Category Archives: Cambridge

Your heating oil now contains biofuel. It’s the law

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It’s a little known fact that this winter will be the first in which Massachusetts requires home heating oil to include at least 2% biofuels, rising 1 percentage point each year until it reaches 5% in 2012. In 2009, that creates a 24 million gallon demand, and Baystate Biofuels is here to fill it.

The company has taken over the disused tanks at an old Western Telecom building in North Andover and it plans to utilize solar power Osgood Landing had previously installed on the site, and Baystate Biofuels will tap into excess steam from a nearby waste-to-energy incinerator to heat the tanks to lower the viscosity of the pure biodiesel.

Warm Home Cool Planet is checking on whether Baystate will be delivering to Cambridge this winter. In the meantime, check out the video above. More on this soon.

Cap and Trade? Or just keep your head in the sand.

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jeff-jacoby-color The conservative backlash against the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill has started.

The handsome devil you see to your left is Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby, one of the most vocal critics on Cap and Trade and pretty much any other idea he didn’t read in the Weekly Standard.

Jacoby, who was hired by the the Globe in 1994 to provide editorial ‘balance’ to the liberal columnists already in the Globe’s employ, has managed to stay employed despite several incidents at the Globe, one of which lead to him being suspended without pay for four months in 2000.

In his latest column, Jacoby attacks the Obama Administration for having the nerve to push through legislation that addresses climate change, when the jury is ‘still out’ on global warming.

Remember folks, this is the same tactic used by the cigarette industry for several decades. Deny reality for as long as possible while they wring the last few bucks out of the racket..

Still, even if one wishes to forget the whole global warming thing, let’s remember there is a reason why it’s called ‘non-renewable’ energy. At some point in the future, it will become obvious we are reaching the end of the earth’s resources. If we haven’t moved away from carbon-based energy sources at that time, the competition for what’s left will make the Iraq War look like a neighborhood dispute.

Cambridge Community Center gets an Energy Make-Over

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The Cambridge Community Center received a major energy efficiency upgrade on Sunday, June 28th Sunday, when community members and experts gathered to reduce the building’s energy consumption. The community “barn-raising” project was a combined effort of the Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) and the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA) that aimed to improve the comfort and efficiency of the Cambridge Community Center while teaching volunteers energy efficiency and conservation skills.

Councilor Henrietta Davis, CCC member Yvonee Gittens, and HEET leader Audrey Schulman

Councilor Henrietta Davis, CCC member Yvonee Gittens, and HEET leader Audrey Schulman

The project drew approximately 60 community volunteers, primarily from the Riverside neighborhood in Cambridge. A team of eight volunteers from Mass Climate Summer also joined the neighborhood effort as part of their broader campaign to educate residents on efficiency solutions in partnership with the Cambridge Energy Alliance.

Community volunteers learned how to make doors and windows less drafty, seal air leaks in the building, install interior storm windows, and save on electricity through simple changes. They also received energy efficiency kits from the Cambridge Energy Alliance that contained materials to make their own homes more energy efficient and information on community environmental resources and programs. The Cambridge Community Center barn-raising provided a great opportunity to meet neighbors, try out a green job, cut energy bills at the Community Center, and get a free energy savings kit, while learning to save energy and money at home.

Register to attend the next HEET barnraising on Saturday, July 18th from 12:30 – 5:00pm at two homes in Cambridgeport.

TechTV

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If you’ve got time and bandwidth to kill, you might want to check out TechTV. In the spirit of OpenCourseWare, MIT hosts videos of various guest lectures and conferences. For instance, Energy forecast for the rest of the century. Although I don’t personally agree with all of the professor’s interpretations—many conflict with the more pragmatic views portrayed in “Sustainable Energy,” which is incidentally available via OCW—it was an interesting presentation, and could probably serve as a good introduction for the uninitiated nevertheless. I also appreciated his putting the scope of human influence in perspective by comparing it with natural flows. It reminded me of prolific environmental author Vaclav Smil’s excellent Cycles of Life : Civilization and the Biosphere.

Summer Canvass Begins

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p1000042-small1This week, the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA) launched an ambitious community outreach and education program to help Cambridge residents save money and reduce their carbon footprint. Eight dedicated climate heroes arrived in Cambridge Massachusetts after completing a 90 mile bike ride that began in Deerfield, MA. Cambridge is the riders’ the first stop on the Massachusetts Climate Summer tour to raise awareness about climate change by biking from community to community, promoting sustainability.

Over the next month, the climate heroes will bike throughout Cambridge, MA, speaking one-on-one with up to 3,000 residents about energy efficiency programs and services. The Climate Summer riders will visit Cambridge neighborhoods from the 17th of June to the 7th of July, offering a unique opportunity for residents to connect to information and resources to make their homes more comfortable and efficient.

During the door-to-door visits, residents will also learn about CEA’s services and programs. CEA helps residents access free and low-cost home energy audits, where an energy professional investigates opportunities to save energy and water for homeowners and tenants.

The CEA-sponsored door-to-door visits will have an immediate impact. Residents visited by the riders will receive a free energy efficient light bulb in exchange for an incandescent bulb from their home. The 5,000 light bulbs were donated by TCP, Inc. of Cleveland, Ohio. The light bulb swap will reduce carbon emissions by over 2.5 million pounds over the lives of the bulbs.

Foot Traffic in Wakefield saves energy, burns calories

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Dolbeare Elementary School students in Wakefield participate in a ''walking school bus'' on Massachusetts Walk to School Day earlier this month. A new initiative in Wakefield, MA sees students from Dolbeare Elementary School going to their regular school bus stop–to wait for the rest of their classmates to walk past on their way to school. They get on the ‘walking bus’ and proceed to the next ‘stop’ to pick up some new students.

At the end of their journey, they arrive at school having already done something to address two of society’s most pressing problems–childhood obesity and the release of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.

Wind Turbine Zoning

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Title: Wind Turbine Zoning
Location: City Hall Annex, 344 Broadway, 2nd Floor Conference Room
Link out: Click here
Description: The Planning Board will be meeting to discuss amendments to local zoning outlined in the attached link.
Start Time: 19:30
Date: 2009-06-02

The Massachusetts Technology Collaborative’s Community Wind Resource map for Cambridge might also be of interest.

Cape Cod wind farm approved… sort of.

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From this week’s Cape Cod Times comes news of the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board voting unanimously to approve a bundle of permits for the long-proposed (and infinitely delayed) Nantucket Sound wind farm.

This vote marks the first time the state agency has issued a super permit, wrapping all required state and local permits for a project into a single decision. Which, of course, upset many of the project’s opponents, who vow to keep fighting. Of course, Federal permits are still needed from the U.S. Minerals Management Service, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Aviation Agency…

Nonetheless, Warm Home Cool Planet sees this as significant progress, but it also explains why any picture of a wind turbine operating in Nantucket Sound is likely to remain an ‘artists rendering’ for a couple of years at least.

Electronics Recycling Event

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Title: Electronics Recycling Event
Location: ~Alewife Brook Parkway & Woods Ave., Somerville
Link out: Click here
Description: Recently upgraded your computer or television to a newer, more energy efficient model? Do you have other old or broken electronics collecting dust in the basement? Residents from Somerville, Cambridge, Arlington & Belmont can recycle these items for free.
Start Time: 9:00
Date: 2009-05-30
End Time: 13:00

Massachusetts passes “Stretch Code” for higher efficiency buildings

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MIT Green BuildingLast week Massachusetts passed the Stretch Code, which allows municipalities to adopt more stringent building codes than the state requires.  Current building requirements are set by Massachusetts Building codes and have to be updated every three years to meet the international ICC building standards.

The new stretch code standards would require a Home Energy Rating System (HERS) rating of 60, which means about 40% lower energy use than a standard built home. Modeling experts estimate that the extra construction cost an additional $8,100 (above the base code), which translates to $530 a year over a 30 year mortgage. But annual energy costs would be reduced on average by $1,360, for a net savings to the homeowner of $830 a year— a net savings of approximately $300 per year. In addition, many of the additional construction costs will be covered by subsidies from the utilities.

Home renovations would require a HERS rating only when feasible and for new commercial buildings there are several options for meeting the Stretch Code.  Commercial renovations, commercial buildings under 5,000 square feet, and specialty commercial buildings under 100,000 square feet (supermarkets, laboratories, warehouses) are all exempt from the proposal.

This is an excellent opportunity for communities like Cambridge, MA to forge ahead and adopt standards that will help it to meet its climate reduction targets.  Buildings contribute to 80% of the total greenhouse gas emissions produced in Cambridge, MA.  Adopting the stretch code could help Massachusetts communities reduce its emissions and save money that would otherwise go towards inefficient heating, cooling, and electric building  needs.