Hi Bill, I built REEP House, a Showroom for Sustainable Living in Canada, and I get several people a year to live Net Zero as a hobby. I've been meaning to get you wound up about insulation for years. This is a good time to start.
The best energy production is reduction.
If first worlders insulated their homes to Passiv Haus standards, they would reduce their energy use 60%. So that means 8 panels on the roof instead of 24. Those kind of savings on the need for generation are game changers. Even properly insulating a hot water tank is a 10% reduction on total energy.
All the calculations on "how much energy we need" are faulty, by overstating "need". The oil industry doesn't want you to know this. That is why the British Government put the people who run the ENGO "Insulate Britain" in jail.
The whole thing about "more efficient appliances" (furnaces etc.,) is just sales talk, and industry propaganda. By insulating, and reducing energy use by 70%, we eliminate the need to make 70% of the solar panels that we are calculated to need.
Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order. Not needing the power is better than buying panels from China or anywhere.
My clients live Net Zero. They produce more energy than they use. 1 Insulate. 2 Solar panels. 3 Electric car. That's all it takes, and we don't need more corporate subsidies to do it, only financing. A green loan to do the above can be paid off in 10-20 years from energy cost savings, and then you .. HAVE NO UTILITY OR CAR GAS COSTS .. F O R E V E R.
And your children, and your little dog too!
I'd be happy to take this discussion to regular email or a phone call.
PS: I live in a super insulated Tiny Haus I built with a battery operated saw charged on solar panels. I get all my power and water from the sky. I live on just two solar panels, just to see how low I could go, but I would recommend 6-8 panels for normal people. I can still turn my 100w Marshall amp "up to eleven". I have everything I need. We could all live Net Zero easily, without paving the world over in corporate wind and solar farms, or taxpayer costs.
Hi Debra, your comment made my day! Gotta love people who know and care about this stuff. For me, when I use the word "insulation", the process includes air sealing, especially as batt insulation barely functions without the air being trapped between the outer and inner layers. When I use polyurethane insulation, the air sealing is better, and automatic. Then, as you know, once you get the building tight, you need an ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator), to keep humidity controlled and air fresh. I always add an April Aire 5000 electrostatic filter to the ERV circuit, so I'm bringing in fresh oxygen from outside, but cleaning it as it circulates. All of this is a subset of "insulation", or "sealing the envelope", but I am trying to keep my posts short on the Internet, lol. (My mentor John Straube writes for buildingscience.com). Have a lovely day. You made mine. Maybe we can get Bill to write a column on this.
I know John! From Summer Camp. I interviewed him on video for Home Energy Mag back in the day. Yes it would be great if folks were made aware of the whole house approach - so much narrow focus on electrification.
I wasn't lkg for this opportunity here but I recently completed a little project - a 1-pg guide for homeowners. It aims to give them the A-Z of home health & efficiency in a handy 1 page with links to encourage their own research.
No harm in a mini chat room I hope, lol. I agree with the Resilience Movement- "Don't Wait For Government". We need to do what we can in our own lives, here on the ground. It is well within the reach of every homeowner to live Net Zero. We can just Be the Change we want to See. A bonus is, we have local resilience to societal collapse. In the Kootenays in Canada, we have our own separate Internet, and power generation. I had a look at your guide. Fabulous! Does it have comment or contact info?
I think when people start to get involved with solar in particular and start calculating watts, etc., it is a real eye opener as to where some waste, that does not even make one's life any more convent or better, is coming from regarding energy use. Waste, or rather unnecessary excess use, can be a huge factor that people are often unaware of.
I've become addicted to reduction, then, as you point out, you can see how much production you then need. It is really big fun, for sure.
"Addicted To Reduction" lol. The best thing I learned was written on a table napkin on my first day, by the architect. Typical Canadian power use: 60% Heat and Cool .. 20% Domestic Hot Water .. 20% Plug Load (Appliances and lights). That places insulation firmly in the driver's seat.
The IPCC gave us a target. If we could reduce every first world energy bill by 50%, we'd flat line global warming. We realised we could !! eliminate !! every first world energy bill. And all with simple legislation, and government loans to speed things up.
My latest client just got a $10,000 rebate from our federal and provincial governments. He gave me $1,500 as a thank you, and I bought a Fender Stratocaster I'd always wanted, with a wider neck to fit my aging arthritic hands. Talk about really big fun! cheers
I live on Cortes Island off the coast of B.C. (Canada) and we're getting government funding to install heat pumps, plus a good portion of insulation, windows and doors to be installed. It's interesting how rarely the U.S. looks to Canada for information or forward-thinking ideas - it's like we're just a big blank spot on the map. I imagine the idea of government subsidies to help the environment is somehow too socialist, communist or "woke."
Hi Karen. I was on Cortez this summer talking forestry with the Community Forest, who have reduced their cut rate, or "rotation", to 1/400th of their land, which is a clumsy but effective way of setting their forest on the road back to being an Old Growth Forest. They are still clearcutting, in smaller blocks ~7 hectares, but the trees will be 400 years old when they return.
Please don't forget the solar panels, even if you live in a shady spot. Those darn trees, lol! Better to get what you can, than worry about "optimal efficiency". "Perfect being the Enemy of Good". As our readers are unlikely to be aware, the BC Government has inherited the cancelled federal program for offering homeowners $5,000 for installing a solar system that covers all your needs. Maybe $20,000 buys enough panels to get you Net Zero. Saves you say $1,500 a year operating costs. $5,000 subsidy. Payback 10 years. Sure sounds like Communism to me!
The Rewiring America proposal is an excellent one: the US grid (or most other grids for that matter) struggle when vast new electron-greedy institutions are thrust upon them. The real loser is actually the typical ratepayer, as new generation investment is generally passed through to the consumer via energy price hikes.
So not only is the Rewiring America idea sound to manage to mitigate additional demand from a physics point of view, it's also sound to mitigate the economic burden that will be imposed on Joe Bloggs should the data centers proceed.
There is, however, a "but". And it's a but that challenges many ideas of this type.
How do we get bipartisan support to push the RA proposal through?
If we don't have a good answer to that, then all we are guilty of is more hot air. And the answer can't just be: "the other side will have to stop being so dumb", because that won't cut it. We have to build enough bridges to bring enough people across.
How?
* One way is to appeal to climate consciousness. But time and again this has proven to be ineffective.
** A different take appeals to realpolitik: if you allow these data centers to be built without guardrails, you will lose votes. Not because of environmental concerns, but because rates will go up.
*** Yet another speaks to economics: data centers create manufacturing jobs but hardly any ongoing jobs. You know what does create manufacturing jobs AND ongoing jobs? - the ecosystem required to support mass heat pump deployment.
****And you can footnote this with an appeal from a conservative-in-chief:
"Of all the challenges faced by the world community…one has grown clearer than any other in both urgency and importance…[W]e are not—we must not try to be—the lords of all we survey. We are not the lords, we are the Lord’s creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself. Preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder. May we all be equal to that task.”
Who is this conservative-in-chief?
Not Donald Trump of course. But Maggie Thatcher. To the UN, in 1989.
The culture which must change is the idea that a single company’s profit is more important than the protection of the environment from severe harm. See: Change Tack!
You may like to follow what Puerto Rio is doing. They are hooking up the national grid to each home's solar and battery bank, so neighbours can share power after a hurricane. Very cool.
I think La Perla in Puerto Rico has a system of microgrid in a rural area. Independent production of energy from the grid is going to be key for the regular citizen to be able to pay the electric bill.
If it is too high, It is possible to disengage from the grid and survive.
btw I totally agree with all your points, especially decentralise and decorporatise the grid. I love setting my clients up to be Net Zero, or Net Producers. They are no longer contributing to the problem, or financing energy corporations. When the grid fails, they just add some batteries and an inverter and away they go. cheers
I really appreciate your work but it would be so great to have your pieces available in audio form! Even if it’s only some of them I’m sure there are lots of folks who need to “read” as listeners while concurrently accomplishing tasks. Thank you for considering!
If you have iOS or Android, you can listen to Bill’s or anyone's Substack email on the Substack app. Just click on the "READ IN APP" button and then click on the "Right Arrow" (play) at the top right of your screen. If you don’t have the app, you’ll be provided a download. After you've got it playing, click on the bottom of the screen to open the audio control panel.
If you have OS or Windows, it’s a bit more challenging. In Bill's email, click on the "App-Link icon" just to the right of the "Comment icon" near the top of his email. A window will open in your browser. Push the "Escape key" to get rid of the "Share the post" dialog box. Click on the "three dots" to the right of the "share button". Select "Substack Reader." Click on the "Right Arrow" (play) icon" just to the left of the "Subscribed button". Oh yeah, if the audio control panel appears after you click on the play button, make sure it’s for this email and not a previous one. If it’s for a previous email, just click o the close button and then click on the play button again. If this doesn’t work for you, give up and use your phone.
Not a silly question. The world is drowning in jargon! A "land sink" refers to the process where the land captures atmospheric carbon from the sky and stores it. For instance, when you clearcut an old growth forest and convert it into a monoculture plantation, you reduce its annual average capacity to capture and store carbon, (or "be a land sink"), by 90%.
Thanks for writing this, it clarifies a lot, especially the point about how clean energy's economicaly viable growth is becoming the true driver, almost like a self-optimizing algorithm for change. It makes me wonder if this success in solar, being so market-driven, could somehow inform our strategy for those other, less economically obvious challenges, like finding the right 'architecture' for broad systems change.
"That's an intriguing idea! By investing in heat pumps for homes, data-center builders could help reduce reliance on fossil-fuel generators, leading to several potential benefits:
Energy Efficiency: Heat pumps are generally more energy-efficient than traditional heating systems, potentially lowering overall electricity demand.
Reduced Carbon Footprint: Shifting from fossil fuels to heat pumps can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate goals.
Load Balancing: By alleviating pressure on the grid during peak times (when generators are often used), this strategy could help stabilize energy supply and demand.
Freeing Up Capacity: The electricity saved from lower demand for heating could be redirected to power data centers and AI operations, facilitating growth in these sectors.
Community Investment: This approach could foster goodwill and build positive relationships between tech companies and local communities, showing a commitment to sustainable practices.
Long-term Savings: While the initial investment might be high, long-term savings from reduced energy costs could benefit homeowners and potentially reduce operational costs for data centers.
Overall, this strategy could create a win-win scenario: promoting sustainability while supporting technological advancement."
Time and tide 🌊 wait for no one. Technology here today is gone tomorrow... The sky is 🌠🍁 falling, Chicken 🐔🍗 Little was right ▶️, that's why he ❌ 🤞 crossed the 🛣️ road.. Here comes the SUN ☀️, it's all right ‼️👋😎🍁🍁
Hey Bill, thanks for your priceless content about and around the most valuable topic. I’d like to share my latest content about growing problem of e-waste.
Bill tends to denigrate carbon offsetting (choosing similarly biased sources like the Guardian to do so), while in this article he likes the proposal from Rewiring America, which seems to be essentially an offsetting scheme.
Hi Bill, I built REEP House, a Showroom for Sustainable Living in Canada, and I get several people a year to live Net Zero as a hobby. I've been meaning to get you wound up about insulation for years. This is a good time to start.
The best energy production is reduction.
If first worlders insulated their homes to Passiv Haus standards, they would reduce their energy use 60%. So that means 8 panels on the roof instead of 24. Those kind of savings on the need for generation are game changers. Even properly insulating a hot water tank is a 10% reduction on total energy.
All the calculations on "how much energy we need" are faulty, by overstating "need". The oil industry doesn't want you to know this. That is why the British Government put the people who run the ENGO "Insulate Britain" in jail.
The whole thing about "more efficient appliances" (furnaces etc.,) is just sales talk, and industry propaganda. By insulating, and reducing energy use by 70%, we eliminate the need to make 70% of the solar panels that we are calculated to need.
Reduce, reuse, recycle, in that order. Not needing the power is better than buying panels from China or anywhere.
My clients live Net Zero. They produce more energy than they use. 1 Insulate. 2 Solar panels. 3 Electric car. That's all it takes, and we don't need more corporate subsidies to do it, only financing. A green loan to do the above can be paid off in 10-20 years from energy cost savings, and then you .. HAVE NO UTILITY OR CAR GAS COSTS .. F O R E V E R.
And your children, and your little dog too!
I'd be happy to take this discussion to regular email or a phone call.
PS: I live in a super insulated Tiny Haus I built with a battery operated saw charged on solar panels. I get all my power and water from the sky. I live on just two solar panels, just to see how low I could go, but I would recommend 6-8 panels for normal people. I can still turn my 100w Marshall amp "up to eleven". I have everything I need. We could all live Net Zero easily, without paving the world over in corporate wind and solar farms, or taxpayer costs.
Yes and...don't leave out the important building science step of air sealing BEFORE insulation.
Hi Debra, your comment made my day! Gotta love people who know and care about this stuff. For me, when I use the word "insulation", the process includes air sealing, especially as batt insulation barely functions without the air being trapped between the outer and inner layers. When I use polyurethane insulation, the air sealing is better, and automatic. Then, as you know, once you get the building tight, you need an ERV (Energy Recovery Ventilator), to keep humidity controlled and air fresh. I always add an April Aire 5000 electrostatic filter to the ERV circuit, so I'm bringing in fresh oxygen from outside, but cleaning it as it circulates. All of this is a subset of "insulation", or "sealing the envelope", but I am trying to keep my posts short on the Internet, lol. (My mentor John Straube writes for buildingscience.com). Have a lovely day. You made mine. Maybe we can get Bill to write a column on this.
I know John! From Summer Camp. I interviewed him on video for Home Energy Mag back in the day. Yes it would be great if folks were made aware of the whole house approach - so much narrow focus on electrification.
I wasn't lkg for this opportunity here but I recently completed a little project - a 1-pg guide for homeowners. It aims to give them the A-Z of home health & efficiency in a handy 1 page with links to encourage their own research.
It's posted here temporarily and will have its own site soon https://ajo.earth/homeowners-guide/
No harm in a mini chat room I hope, lol. I agree with the Resilience Movement- "Don't Wait For Government". We need to do what we can in our own lives, here on the ground. It is well within the reach of every homeowner to live Net Zero. We can just Be the Change we want to See. A bonus is, we have local resilience to societal collapse. In the Kootenays in Canada, we have our own separate Internet, and power generation. I had a look at your guide. Fabulous! Does it have comment or contact info?
"The best energy production is reduction."
I think when people start to get involved with solar in particular and start calculating watts, etc., it is a real eye opener as to where some waste, that does not even make one's life any more convent or better, is coming from regarding energy use. Waste, or rather unnecessary excess use, can be a huge factor that people are often unaware of.
I've become addicted to reduction, then, as you point out, you can see how much production you then need. It is really big fun, for sure.
"Addicted To Reduction" lol. The best thing I learned was written on a table napkin on my first day, by the architect. Typical Canadian power use: 60% Heat and Cool .. 20% Domestic Hot Water .. 20% Plug Load (Appliances and lights). That places insulation firmly in the driver's seat.
The IPCC gave us a target. If we could reduce every first world energy bill by 50%, we'd flat line global warming. We realised we could !! eliminate !! every first world energy bill. And all with simple legislation, and government loans to speed things up.
My latest client just got a $10,000 rebate from our federal and provincial governments. He gave me $1,500 as a thank you, and I bought a Fender Stratocaster I'd always wanted, with a wider neck to fit my aging arthritic hands. Talk about really big fun! cheers
I live on Cortes Island off the coast of B.C. (Canada) and we're getting government funding to install heat pumps, plus a good portion of insulation, windows and doors to be installed. It's interesting how rarely the U.S. looks to Canada for information or forward-thinking ideas - it's like we're just a big blank spot on the map. I imagine the idea of government subsidies to help the environment is somehow too socialist, communist or "woke."
Hi Karen. I was on Cortez this summer talking forestry with the Community Forest, who have reduced their cut rate, or "rotation", to 1/400th of their land, which is a clumsy but effective way of setting their forest on the road back to being an Old Growth Forest. They are still clearcutting, in smaller blocks ~7 hectares, but the trees will be 400 years old when they return.
Please don't forget the solar panels, even if you live in a shady spot. Those darn trees, lol! Better to get what you can, than worry about "optimal efficiency". "Perfect being the Enemy of Good". As our readers are unlikely to be aware, the BC Government has inherited the cancelled federal program for offering homeowners $5,000 for installing a solar system that covers all your needs. Maybe $20,000 buys enough panels to get you Net Zero. Saves you say $1,500 a year operating costs. $5,000 subsidy. Payback 10 years. Sure sounds like Communism to me!
The Rewiring America proposal is an excellent one: the US grid (or most other grids for that matter) struggle when vast new electron-greedy institutions are thrust upon them. The real loser is actually the typical ratepayer, as new generation investment is generally passed through to the consumer via energy price hikes.
So not only is the Rewiring America idea sound to manage to mitigate additional demand from a physics point of view, it's also sound to mitigate the economic burden that will be imposed on Joe Bloggs should the data centers proceed.
There is, however, a "but". And it's a but that challenges many ideas of this type.
How do we get bipartisan support to push the RA proposal through?
If we don't have a good answer to that, then all we are guilty of is more hot air. And the answer can't just be: "the other side will have to stop being so dumb", because that won't cut it. We have to build enough bridges to bring enough people across.
How?
* One way is to appeal to climate consciousness. But time and again this has proven to be ineffective.
** A different take appeals to realpolitik: if you allow these data centers to be built without guardrails, you will lose votes. Not because of environmental concerns, but because rates will go up.
*** Yet another speaks to economics: data centers create manufacturing jobs but hardly any ongoing jobs. You know what does create manufacturing jobs AND ongoing jobs? - the ecosystem required to support mass heat pump deployment.
****And you can footnote this with an appeal from a conservative-in-chief:
"Of all the challenges faced by the world community…one has grown clearer than any other in both urgency and importance…[W]e are not—we must not try to be—the lords of all we survey. We are not the lords, we are the Lord’s creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today with preserving life itself. Preserving life with all its mystery and all its wonder. May we all be equal to that task.”
Who is this conservative-in-chief?
Not Donald Trump of course. But Maggie Thatcher. To the UN, in 1989.
Thank you, Bill, for these sharp, funny, and full of heart updates.
The culture which must change is the idea that a single company’s profit is more important than the protection of the environment from severe harm. See: Change Tack!
Www.codeforcorporatecitizenship.com.
It would be nice to think in other RE than solar and wind and mega projects.
The grid needs to be stable and decentralized if the regular citizens want to have some energy to consume bc AI. Is going to eat it all or half.
Microgrids that let operate small independent cell that can be join and disengage according to the necessity are key for the population.
Batteries like Sand battery for heat/ cold to compensate for solar and wind discrete production of energy are also key.
Energy provide by a little deviation of rivers and a turbine can add a los kWs to the grid
Ocean power like Eco Wave Poder or Tidal power can also contribute.
Diversify and decentralize the grid to make it more accessible and reliable and real.
You may like to follow what Puerto Rio is doing. They are hooking up the national grid to each home's solar and battery bank, so neighbours can share power after a hurricane. Very cool.
I think La Perla in Puerto Rico has a system of microgrid in a rural area. Independent production of energy from the grid is going to be key for the regular citizen to be able to pay the electric bill.
If it is too high, It is possible to disengage from the grid and survive.
btw I totally agree with all your points, especially decentralise and decorporatise the grid. I love setting my clients up to be Net Zero, or Net Producers. They are no longer contributing to the problem, or financing energy corporations. When the grid fails, they just add some batteries and an inverter and away they go. cheers
I really appreciate your work but it would be so great to have your pieces available in audio form! Even if it’s only some of them I’m sure there are lots of folks who need to “read” as listeners while concurrently accomplishing tasks. Thank you for considering!
If you have iOS or Android, you can listen to Bill’s or anyone's Substack email on the Substack app. Just click on the "READ IN APP" button and then click on the "Right Arrow" (play) at the top right of your screen. If you don’t have the app, you’ll be provided a download. After you've got it playing, click on the bottom of the screen to open the audio control panel.
If you have OS or Windows, it’s a bit more challenging. In Bill's email, click on the "App-Link icon" just to the right of the "Comment icon" near the top of his email. A window will open in your browser. Push the "Escape key" to get rid of the "Share the post" dialog box. Click on the "three dots" to the right of the "share button". Select "Substack Reader." Click on the "Right Arrow" (play) icon" just to the left of the "Subscribed button". Oh yeah, if the audio control panel appears after you click on the play button, make sure it’s for this email and not a previous one. If it’s for a previous email, just click o the close button and then click on the play button again. If this doesn’t work for you, give up and use your phone.
Carefully read. Silly question pehea but what is " land sink?" Viz "unprecedented weakening of the land sink in 2023"
Not a silly question. The world is drowning in jargon! A "land sink" refers to the process where the land captures atmospheric carbon from the sky and stores it. For instance, when you clearcut an old growth forest and convert it into a monoculture plantation, you reduce its annual average capacity to capture and store carbon, (or "be a land sink"), by 90%.
Thanks for writing this, it clarifies a lot, especially the point about how clean energy's economicaly viable growth is becoming the true driver, almost like a self-optimizing algorithm for change. It makes me wonder if this success in solar, being so market-driven, could somehow inform our strategy for those other, less economically obvious challenges, like finding the right 'architecture' for broad systems change.
If you are reading from New Jersey, there is an environmental reason to vote for Congresswoman Mikie Sherril
https://timothyjpmckenna.substack.com/p/the-candidates-for-new-jersey-governor
Here's what the AI tool Poe had to say:
"That's an intriguing idea! By investing in heat pumps for homes, data-center builders could help reduce reliance on fossil-fuel generators, leading to several potential benefits:
Energy Efficiency: Heat pumps are generally more energy-efficient than traditional heating systems, potentially lowering overall electricity demand.
Reduced Carbon Footprint: Shifting from fossil fuels to heat pumps can significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate goals.
Load Balancing: By alleviating pressure on the grid during peak times (when generators are often used), this strategy could help stabilize energy supply and demand.
Freeing Up Capacity: The electricity saved from lower demand for heating could be redirected to power data centers and AI operations, facilitating growth in these sectors.
Community Investment: This approach could foster goodwill and build positive relationships between tech companies and local communities, showing a commitment to sustainable practices.
Long-term Savings: While the initial investment might be high, long-term savings from reduced energy costs could benefit homeowners and potentially reduce operational costs for data centers.
Overall, this strategy could create a win-win scenario: promoting sustainability while supporting technological advancement."
Hey Bill. Glad you made it back from #NoKings day safe and sound. Obviously, all those radical Marxist Hamas terrorist supporters must have left you alone. Talking of wildfires, did you see the total global area burned was more than the size of INDIA?! https://www.carbonbrief.org/global-wildfires-burned-an-area-of-land-larger-than-india-in-2024/?utm_source=cbnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2025-10-20&utm_campaign=DeBriefed+Earth+s+first+tipping+point+Climate+adviser+interview+How+warming+affects+children+s+health
Time and tide 🌊 wait for no one. Technology here today is gone tomorrow... The sky is 🌠🍁 falling, Chicken 🐔🍗 Little was right ▶️, that's why he ❌ 🤞 crossed the 🛣️ road.. Here comes the SUN ☀️, it's all right ‼️👋😎🍁🍁
Hey Bill, thanks for your priceless content about and around the most valuable topic. I’d like to share my latest content about growing problem of e-waste.
https://circularlab.substack.com/p/waste-watch-e-waste
I've got some insight on this area. I just bought a vacuum boron gas machine to manufactur p type semiconductors. Id love to chat on the back end.
Bill tends to denigrate carbon offsetting (choosing similarly biased sources like the Guardian to do so), while in this article he likes the proposal from Rewiring America, which seems to be essentially an offsetting scheme.