President Joe Biden persuaded Democrats in Congress to provide hundreds of billions of dollars to fight climate change. Now comes another formidable task: enticing Americans to buy millions of electric cars, heat pumps, solar panels and more efficient appliances.

It’s a public relations challenge that could determine whether the country meets Biden’s ambitious goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030.

Relying on tax credits and rebates made the climate legislation — it was approved in August with only Democratic votes — more politically palatable than regulations that force wholesale changes in polluting industries.

But it also means the administration’s battle against global warming will be waged “one household at a time,” said Shannon Baker-Branstetter, who works on energy issues at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank closely aligned with the White House.

Continue reading “Biden’s next climate hurdle: Enticing Americans to buy green”

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There was a touch of anxiety in the home of Jon and Rachel Rea as a bomb cyclone, with its plummeting subzero temperatures, approached Colorado in December, for the couple no longer had a gas-fired furnace in their basement.

They had replaced the furnace three months earlier with a heat pump and now that new gizmo was going to face a major test. The heat pump gathers the slivers of heat lingering in the air even on a cold day, but with temperatures plunging toward 20 below zero would there be any heat left to capture?

The Reas “pre-heated” their Boulder townhouse, raising the thermostat in advance of the storm, and had the advantage of having neighboring homes on each side and new insulation in the basement.

Still, they were uncertain how their Mitsubishi heat pump would fare. The unit was rated to still work at 13 below zero. The temperature in Boulder on the night of Dec. 22 fell to 18 below.

“Overall, it was just another day,” Jon Rea said. “It was not much of an event.”

Continue reading “Heat pumps are having a moment in Colorado, but do they really work in the bitter cold? Yes.”

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As the war in Ukraine rages halfway across the world, natural gas prices have hit homeowners harder than ever. As it stands now, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that most Americans spend about $2,000 every year on home energy bills.

Natural gas is slated to become even more expensive in 2023, reaching a 15-year-high, meaning most Americans will pay more to keep their homes at a comfortable temperature. 

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Elephant Energy, a Colorado-based startup, is on a mission to help homeowners electrify their homes and make the process as simple as possible. 

The company, founded a year and a half ago by climate-tech pros Josh Lake and DR Richardson, is providing Americans with solutions to reduce their bills while fighting the overheating of the planet at the same time.  

But for a lot of Elephant Energy’s customers, helping the Earth is more of a side benefit:

“Homeowners are electrifying for different reasons. Some are climate warriors, but the majority of our customers are not,” Richardson told The Cool Down. “The majority have an old, aging water heater, furnace, or AC and want to replace it with something that has a lower operating cost.”

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With rising gas prices and unprecedented tax credits and rebates, DR Richardson of Elephant Energy believes that there’s never been a better time to consider electrifying a home.

As of 2020, 11% of Colorado households were all-electric while 82% used natural gas, according to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This is compared to the 26% of households nationwide completely powered by electricity.

Richardson is one of the co-founders of Elephant Energy, a Boulder County-based company that started a year and a half ago to help homeowners along the Front Range electrify their homes.

“One of the most important levels that we have in terms of the energy transition is to electrify homes,” he said. “We have to stop burning fossil fuels in people’s homes. The good news is that’s incredibly possible. It uses existing technology, and it results in a way better outcome for customers.”

Home electrification includes things like heat pumps instead of furnaces and air conditioners, electric water heating instead of gas, electric cooking and other efficiency upgrades. Many of these technologies are not only more environmentally friendly, but cost less to operate with more efficiency, according to Richardson.

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The Colorado company is electrifying homes to keep energy use – and costs – as low as possible

Spotted: As part of the move to net zero, many countries are beginning to phase out the use of gas in homes and commercial buildings. In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act includes around $9 billion (approximately €8.5 billion) set aside for home energy rebates to help residents make their homes more energy efficient.

These legislative moves, combined with much higher prices now being paid for energy – and especially for fossil fuels — has led many people to begin thinking about replacing fossil fuels in their home with electricity, which can come from green sources. Colorado-based Elephant Energy is one company that is helping consumers renovate their homes to run on electricity, instead of natural gas and other fossil fuels.

Learn more from Springwise, an organization focused on sharing innovators around the world.

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