The California Preservation Foundation is hosting a webinar debate today from 11am to noon on the housing shortage, entitled “Point-Counterpoint: Streamlining Housing Development vs Local Control.” I’ll be on the pro-housing side against a few prominent “local control” anti-housing advocates.
Moderated by Diane Kane, PhD (Emeritus Trustee at the California Preservation Foundation), the panelist debaters include:
- Barbara Bry, City Councilmember, City of San Diego
- Todd David, Executive Director, San Francisco Housing Action Coalition
- Ethan Elkind, Director, Climate Program, Center for Law, Energy & the Environment, U.C. Berkeley
- Dennis Richards, Planning Commissioner, City of San Francisco
The questions will cover issues like CEQA’s effect on housing production, NIMBY motivation, how historic preservation affects the shortage, and if single-family homes are inherently a ‘bad’ thing.
You can register here (registration is $40 for members and $60 for non-members) to join the webinar and ask your questions of the panelists.
On this morning’s 10am edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll mark Indigenous People’s Day by discussing how Native American traditional knowledge can help find solutions to our modern climate crisis.
We’ll discuss the Yurok Tribe’s decision to grant personhood to the troubled Klamath River in Northern California. The river and its salmon runs near the Oregon border have been greatly affected by climate change and adverse policy decisions, leading to a mass salmon die-off.
We’ll also discuss the Karuk Tribe’s use of traditional land management practices to help California fight mega fires during these times of ever-drier forests and less reliable rainfall.
Joining me to discuss these issues are:
- Lisa Hilman, a Karuk tribal member and program director for the Píkyav Field Institute, a unit of the Karuk Tribe’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) dedicated to environmental education and protection; and
- Amy Cordalis, general counsel for the Yurok Tribe and a tribal member, life-long fisher and ceremonial practitioner.
You can stream it live at 10am today or listen to 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. Call 866-798-TALK with questions or comments!
On this morning’s 10am edition of Your Call’s One Planet Series, we’ll discuss electric vehicles (EVs), a critical clean technology for addressing climate change — but one that has yet to see mass adoption.
What progress is being made on EVs? What challenges remain? What can be done for people who don’t have a dedicated parking spot for charging access? How clean and sustainable is the battery supply chain and disposal process?
Joining me to discuss these questions and more will be:
- David Reichmuth, senior engineer in the Clean Vehicles program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Dr. Reichmuth has testified at hearings before the US House of Representatives, the California State Legislature, and the California Air Resources Board, and he is an expert on California’s Zero Emission Vehicles regulation.
- Max Baumhefner, Senior Attorney with the Climate and Clean Energy Program at NRDC, based in San Francisco. He focuses on electrifying the transportation sector in a manner that also accelerates the transition to a smarter, more affordable electric grid powered by renewable resources.
You can stream it live at 10am today or listen to 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. Call 866-798-TALK with questions or comments!
Most trucks on the road today are slow and smelly, causing a majority of the harmful air pollution in urban skies and contributing to our greenhouse gas emission problem. But technology is offering promising solutions to make these trucks zero emission — will they be fueled by battery electric power or hydrogen fuel cells?
Jim Park in Trucking Info lays out the situation with this competition over fuels and technology, and it seems to me that battery power is gaining rapidly. On the hydrogen side, we currently have three main trucking companies: Nikola, Kenworth/Toyota, and a Canadian consortium collaborating on AZETEC (Alberta Zero-Emissions Truck Electrification Collaboration). The battery electric truck side is led right now by Daimler and Tesla.
Hydrogen has two clear advantages over batteries: long-distance range (500-800 miles) with a light payload for the fuel and fuel cell, weighing no more than a typical diesel sleeper tractor. These trucks can also refuel quickly.
But batteries are getting cheaper and more powerful. Electric trucks generally benefit from stop-and-go operations with more opportunities for regenerative braking and high-powered charging. Companies like Daimler are responding to this large part of the market:
“We found that probably 80% of the group we spoke to were not running more than 150 miles per day,” says Andreas Juretzka, head of Daimler’s e-Mobility Group. “That led us to a battery spec of 230-mile range, which covers, among other things, the swings in ambient temperature that can affect battery performance and to alleviate the customers’ range anxiety.”
Tesla has meanwhile announced a 500-mile range truck with zero-to-60 times of less than 5 seconds — sure to be of interest for driving quality alone.
Both types of zero-emission trucks will require a whole new build-out of charging infrastructure though, including fast-charger stations for batteries and hydrogen stations for fuel cells.
This competition over fueling technology is probably good news for consumers and all who live near and drive behind these trucks. But at the same time some clarity on which technologies are suitable for which applications will be needed soon, as policy makers are right now contemplating public investments in the various fueling infrastructure needs. They don’t want to invest in permanent infrastructure for the wrong type of vehicle.
My guess? Battery electrics will dominate for 80% of the trucking market, but hydrogen will still be useful for longer-distance trucking. But either way, the benefits for air quality and our carbon footprint will be immense.
On this morning’s 10am edition of Your Call’s Media Roundtable, I’ll be hosting a discussion of the coverage of Hurricane Dorian, which has left a path of destruction in its wake in the Bahamas and is now lashing the East Coast of the United States.
We’ll also talk about AB 5 (Gonzalez), a California measure that would extend labor protections and benefits to workers labeled as independent
contractors. The bill will have major implications for “gig economy” contractors and companies like Uber and Lyft, among others. Guests include:
- Bob Berwyn, freelance environmental reporter who writes
for publications including InsideClimate News and
Deutsche Welle and is an international correspondent for Santa
Barbara-based Pacific Standard magazine - Henry Fountain, reporter and editor at the New York Times and the
author of The Great Quake: How the Biggest Earthquake in North America Changed our Understanding of the Planet - Lauren Gurley, staff writer at Vice News’ Motherboard,
covering the labor movement in the tech sector
You can stream it live at 10am today or listen to 91.7 FM in the San Francisco Bay Area. Call 866-798-TALK with questions or comments!
On the list of things that people may have to sacrifice to combat climate change and reduce their personal carbon footprint, flying is an unpopular sell for many. Indeed, it was at the root of much conservative criticism of the initial Green New Deal, with claims that the plan would lead to prohibitions on flying.
But aviation emissions are substantial: commercial flights currently constitute 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, per the International Council on Clean Transportation.
Fortunately, battery technology improvements may soon make flying a low-carbon activities, and even zero-emission depending on the electricity source. While electrification of passenger vehicles, scooters, bikes, and even trucks is rapidly progressing, electric airplanes are admittedly still in their infancy. Most have short ranges (under 80 miles), but they boast the same advantages of other electrified transport: fast acceleration, quiet flights, and dramatic fuel savings, given that electricity is cheaper than petroleum fuel.
Yet new companies are boasting substantial improvements to come. For example, as E&E News reported recently [paywalled], Israeli startup Eviation Aircraft announced that “Alice,” its first all-electric plane, will take flight in 2022. The planes can carry nine passengers up to 650 miles, albeit at a hefty price tag. And hybrid options may be available even sooner.
If the trajectory of e-planes follows other transport technologies, we should have cheaper, longer-range electric planes available in the coming decades for the bulk of flights. To be sure, we still should find ways to reduce the need to travel and build out a high speed rail network, particularly to replace expensive and polluting short-haul flights. Low-carbon biofuels can also be an interim solution.
But in the long run, technology improvements with e-planes could provide an important low-carbon option to allow people (who can afford it) the ability to keep flying to destinations, without the same risk of damaging the climate. To win over critics and more political support for climate action, we’ll certainly need this option to take off.
Good news on California’s efforts to fight climate change: in-state emissions in 2017 (the latest available data) were down over 2016 and ahead of the state’s mandatory 2020 goals. The California Air Resources Board announced the progress yesterday, with this chart showing emissions in context of population and GDP:
Overall, emissions totaled 424 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2017, down 5 million metric tons from 2016. For reference, the 2020 reduction target is 431 million metric tons.
Most of the progress came from the electricity sector, where for the first time renewable sources made up a larger percentage of the generation than fossil fuels.
However, transportation emissions increased 0.7% in 2017, compared to a 2% increase in 2016, mostly from passenger vehicles. That total is even worse when you consider pollution from oil and gas refineries that make the fuel for these passenger vehicles. Together with hydrogen production, these sources constituted one-third of the state’s total industrial pollution.
Here’s the latest pie chart on where the emissions came from in 2017:
While the story is overall positive for California’s climate efforts, the state will have to redouble its efforts to reduce driving miles by allowing more homes to be built near jobs and transit, while transitioning the remaining driving miles to zero-emission technologies like electric vehicles.
Berkeley/UCLA Law report discusses policy solutions to boost energy retrofits. Free webinar tomorrow (Thursday), June 20th at 10am features expert panel to discuss top findings.
As California moves aggressively to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings, will the state leave behind its low-income residents? Many of these residents — 40% of the state’s population — live in multifamily housing units and apartments, where they have limited access to in-home retrofits that could save them on their energy bills and reduce overall emissions. These retrofits require upfront capital that low-income tenants may lack, as well as approval and awareness by landlords who may be unwilling or unable to support them.
To identify ways to help solve this thorny problem, UC Berkeley School of Law’s Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) and UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment are today releasing a new report, Low Income, High Efficiency. The report offers policy solutions to increase access to energy efficiency incentives and unlock environmental, financial, and quality-of-life benefits for owners and residents alike, including:
- Creating a single, statewide “one-stop shop” efficiency program administrator to comprehensively manage incentives and offer users a single point of access.
- Expanding innovative financing mechanisms such as “pay as you save” and third-party “energy budget” arrangements that take advantage of residents’ utility bills and private capital.
- Creating a comprehensive database to help prioritize retrofit projects and support energy data benchmarking and analysis efforts.
The report also contains numerous additional solutions for policy makers to consider, as well as five case studies focusing on California low-income multifamily properties that recently undertook efficiency projects, in order to yield valuable lessons learned. The findings resulted from two stakeholder convenings with experts across state energy agencies, local governments, housing owner/developers, environmental and housing advocates, and efficiency program implementers and contractors.
California has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030 and doubling the energy efficiency of buildings by that year, but the state will need significant improvements in the energy performance of existing buildings to achieve these goals. While the state has adopted aggressive standards for efficiency in new construction, owners and residents of existing low-income multifamily buildings face a particularly daunting set of barriers, including limited access to capital, complex financing arrangements and restrictions, and competing renovation needs. Low Income, High Efficiency offers a suite of policy innovations and proposals to address these challenges.
To discuss the report’s findings, CLEE and the Emmett Institute will host a free webinar on Thursday, June 20 (tomorrow) at 10am with an expert panel, including:
- California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister
- Peter Armstrong of Wakeland Housing
- Martha Campbell of the Rocky Mountain Institute
California will need to double the energy efficiency of existing buildings by 2030 in order to achieve the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 40 percent below 1990 levels by that year. While state leaders have adopted aggressive standards for efficiency in appliances and new construction, convincing property owners to undertake retrofits to improve energy performance, from switching out incandescent light bulbs to LEDs to installing energy efficient windows and wall insulation, is a tough task. It’s made even more challenging for low-income residents of multifamily buildings who may not own their units or building common spaces or otherwise lack the fiscal incentives and means to pay for this work.
To address the challenge, the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment (CLEE) at Berkeley Law and UCLA School of Law’s Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment will soon launch a new report, Low Income, High Efficiency (we released a policy brief with some of the top-level findings earlier this year). On Thursday, June 20 at 10am, the law schools will host a free webinar to discuss the report’s recommendations for improving low-income multifamily energy efficiency incentives, with experts including:
- California Energy Commissioner Andrew McAllister
- Peter Armstrong of Wakeland Housing
- Martha Campbell of the Rocky Mountain Institute
The new report, co-authored by CLEE and the Emmett Institute and sponsored by Bank of America, is based on two stakeholder convenings organized to identify solutions to the cost and complexity of efficiency retrofits in the low-income multifamily sector. These buildings face limited access to capital, complex financing arrangements and restrictions, and competing renovation needs. California’s energy regulators and electric utilities operate a number of incentive and rebate programs, but strict income qualification criteria, program complexity, and a lack of adequate energy data can limit uptake.
As described in our policy brief this year, the report will offer a range of solutions to increase access to energy efficiency incentives and unlock environmental, financial, and quality-of-life benefits for owners and residents alike, including:
- Creating a single, statewide “one-stop shop” efficiency program administrator to comprehensively manage incentives and offer users a single point of access.
- Expanding innovative financing mechanisms such as “pay as you save” and third-party “energy budget” arrangements that take advantage of residents’ utility bills and private capital.
- Creating a comprehensive database to help prioritize retrofit projects and support energy data benchmarking and analysis efforts.
Please join us for the free webinar and report release on Thursday, June 20 to discuss these solutions and more.
You can RSVP here. We’ll blog again that week once the full report is publicly available.
Building anything in California near transit stops is hard enough, but many affordable housing advocates argue that we should only build subsidized homes for low-income residents — and not market-rate homes for higher-income people. They cite evidence that low-income people are much more likely to actually ride the transit where they’ll live, as opposed to high-income people who will still drive.
It’s true that we should build as much affordable housing (and offices) near transit as we can to boost ridership. But we should also allow market-rate development near transit, too, for similar environmental reasons.
Yes, high-income people near transit probably won’t actually use the transit that much. But they will on balance drive significantly fewer miles than if they lived in sprawl areas. And fewer driving miles means less pollution and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Ironically, the evidence for this environmental benefit comes from a study meant to document how important it is for low-income residents to live near transit. The nonprofits TransForm and California Housing Partnership Corporation released a study [PDF] in May 2014, based on Caltrans’ California Household Travel Survey (CHTS), arguing explicitly for affordable housing near transit. In fact, they used the data to argue against locating higher-income housing near transit, pointing out that higher-income households drive more than twice as many miles and own more than twice as many vehicles as low-income households living within 1/4 mile of frequent transit.
But the data actually revealed something more important: higher-income residents near transit drove almost 30 miles fewer per day than similarly situated people in sprawl areas. By comparison, low-income residents only drove about 20 miles fewer per day, compared to similar income sprawl residents. Check out this chart that summarizes those results:
So while I agree we want to locate low-income residents near transit, we also need high-income people living in cities near transit. Otherwise, the increased driving miles will mean more traffic, pollution and unattainable climate goals.
