HomeMy WebLinkAbout6/4/2024 Item 5k, Schmidt, R. (2)
Richard Schmidt <
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Subject:Agenda item 5k
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Re: Residential Energy Retrofit Program, Agenda Item 5k -- June 1, 2024
Dear Council,
I recognize there’s zero chance of persuading you not to proceed with this climate catastrophe disguised to look like
climate progress, but I’m still writing.
It simply makes no sense that an intelligent council would adopt climate measures that move the city in the wrong
direction, but that’s what you’re doing.
As LA Times climate reporter Sammy Roth wrote in his Boiling Point newsletter just yesterday, “Scientists say we should
be working like mad to cut carbon pollution more than 40% by 2030 — somehow just six years from now — to give
ourselves a chance of keeping average global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Right now, California isn’t
on track for that kind of cut.”
Nor is SLO anyplace close to being on track. And this retrofit ordinance takes us further IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
Why? Because its measures will increase 2030 emissions, do little to lower emissions at any time in the future, and
may never reach payback point (payback = time till operational carbon savings equal embodied carbon expenditures to
get to net zero).
So why, I’m wondering, if carbon cuts by 2030 are the issue, would the council adopt ceiling insulation
requirements with a payback date of about 2160? Or floor insulation requirements with no conceivable payback since
the useful life of the materials would be far exceeded by the time needed to amortize embodied carbon with operational
savings? Neither of these will save any carbon in the targeted years prior to 2030 when we must save carbon to avoid
carbon catastrophe, so this makes no sense. I’ve concluded that you, an intelligent council, must be receiving guidance
from persons or sources that go along with establishment climate propaganda talking-points rather than factual analysis
and/or who don’t understand the interconnectedness of measures within a building that cannot be reduced to a menu
(Table 1).
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Table 1’s pick-one-of-these and one-of-those menu options is a checklist of items that for any particular building have no
demonstrable carbon-saving value. In addition to arbitrary insulation requirements, the other item that stands out is
window replacement, which in our climate is unlikely ever to have a carbon payback. That’s because, as wags in the
industry say, they’re called “replacement windows” because typical life span is 25 years, so you replace them again and
again and again. That’s a lot of embodied carbon chasing very small potential operational carbon savings in our mild
climate before the replacement windows’ embodied carbon becomes trash hauled off to the landfill. (Old windows, on the
other hand, can last for a century or more. My 95 year old wood windows made from old-growth wood of a quality no
longer available are just fine, and with care should last another 95 years. New ain’t necessarily better when it comes to
sustainability.)
A retrofit program based on picking items from a checklist simply will not achieve anything of climate value.
So, what could the city do now that would have value?
• The most important pro-climate thing any house owner can do today is to install solar PVs and reduce demand on the
still largely carbon-powered electric grid. The city could require a PV system proportional in size to what’s being built –
probably for less money and surely with more climate payback than the proposed ordinance. (And one would suppose
that once started on adding PVs by code requirement, the owner might be encouraged to enlarge the system to cover all
household needs.) This alone would be the most progressive climate action the city could take in building retrofit.
• In my previous letter, I suggested cool roofs and green roofs as better alternatives to excessive insulation.
Finally, some comment on what I’ve heard.
• There seems to be some notion that embodied carbon as a climate consideration is something new and that staff needs
time to figure it out. This is false. There’s nothing new about considering embodied energy/carbon (the two are pretty
much the same thing) in building science or environmentalism. For decades I’ve used an evaluation process published by
the federal Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in 1979, which is 45 years ago. In architecture, some decades ago
we set out to conquer operational energy/carbon, and then, achieving success (net zero operational is now commonplace)
set our sights on embodied energy/carbon, which has been the profession’s focus now for about a decade. So this is
neither new nor exotic. It’s mainstream, and it’s time the city caught up, and did so on a crash basis.
• There also seems to be some notion that well, it would be nice to incorporate embodied energy issues into city
operations and regulations, but let’s do it in the normal slow and incremental bureaucratic way, with adopting two year
study plans and so forth. Folks, you’ll totally miss the 2030 boat if you continue with bureaucratic business as
usual. You’ve got a mere 6 years to make an impact, and to date you’ve not made much of one. Time’s a wastin’.
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Whatever you do, don’t do things that are counter-productive and move us away from the 2030 target, like adopt what’s
before you tonight. SLO’s “moving in the right direction” slogan is cute and snappy, but in this case it is more
appropriately “going through the motions of moving in the right direction while actually moving in the wrong
direction.”
The council is supposed to lead. You can tell staff what to do, and you can do it tonight, without expending years of
bureaucratic process just to locate first base.
Richard Schmidt, Architect
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