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Sparks

The New Climate Laws’ Tax Credits for Homeowners Are Crazy Powerful

A new study in Energy Policy does the math.

A heat pump.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act — better known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law — are together filled with dozens of financial incentives to help regular Americans switch to clean technologies. The IRA, in particular, is the largest investment in confronting climate change the country has ever made. That work is happening, in no small part, on the (literal) home front.

A new study published in the journal Energy Policy authored by researchers from Vanderbilt University, shows that while only about 12% of climate and energy funds in the IRA and 5.7% in the BIL target voluntary household actions, they could leverage 40% of the cumulative emissions reductions under those laws.

That’s a big return on investment, and a rare sign that regular citizens might, after all, have some level of agency in helping solve a problem that can often feel beyond our grasp. The authors note that getting to that level of emissions reduction is perhaps easier said than done — navigating the process of figuring out eligibility for tax credits, determining cost savings, and actually contracting with local professionals to install all that clean tech is a pretty significant undertaking, and all those roadblocks could get in the way of that best case scenario. The authors’ estimate also accounts for all households in the country, whereas it’s much easier (and more appealing) for an owner of a single-family home to make those kinds of changes to their building than, say, a landlord who won’t see any direct benefits from improving a building they’ve rented out.

A lot of pain points, then. But still, in the face of a huge and abstract problem, knowing that individual actions do make a difference is no small thing.

Want to take advantage of some of these incentives? We’ve got you covered on at least a few of those fronts: my colleague Emily has written a guide to decarbonising your home with the IRA, and Robinson has a car buyer’s guide to the 2024 EV tax credit. That 40% emissions reduction goal will take a lot of individual investment; those guides (and more to come!) are good places to start.

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Sparks

Exclusive: New York’s $32 Million Induction Stove Contest Has a Winner

Berkeley-based Copper was selected to supply 10,000 stoves to the New York City Housing Authority.

A Copper stove.
Heatmap Illustration/Copper

Last year, New York City went shopping for 10,000 induction stoves so it could ditch gas in its public housing. Now it's ready to make a purchase.

The New York Power Authority and NYC Housing Authority have selected Copper, a Berkeley, California-based startup that was formerly known as Channing Street Copper Company, as the winner of their Induction Stove Challenge, Heatmap has learned. The agencies are planning to award the company a $32 million, seven-year contract to design, prototype, test, and install its stoves in apartments throughout the city.

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Sparks

SCOTUS Says Biden’s Power Plant Rules Can Stay — For Now

They may not survive a full challenge, though.

The Supreme Court.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

The Supreme Court allowed the Environmental Protection Agency to move forward with its rule restricting climate pollution from power plants on Wednesday, meaning that one of the Biden administration’s key climate policies can stay in place. For now.

The high court’s decision will allow the EPA to defend the rule in a lower court over the next 10 months. A group of power utilities, trade groups, and Republican-governed states are suing to block the greenhouse gas rule, arguing that it oversteps the EPA’s authority under the Clean Air Act.

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Sparks

What Happens to a Landfill in a Hurricane?

The trash mostly stays put, but the methane is another story.

A hurricane and a landfill.
Heatmap Illustration/Getty Images

In the coming days and weeks, as Floridians and others in storm-ravaged communities clean up from Hurricane Milton, trucks will carry all manner of storm-related detritus — chunks of buildings, fences, furniture, even cars — to the same place all their other waste goes: the local landfill. But what about the landfill itself? Does this gigantic trash pile take to the air and scatter Dorito bags and car parts alike around the surrounding region?

No, thankfully. As Richard Meyers, the director of land management services at the Solid Waste Authority of Palm Beach County, assured me, all landfill waste is covered with soil on “at least a weekly basis,” and certainly right before a hurricane, preventing the waste from being kicked up. “Aerodynamically, [the storm is] rolling over that covered waste. It’s not able to blow six inches of cover soil from the top of the waste.”

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