If My City Can Kick Fossil Fuels From Buildings, Yours Can Too
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If My City Can Kick Fossil Fuels From Buildings, Yours Can Too
By Keith Kinch
If My City Can Kick Fossil Fuels From Buildings, Yours Can Too
By Keith Kinch
On a chilly December day last year, former Mayor Bill de Blasio sat at a desk in front of New York City Hall, surrounded by environmental justice advocates, city council members, and me–the co-founder of a climate tech company working to make America’s buildings greener, healthier, and smarter for all. That day, Mayor de Blasio signed a bill like no other: a total ban on gas-powered heaters, stoves, and water boilers in all new and renovated buildings.
As climate advocates, we have spent a significant amount of time and capital searching for solutions to emissions in sectors like transportation, but we have paid less attention to buildings. Today, an astonishing 67% of New York City’s greenhouse gas emissions come from our residential and commercial buildings. Across the country, it is about 30% when you factor in both the combustion happening inside our homes and fossil fuel energy sources coming from the grid. There are about 125 million buildings across America, and the majority need retrofitting to clean energy to meet our urgent climate goals.
To do it, my company BlocPower installs heat pumps in residential and commercial buildings, which run on electricity. You already have a heat pump in your life, like your fridge. Heat pumps work by absorbing heat from the outside air, even on cold days, and pumping it indoors. They can also run in reverse, providing cooling in the summer and eliminating the need for an air conditioner. They are efficient, quiet, and clean.
While the solution starts at the individual building level, it is clear that we need to install modern, all-electric equipment like heat pumps at scale to rapidly impact emissions reductions. Last year, BlocPower announced a historic partnership with the city of Ithaca, NY, which is set to become the first city in America to go fully electric and decarbonize its 6,000 buildings by 2030. Our estimates find that energy efficiency upgrades will reduce Ithaca’s 400,000 tons of CO2 by 40%. We know these systems can be expensive upfront, but BlocPower also helps working-class building owners, governments, non-profits, and even rabbis and pastors to finance the installation and equipment needed to electrify their buildings—just like you would when you buy a new home.
Kicking fossil fuels out of our homes is not only good for the climate but our health too. There is increasing evidence that when we use our gas stoves or burn fossil fuels to heat and cool our house, we are slowly damaging our lungs through harmful toxins like nitrogen dioxide. A study published this month found methane is leaking from gas stoves, even when they are turned off. Children living in a home with gas cooking have a 42% increased risk of having asthma. This is an environmental justice crisis too. It is well-documented that children of color have higher rates of asthma than white children and more serious cases of respiratory illness and hospital visits. A gas stove in the home is not making things better.
At BlocPower, we believe kicking fossil fuels from our buildings will create thousands of jobs–especially for frontline communities and communities of color across the country. Currently, we are working with NYC to train more than a thousand people in green heating and cooling, WiFi, and solar–and we will deploy this model in other cities and states, like California. I feel proud of BlocPower’s Civilian Climate Corps work, especially when we remove fossil fuel systems from community spaces like we did recently at a church in Queens. The church is not only a religious sanctuary, but provides services to children and has a food pantry. A building that is an anchor of the community should not be emitting harmful toxins by burning fossil fuels.
For some, all this change might be hard–but this discussion on how we heat and cool our homes isn't new. For years, building owners questioned why you would use oil instead of wood chips. People preferred their hands over the fire. Then, the conversation shifted to using fossil gas overheating oil. Now, we need to shift again from gas to electricity, which must also be powered by a renewable electric grid.
The road ahead is long to get every building in America off fossil fuels, but things are moving quickly now. BlocPower has equitable solutions and my city has a mandate to kick our dirty and polluting habits. Yours can too.
✍️The Draw-down
Weekly climate art! This week, we’re featuring Nicole Kelner, check her out on twitter.
🔎Fresh Takes
Each week, The Regenerates will surface a climate campaign or stories to be told—elevating why it works (or doesn't) from a communications and marketing lens.
Last year, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise got on the food waste train, raising eyebrows. Declarations of Hellmann’s new purpose to “fight food waste” stray too far from the brand we know to feel authentic. Still, the idea that there’s “always something to make” does reframe problem-solving at the fridge as a tasty way to prevent food waste. We’re here for the mindset shift.
📸Visualizing the Transition
Mark Tomasovic is helping us imagine the climate future.
🤑Moneyball
Spotlight on a climate tech deal of the week. Check out Climate Tech VC for the full roster of companies that raised climate capital this week.
Verdox, a Woburn, MA-based electric carbon capture and removal company, raised $80m in funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Prelude Ventures, and Lowercarbon Capital. By “combining the efficiency of electrochemistry with the tunability of organic chemistry,” Verdox can capture carbon from industrial sources or directly from the air, all while using 70% less energy than existing alternatives.
🍿The Leanback
Learn about Remora this week with Pique Action’s mini-documentaries.
Climate Action of the Week
Want to do more? Sign up for the next Climate Changemakers Hour of Action here.
The clean electricity tax incentives included in the Build Back Better Act are the bill's largest category of tax credits and could reduce power-sector emissions by up to 73%—but they're stuck in the Senate. Your state legislators have a ton of influence with your U.S. senators and can be leveraged as advocates on your behalf. In fact, members of Congress report that a conversation with state legislators ranks second only to a direct constituent meeting in its ability to affect policy decision-making. Use our Engage Your State Legislators playbook to send a specific, personalized message urging them to help move the needle in the Senate.
🎙Startup Series
This week, Jason caught up with Kim Le, Co-Founder & CEO of Prime Roots. Prime Roots is a plant-based meat and seafood company creating better products for you and better for the world. In this episode, Kim and I explore her path from her Ph.D. to founding a startup, key priorities for Prime Roots over the next 12 months, and the barriers to creating and marketing a product heavily influenced by taste.
✨Highlights
Climate Jobs
For more open positions, check out the #climatejobs channel in MCJ Slack.
Greentown Labs is hiring a Program Coordinator, Partnerships, out of Boston HQ
AMP Robotics is hiring Sr. Product Marketing Manager and a Marketing Research Analyst
Pheonix Tailings is looking for a Principal Mechanical Engineer
Jaro Fleet Technologies is hiring an Engineering Lead, a BizDev Lead, and an Ops Lead
Finch is hiring a Data Engineer and an Analytics Engineer
Climate Core Capital is looking for a Director of Investments (Boston/NYC based)
ISeeChange is hiring a Business Development Lead / Head of Sales
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