Change, Change, Change!

          If you extract a lump of fossil fuel from the earth and assign to it 100 units of potential energy, run it through a typical utility, make steam, generate electricity, and run it out the grid to the meter on your home there are only 3-5 units of power left! Production waste, generation losses, switching, line loss and transformers eat up the energy. Now look at our 200,000,000 + existing home inventory and add the typical energy wasted from duct loss, infiltration and old HVAC systems (often more than 25 - 40%) and the waste factor is disgusting.
            The change we have to embrace is efficient conservation and distributed renewable energy. Homes that achieve net zero energy use and create their own juice remove the distribution losses for residential homes and negate the need for more huge, wasteful centralized utilities. DOE considers residential energy use unsustainable and climbing. We have no energy policy and the 2012 IECC Code is being slammed as unfeasible economically! Where is the common sense in all of this? Our grid is failing, we have working knowledge and experience worldwide for distributed renewable energy and yet we submit to the status quo.
            We have the tools, technology and workforce to retrofit all of our existing home to near-net zero energy use. This idea is not new, nor is it particularly controversial unless you are in senior management at a utility. There have been several home energy retrofit programs floated though congress over the last decade and they all disappear into congressional fog-land. TIME TO ACT!
             Most of our alternative energy leaders are in agreement that this is crunch time, our opportunity to get it right. If we could turn the key on net zero residential home energy use today the inertia of climate change will last 20 years. This is the time to get our act together. 2050 is my target for net zero residential energy consumption, I'll be breathing my last breaths by then and I would like to enjoy them.......