and anything we own that burns fossil fuels. We can’t do without the benefits of plentiful energy — so we must find a way to meet our energy needs without fossil fuels.
The exciting news is that renewable energy from the wind and sun is now the cheapest way to generate electricity — cheaper than burning coal, oil, or gas. We can use that plentiful, low-cost clean electricity to power all our energy needs.
So, the challenge of our time, and perhaps the biggest challenge humanity has ever faced, is how to transition our energy systems from fossil fuels to renewables, and to “electrify everything” as quickly as possible.
This transformation to clean electric power comes with amazing co-benefits: cleaner air, less pollution, more available fresh water, healthier people, and a stronger economy where we spend less money on energy. Because electric solutions perform better and are cheaper to operate, this transition is already beginning — but, as Bill McKibben says, “Climate change is a timed test. Winning slowly is the same as losing” — or, in other words, we’ve got to move really fast.
This is where our homes and our water heaters come in. Most homes in the U.S. produce over 20 tons of carbon emissions every year from the energy we purchase — our electricity, our natural gas, and the fuel for our cars. By electrifying our lives, we can entirely eliminate those emissions without compromising our way of living. This dramatically reduces our personal carbon emissions and also builds our part of a new clean energy system to replace the one that has caused so much damage. Here is how to do it:
The electricity to power a typical home will produce 3–5 tons of carbon emissions, but it is possible to get 100% clean renewable electricity today and save money on electric bills.
The best solution is to subscribe to a Community Solar project if that is available in your state. Whether you rent or own your home, you will get the benefit of clean solar energy without any upfront costs. In many states this actually lowers your energy bills. If Community Solar is not available to you, sign up for a Green Power Plan from your utility — this will usually cost a few extra dollars per month. Or, if your home is suitable for it, install solar panels on your roof and dramatically reduce your electric bill.
Either of these options, or a combination of them, will ensure that you have 100% clean energy so that everything you power with electricity will create zero carbon emissions. Every time you plug something into your electric sockets, imagine the solar panels and wind turbines collecting clean energy and powering your life.
Natural gas is methane — a potent greenhouse gas. Burning methane is a leading source of air pollution and produces one quarter of the carbon emissions in this country. The gas utilities heavily advertise so-called “renewable natural gas” — but experts agree this expensive technology cannot meaningfully reduce carbon emissions. The best thing we can all do is get off the gas completely and as soon as possible.
If your gas furnace is more than 12 years old, or if you just want to slash your carbon emissions, you can replace it with a high-efficiency electric heat pump. Most people are unfamiliar with this technology, but people in Asia and Europe have been heating their homes reliably this way for generations even in cold climates. A heat pump will keep your home warm, and the same device cools your home in the summer — gas furnaces can’t do that!
Heat pumps produce far fewer carbon emissions than gas heating everywhere in the US. Because they are so efficient, transitioning to a heat pump can reduce utility bills too. Powered with clean electricity, you will heat and cool your home with zero carbon emissions.
Electric heat pump water heaters are the most energy efficient, the lowest cost to operate, and will avoid 1-3 tons of carbon emissions per year when they are powered with clean electricity. Heat pumps can also replace gas furnaces to heat and cool your home and avoid an additional 4–8 tons per year.
Water heaters are the second biggest energy consumer in most homes. If your water heater is more than 5 years old, consider replacing it with a heat pump water heater. These devices use 3–5 times less energy than other technologies, so they are cheaper to operate. Even tankless water heaters can’t achieve this level of efficiency. These devices look just like standard water heaters but produce around ¼ of the carbon emissions. With clean electricity, your heat pump water heater will deliver all the hot water you need with zero carbon emissions, so your hot bath will feel even better.
Gas stoves, gas fireplaces, propane barbecues, and our gas-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers, and chainsaws also produce carbon emissions and air pollution. Gas stoves produce dangerous indoor air pollutants which can cause asthma — especially in children. Electric induction stoves do not produce those pollutants and are faster to heat, offer more control, and are easier to keep clean than gas ranges. We can replace all our dirty, gas-burning devices with electric alternatives which produce no air pollution, require virtually no maintenance or fuel refills, are quieter and easier to use and cheaper to operate.
An electric car will travel over 4 times farther than a similar-sized gasoline-powered car for the same fuel cost. An EV charged with renewable electricity produces zero emissions compared to 4–8 tons of carbon emissions per year for a gas car.
The costs of electric vehicles are dropping, range is increasing, and charging infrastructure is growing every day. Although sticker prices look high, the 5-year total cost of ownership of an EV is thousands of dollars lower than a comparable gas car, because fuel and maintenance costs are dramatically lower. If you know anyone who has an EV, ask them how they like it — they will rave about how fun they are to drive and how cheap they are to run. The next time you visit a busy trailhead or the ski slopes, imagine the parking lot filled with electric cars and envision all the emissions that would be avoided that way.
These solutions — renewable energy, heat pumps, electric vehicles, and other electric solutions — are capable of eliminating the majority of global carbon emissions. Whenever a furnace or water heater or gas-burning car is replaced with a clean electric alternative, it builds a piece of our new clean energy system and helps slow devastating climate impacts.
The more people know about these amazing products and the sooner we adopt them in our lives, the more likely we will be to protect ourselves and our wild spaces from climate change. That is why we created Electrify Now — to provide information to help everyone to take these high-impact actions as soon as possible.
All of us who love spending time outdoors find it natural to want to protect our wild places. It makes sense to us to “leave no trace” so our beloved outdoors stays pure and unspoiled. Eliminating the devastating impacts of fossil fuels is an essential part of this “leave no trace” ethos. Building a better, clean energy system is the great mission of our time to save the forests and mountains and ensure an inhabitable planet for all humanity.
Electrify Now is a volunteer, not for profit organization. Please visit our website: electrifynow.net for more information and tips on how to take these actions. Our Take Action/Discount page has helpful resources on each action. Please share this information with your friends and family.
All images are courtesy of Barb Burwell
We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people, organizations, agencies, and companies.
#1 most loved electric vehicle, solar energy, and battery news & analysis site in the world. Support our work today!
Advertise with CleanTechnica to get your company in front of millions of monthly readers.
The state of Maine has started a campaign to educate residents about heat pumps and now they can heat homes even in the winter.
Renewable energy got a big boost in the Inflation Reduction Act with new long term stability for clean energy investments.
Governor Newsom’s new targets will accelerate the deployment of super-efficient heat pumps, helping to keep people safe from extreme heat while cutting their energy...
President Biden included energy efficient, electric air sourced heat pumps in a laundry list of action steps to tackle the climate emergency, including a...
Copyright © 2021 CleanTechnica. The content produced by this site is for entertainment purposes only. Opinions and comments published on this site may not be sanctioned by and do not necessarily represent the views of CleanTechnica, its owners, sponsors, affiliates, or subsidiaries.