Climate Good News
Around the world people are taking the initiative to mitigate climate change.
Here are some good news briefs compiled by the Climate Issue
group of the LWV of Bellingham/ Whatcom.
The Bright Future of the All-Electric Neighborhood
A growing number of housing developments are foregoing conventional fuel technology — and building climate resilience.
Susan Manners and her partner were looking to move to Vermont to be closer to their kids when they stumbled upon a chance to buy a townhouse in a new development in the northwestern city of South Burlington. The view — a vista of the Green Mountain range — was a huge selling point, Manners recalls. But, they were primarily drawn to the new-build home for how it is powered: solar panels on the roof, a battery wall in the basement, and no natural gas hookup to be found. And the same is true for all of their neighbors.
“The zero-carbon was a big driver,” Manners says. “We’re really concerned about climate change.” Manners is among the first residents of Hillside East at O’Brien Farm, a planned neighborhood of 155 homes.
This new development is one of a growing number of housing projects, from Florida to Colorado, that are forgoing the conventional fuel technology that powers many American homes in favor of electric alternatives.
These new neighborhoods are not just minimizing emissions that contribute to climate change, they’re also proving to be more resilient in the face of climate extremes.
“You’re closer to the energy that you’re using,” says Evan Langfeldt, CEO of O’Brien Brothers, the construction firm developing Manners’ neighborhood.
About 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States come from household energy use, including heating, cooling, cooking and otherwise powering a home. That makes housing a major target for addressing climate change, explains Wangda Zuo, a Pennsylvania State University researcher who has studied net zero neighborhoods, including one of the first in the United States on Florida’s Ana Maria Island.
“If we are able to reduce building energy consumption, we can significantly reduce the CO2 emissions,” Zuo says.
In recent decades, updated building codes have generally led new-build homes to become more energy efficient, according to Zuo. But, projects like Hillside East are going a step further by incorporating solar panels and other electric technologies, and cutting out gas completely.
“Modern equipment is much better, but the fact of the matter is, if you’re using natural gas, you’re still creating carbon emissions,” says Langfeldt, who spearheaded the plan to make Hillside East carbon-free. “I think we all just need to do our part.”
O’Brien Brothers had previously explored options to incorporate solar panels into its housing developments, but the extra expense to homebuyers had been a hurdle. So, when the firm began the plans for Hillside East, Langfeldt and his team started collaborating with Green Mountain Power, Vermont’s largest electric utility, and a pioneer of using residential solar panels and battery storage to bolster the local grid.
The developer and utility devised a plan. Green Mountain Power would own all the electrification technology in each of the neighborhood’s homes: the solar panels on the roof that generate electricity and battery walls in the basement that store it, heat pumps that warm and cool the space, and electric vehicle chargers that power up cars in the garage. Each homeowner would then pay a “resiliency fee” to essentially lease the equipment, starting at $75 per month for a townhouse. This cuts the cost for buyers, keeping the homes on par with the local housing market, explains Langfeldt. Prices for the smallest homes start at $599,000, ranging up to more than $1 million for the largest. (Eight units in the development are reserved as permanently affordable housing, selling for about $320,000.)
A growing number of housing developments are embracing a carbon-free model, according to Rocky Mountain Institute researchers Brett Webster and Lucas Toffoli. While mitigating climate change may be a primary selling point for some, many homebuyers are drawn by the other benefits sustainable homes offer. Better insulation not only improves energy efficiency, Webster notes, it also improves temperature control and minimizes outside noise.
A major benefit of this approach is that it is cheaper and easier to install these greener technologies when the home is built — rather than later as retrofits. “The right time to do something better is as early as possible,” Toffoli says. “I think it’s something that’s being demonstrated by some of these neighborhoods.
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Reasons To Be Cheerful: Part of a series Our Electrifying World —“The Bright Future of the All-Electric Neighborhood” by Elizabeth Hewitt, April 14, 2025
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Cool Cement
Ever dread venturing into the city on a hot summer day? Concrete sidewalks and buildings practically exude heat, requiring extra powerful air conditioners on the inside while contributing to an “urban heat dome” on the outside. The warming climate is slated to make these effects even worse.
Researchers may have found a solution: a special cement, a key ingredient of concrete, that stays cool. First, they created millimeter-thick particles from calcium, aluminum, silicon, and sulfur that react with water to form the structure of the cement. Then, they used pressure to assemble the particles in a matrix that scatters UV light rather than absorbing it.
To test their cooling cement, the researchers placed a slab on a roof for a day, finding that it stayed chill even at the toastiest temperatures. Another panel was left outside for a year and experienced minimal degradation. In the lab, the cement also withstood freezing and thawing, corrosive liquids, and extra-strength UV radiation. Since the cement dries in as little as 10 minutes, the authors propose that it could be applied to existing building surfaces, including concrete, metals, and ceramic tiles.
The team conducted in-depth modeling of how the cooling cement could be used in seven cities around the world to help achieve net-zero or negative carbon emissions for buildings by reducing the high energy demand of air conditioners.
“This breakthrough holds the potential to turn the heavy cement industry into a negative-carbon emission system, where supercool cement could play a key role in driving an energy-efficient, carbon-free future for the construction industry,” write the authors, noting that cement is the most used synthetic substance in the world. And architects need not worry.” The cooling cement can be dyed fun colors and still maintain its chill.
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ScienceAdviser: Monday, Aug 25, 2025
