Colorado Green Building Post

A City of ‘Experts’ Ponders a New Energy-Saving System
October 21, 2009
By JOHN J. FIALKA of ClimateWire

This is the second part of a series on the electric grid.

BOULDER, Colo. — “Next year will be interesting,” explained Matt Appelbaum, the mayor of this college town, which is trying to help launch the largest ongoing ’smart grid’ project in the United States.

It will be a year in which the town’s lanky mayor — assuming he is re-elected next month — and the rest of the City Council will grapple with some of the toughest questions posed by an ambitious, $100 million pilot rewiring project being prepared by their local utility, Xcel Energy.

Boulder is among the American cities that support the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for industrial nations to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2 percent over 1990 levels. In 2006, Boulderites took a step further. They voted to impose a carbon tax on themselves to support the treaty’s goals, but like many American cities, Boulder’s carbon emissions have continued going up. Building larger houses and clogging the streets with more traffic are increasing Boulder’s emissions by 4 to 6 percent per year.

“Most nations of the world that signed Kyoto have found it difficult to make much of a dent in carbon emissions,” sighed Don Mock, another former member of the city council, who has a degree in atmospheric physics. “Boulder is just a microcosm of that universe.” Older houses in town, he explained, are either “popped,” expanded by adding on a new story, or “scraped,” bulldozed to make way for larger buildings, he explained.

Mock lives in a smaller, older home and buys electricity under a program that gives him 100 percent wind-generated power from Xcel. Recently, he applied for a home energy audit, a program subsidized by the the city with some of the $1.8 million it raises annually from the carbon tax. Technicians came with a blower that sucked air out of his front door, exposing a cavernous gap under his fireplace that lets in large drafts of cold air in the winter.

He says he’s still thinking about ways to make his home more energy efficient. “I imagine 10 years from now, when my refrigerator bites the dust, I’ll be able to buy one that’s smart grid compatible.”

Mobilizing ‘2 techs in a truck’

Delays in making energy efficiency improvements are another thing the City Council wants to fix. Mayor Appelbaum said it will follow up the house energy audits with a new program called “two techs in a truck.” The city will help pay for two trained technicians who can make needed repairs right away and as inexpensively as possible. “We’re trying to make this as easy as we possibly can.”

And some bloggers would rather be left alone: “If you want to drive a Prius, use CFLs (compact fluorescent bulbs) in all your light sockets and heat your house with dried kitty litter, go ahead. But quit telling me how I should live my life.”

“Blogs aren’t reflective of the community as a whole,” asserted Will Toor, who is a commissioner of surrounding Boulder County. Previously, he served as mayor of Boulder for seven years. “If they were, I’d have never been elected.”

He was one of the authors of the 2006 climate tax that Boulder imposed on itself. Last year, he pointed out, 70 percent of Boulder County voters approved a “Clean Energy Finance District,” a measure that allows the county to float bonds that raise $15 million a year to provide loans to homeowners who want to buy solar arrays or make their homes more energy efficient. The loans are repaid over 15 years through slightly higher property taxes.

Annual surveys taken by the county show people are “very focused on climate action,” he explained. Some voters worry most about climate change; others see the moves as reducing their electric bills. More conservative voters see the actions as a way to reduce the nation’s energy dependence.

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