Thanks for reminding everyone that electrification is not the same as de-carbonization! (This also includes electric cars I’m afraid.) Do electric boilers even have the BTUs to heat large buildings in the IL cold? Heat pumps are still not up to the job, a big problem to moving away from natural gas for single family homes. I too lived in…
Thanks for reminding everyone that electrification is not the same as de-carbonization! (This also includes electric cars I’m afraid.) Do electric boilers even have the BTUs to heat large buildings in the IL cold? Heat pumps are still not up to the job, a big problem to moving away from natural gas for single family homes. I too lived in courtyard buildings in SE Evanston. It is impossible to think these are easy to retrofit. It’s all just another “let’s do ___ and all feel good we did something” rather than finding a legitimate solution. It seems to plague politics in this town.
Everyone is being very short sighted about this proposal. Heat pumps are capable of large commercial buildings and residential buildings because the mass of the building keeps more of the units/spaces warmer than a single family home. Where heat pumps struggle is when it's 0F or below for a single family home. ALSO - the final electrification component isn't required for 25 years. That's a lot of time for technology to improve. I follow a guy that is working right now and has prototypes in people's homes that use CO2 refrigerant for it's heat pump boiler and it's getting 180F so the technology is there and will be here well before 2050. Another point is that before 2050, all the equipment in every condo building in Evanston is going to be replaced. So this argument about the amount of money that will impact residents is really off. You have to look at what's called incremental costs. If replacing the condo building boiler is $100,000 they have to do that because it's old and failed. If they spend $125,000 to put a heat pump boiler in, the only added cost is $25,000 to the owners. It's a big difference.
Yeah I don't disagree with this, but I think the HBO is rats nest of bureaucracy. Two committees that will need to be staffed, a bunch of metrics and monitoring, and an entire rulemaking process. It feels like this ordinance is designed for a bunch of people to hit metrics and claim wins instead of being written for the people.
I think a simple law that just mandates new construction meets zero-carbon criteria and old buildings are grandfathered in, but if they need to replace their boilers, etc then they have to shift to electric would be sufficient?
The problem is that leaves 80% of Evanston buildings on the table with no requirements. Is it so bad to make them improve the efficiency of their building incrementally over time? That's what the purpose of the multi year plan is. 5 years from now, do an audit, make sure your lights are upgraded, start budgeting to replace your 20-50 year old windows. Budget to replace your HVAC systems. So that when those systems fail or 5-10 years later, you're ready. The whole HBO is to have a concrete plan in place for owners instead of them waiting to do anything 25 years from now and then going oh crap, we didn't plan or save money and then people really will be pissed. The committee part is there to create the plan and help owners execute it. It's not just about more unnecessary bureaucracy.
Sure, I don't think this current iteration gets you there, though. I have nothing against everything you just described. I feel this way about Evanston Tree Law too - like I absolutely think it's important to the character of the City to protect as many trees as possible. But the rules they put in place requiring permitting if you do anything 25 feet from a tree, requiring a visit from the Evanston tree cop, etc are expensive and increase the time/costs for everyone to do anything.
I think this can be vastly simpler - forget about all the metrics and monitoring and committees and (likely non-existent) federal grants and carve outs, etc. That's just more jobs for consultants. Just say "here's the new rules, they go into effect in 10,15 and 25 years and they impact everyone, even single family homes. If you want to replace a gas boiler, you cannot do that anymore, it has to be electric. No more gas stoves as of 2032. etc" and apply to everyone.
This iteration just adds so much complexity to a simple problem and will clog everything up while Northwestern's lawyers grease the wheels
I don't disagree completely. I just think since the federal $ is still potentially on the table they should push forward. If that gets abandoned, then maybe go down that path you suggested. But there will have to be a lot of time and money by the city to come up wtih that which is why the federal dollars are important. It's not like the city has a bunch of time on their hands thanks to the disaster of EE45 and the proposed zoning changes and the horrible consultant they hired that they didn't do what they said they were going to. Evanston needs to come up with a way to actual make things happen instead of talking about it forever and paying consultants to not actually produce anything valuable. And this is coming from me, a consultant.
Also, don't get me started on the tree thing. Sure canopy coverage is good but when someone's tree is leaning over my garage and they want to take it down and the city says no, I'm honestly surprsied people haven't sued over that yet.
Thanks for chiming in FM, didn’t know about heat pumps work for larger buildings. I guess my frustration lays in Evanston’s failure to see the whole picture. In this case it’s about the second part of the equation, non-renewable energy mainly powering the grid. And how many renewable power plants are paired with gas turbines.
Envision Evanston is another good example. Both drafts talk about public transportation as if access is going to be expanded. Our elected officials and others running for election this year talk about having reduced parking in new construction (if not removing any parking minimums). Public transportation agencies are about to hit a financial cliff and Evanston is also about to hit a financial cliff. Where is the investment in expansion coming from?
This is the type of issue I have with well intentioned initiatives that lack a macro view and makes renters, homeowners, and small businesses foot the bill.
I agree that Evanston has a problem with looking at the big picture. It happens over and over again and it's really frustrating. I feel that way about all the current infrastructure needs of the city and also the current rent situation for 909 Davis. Evanston is going to be here as city much longer than 20 years, they are short sighted in their cost projections for how much renting vs owning and actually investing in their properties would cost.
As for the grid, while yes we do have peaker plants (natural gas) here, the Chicago area is actually supported by a lot of nuclear. I believe the current administration is also looking to expand nuclear which is probably the only thing they are doing I support. So the grid here is actually pretty clean. Also with continued investment in wind and solar, there are options for buildings to invest in remote renewable generation. We can put solar on top of surface lots and parking garages, but it's never going to be enough here to get us where we need to be. But investing in southern IL is a very viable solution. The grid is only going to improve quality over the next 25 years and it will make the targets for buildings easier to achieve over time. I can tell you that the buildings in NY that are subject to their local laww 97 are counting on that too.
Thanks for reminding everyone that electrification is not the same as de-carbonization! (This also includes electric cars I’m afraid.) Do electric boilers even have the BTUs to heat large buildings in the IL cold? Heat pumps are still not up to the job, a big problem to moving away from natural gas for single family homes. I too lived in courtyard buildings in SE Evanston. It is impossible to think these are easy to retrofit. It’s all just another “let’s do ___ and all feel good we did something” rather than finding a legitimate solution. It seems to plague politics in this town.
Everyone is being very short sighted about this proposal. Heat pumps are capable of large commercial buildings and residential buildings because the mass of the building keeps more of the units/spaces warmer than a single family home. Where heat pumps struggle is when it's 0F or below for a single family home. ALSO - the final electrification component isn't required for 25 years. That's a lot of time for technology to improve. I follow a guy that is working right now and has prototypes in people's homes that use CO2 refrigerant for it's heat pump boiler and it's getting 180F so the technology is there and will be here well before 2050. Another point is that before 2050, all the equipment in every condo building in Evanston is going to be replaced. So this argument about the amount of money that will impact residents is really off. You have to look at what's called incremental costs. If replacing the condo building boiler is $100,000 they have to do that because it's old and failed. If they spend $125,000 to put a heat pump boiler in, the only added cost is $25,000 to the owners. It's a big difference.
Yeah I don't disagree with this, but I think the HBO is rats nest of bureaucracy. Two committees that will need to be staffed, a bunch of metrics and monitoring, and an entire rulemaking process. It feels like this ordinance is designed for a bunch of people to hit metrics and claim wins instead of being written for the people.
I think a simple law that just mandates new construction meets zero-carbon criteria and old buildings are grandfathered in, but if they need to replace their boilers, etc then they have to shift to electric would be sufficient?
The problem is that leaves 80% of Evanston buildings on the table with no requirements. Is it so bad to make them improve the efficiency of their building incrementally over time? That's what the purpose of the multi year plan is. 5 years from now, do an audit, make sure your lights are upgraded, start budgeting to replace your 20-50 year old windows. Budget to replace your HVAC systems. So that when those systems fail or 5-10 years later, you're ready. The whole HBO is to have a concrete plan in place for owners instead of them waiting to do anything 25 years from now and then going oh crap, we didn't plan or save money and then people really will be pissed. The committee part is there to create the plan and help owners execute it. It's not just about more unnecessary bureaucracy.
Sure, I don't think this current iteration gets you there, though. I have nothing against everything you just described. I feel this way about Evanston Tree Law too - like I absolutely think it's important to the character of the City to protect as many trees as possible. But the rules they put in place requiring permitting if you do anything 25 feet from a tree, requiring a visit from the Evanston tree cop, etc are expensive and increase the time/costs for everyone to do anything.
I think this can be vastly simpler - forget about all the metrics and monitoring and committees and (likely non-existent) federal grants and carve outs, etc. That's just more jobs for consultants. Just say "here's the new rules, they go into effect in 10,15 and 25 years and they impact everyone, even single family homes. If you want to replace a gas boiler, you cannot do that anymore, it has to be electric. No more gas stoves as of 2032. etc" and apply to everyone.
This iteration just adds so much complexity to a simple problem and will clog everything up while Northwestern's lawyers grease the wheels
I don't disagree completely. I just think since the federal $ is still potentially on the table they should push forward. If that gets abandoned, then maybe go down that path you suggested. But there will have to be a lot of time and money by the city to come up wtih that which is why the federal dollars are important. It's not like the city has a bunch of time on their hands thanks to the disaster of EE45 and the proposed zoning changes and the horrible consultant they hired that they didn't do what they said they were going to. Evanston needs to come up with a way to actual make things happen instead of talking about it forever and paying consultants to not actually produce anything valuable. And this is coming from me, a consultant.
Also, don't get me started on the tree thing. Sure canopy coverage is good but when someone's tree is leaning over my garage and they want to take it down and the city says no, I'm honestly surprsied people haven't sued over that yet.
Thanks for chiming in FM, didn’t know about heat pumps work for larger buildings. I guess my frustration lays in Evanston’s failure to see the whole picture. In this case it’s about the second part of the equation, non-renewable energy mainly powering the grid. And how many renewable power plants are paired with gas turbines.
Envision Evanston is another good example. Both drafts talk about public transportation as if access is going to be expanded. Our elected officials and others running for election this year talk about having reduced parking in new construction (if not removing any parking minimums). Public transportation agencies are about to hit a financial cliff and Evanston is also about to hit a financial cliff. Where is the investment in expansion coming from?
This is the type of issue I have with well intentioned initiatives that lack a macro view and makes renters, homeowners, and small businesses foot the bill.
I agree that Evanston has a problem with looking at the big picture. It happens over and over again and it's really frustrating. I feel that way about all the current infrastructure needs of the city and also the current rent situation for 909 Davis. Evanston is going to be here as city much longer than 20 years, they are short sighted in their cost projections for how much renting vs owning and actually investing in their properties would cost.
As for the grid, while yes we do have peaker plants (natural gas) here, the Chicago area is actually supported by a lot of nuclear. I believe the current administration is also looking to expand nuclear which is probably the only thing they are doing I support. So the grid here is actually pretty clean. Also with continued investment in wind and solar, there are options for buildings to invest in remote renewable generation. We can put solar on top of surface lots and parking garages, but it's never going to be enough here to get us where we need to be. But investing in southern IL is a very viable solution. The grid is only going to improve quality over the next 25 years and it will make the targets for buildings easier to achieve over time. I can tell you that the buildings in NY that are subject to their local laww 97 are counting on that too.