ENERGY 101

Harnessing fossil fuels to generate energy –for electricity, transportation, heating and cooling– has enabled America’s huge growth over the past 250 years. Simultaneously, burning those fossil fuels has released, and continues to release, the CO2 that is the major cause of global warming and all its consequences, which are increasingly dire.

It seems clear, that within our communities, it is our task to shift our energy usage away from fossil fuels and towards clean sources of energy: nuclear, hydropower, wind and solar. Perhaps the most compelling way to do that is to eliminate bringing fossil fuels into our buildings (residential, commercial and municipal) for our heating and cooling needs as well as into our cars, trucks, and buses. Electrify everything is becoming an increasingly powerful mandate, which would allow our energy grid the possibility of being fueled by clean instead of dirty fuel. In this scenario, we shift to electric cars (not only reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the source of fuel but also eliminating the emissions which otherwise pollute the air). And we need to shift to heat pumps for the heating and cooling of our buildings – whether air source or geothermal.

For much more detailed information about energy, go here. You will learn the way energy works (explaining the sources and the role of utilities and transmission as it moves towards its ultimate destinations, such as transportation, electricity, cooling and heating).

There are also various emerging “drawdown” techniques, which promise to reduce the CO2 load, but also involve capturing and storing carbon. Many of these NEW TECHNOLOGIES are covered here.