[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign welcome to Uptown Chats, a podcast where we share stories about environmental justice by and for everyday people. I'm your co host, Lonnie.
[00:00:25] Speaker B: And I'm your other co host, Jaron.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: And today we're wrapping up our Right Direction miniseries with a little reflection. We covered a lot of different renewable energy technologies during this mini series and we want to take some time to zoom out and think about how they fit into the bigger picture. But before we dive in, Jaron, can you share WEAC's mission?
[00:00:45] Speaker B: I sure can. We ACT's mission is to build healthy communities by ensuring that people of color and or low income residents participate meaningfully in the creation of sound and fair environmental health and protection policies and practices.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Thanks, Jaron. So, as I mentioned, Jaron and I will be reflecting on some of the technologies we discussed in our Right Direction miniseries and thinking about how they can play a role in supporting a just transition.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: That's right. And folks may remember the first episode in our miniseries where we spoke with Shalonda Baker, former Director of the Office of Energy, justice and equity at the U.S. department of Energy, who now serves as the Vice Provost for Sustainability and Climate Action at the University of Michigan. If you haven't listened to that interview, I definitely recommend that you go back and check it out.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: In our conversation with Shalonda, we unpacked the term just transition and what it means for environmental justice in this moment in time.
More specifically, we talked about a just energy transition and how we use the once in a generation investments in clean energy to create opportunities for communities that have been negatively impacted by fossil fuel infrastructure.
[00:01:50] Speaker B: Exactly. So with that in mind, Lonnie and I have each prepared a couple of questions for each other to help explore this concept of a just transition or adjust energy transition a little bit more and just think about how it's being applied to some of the renewable energy technologies that we discussed.
So we'll go ahead and jump in. Lonnie, do you want to go first?
[00:02:10] Speaker A: No, go ahead. You can, you can go ahead and you can start.
[00:02:13] Speaker B: How nice of you, Lonnie. All right, fine. I got some good questions for you. So I'm excited. So, you know, one of the major themes from this mini series and probably from other episodes that we've done, is that Europe is ahead of the game. Pretty much all of the technologies we discussed, from solar to heat pumps to thermal energy networks, they've had these technologies for a while. And as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about policy, what do you think some of the main differences are in the policy landscape between the US and Europe that have created such a difference in our energy infrastructure. And what, if anything, could we be emulating to help close that gap and kind of get caught up with what Europe has been doing for a while?
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I actually thought about this a lot when I was reflecting on our mini series. And why does it seem like Europe is so, so far ahead? And we have to kind of remember a couple things that I was thinking about is how large this country is and our method of extraction for energy. Right. We, it's, it's money, there's profit in that.
We are a big exporter of natural gas and oil and all of those fossil fuels. And that kind of fuels, the, no pun intended, our economy in lots of ways in that particular sector. And I don't think that's the case for Europe over the centuries. Right. European countries are much older than the US in terms of kind of like the Industrial Revolution and industrializing and using fossil fuels for energy and. And so I think that's a, I think that's a key piece there. It's just we started with fossil fuels and that's what kind of boosted our economy in a lot of ways in production and kind of the Industrial Revolution. I know that was a very kind of nerdy, weird history kind of aspect and angle to it, but I think that is important compared to at least the main difference that I can see between the US and Europe in that regard is that we have an abundance of this thing that is a commodity that's shared worldwide and we can make money off of it. And it's part of our, and it's part of our economic viability across the world. And I think that's one of the reasons why we kind of stick to it. And I think kind of closing the gap as well is to thinking about also we've spent decades and decades subsidizing those industries as well to build out the infrastructure for them to do more investments in that, even investing in job creation and educating people on how to extract things.
So we have like a whole system that is just built on fossil fuel. And I think a lot of ways to kind of close that gap is if we do the same things that we did in the past for fossil fuel industry and infrastructure, if we do the same thing for renewable energy.
And we're seeing those little things here and we've talked about a lot as well, job training and making sure people know how to, how to create, make, install and maintain all of these systems, shifting the money and subsidies that we still are giving to fossil fuel infrastructure and shifting it to the infrastructure for renewable energy. And I think if we kind of do that same way, we can kind of see not a situation where things are parallel, but where things are going to take. Where renewable energy takes over the fossil fuel use in energy.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I feel like at the heart of it, to some extent, you know, money talks. Where you put your money is what you. What you see in terms of the landscape. And obviously, as a country, we've invested a lot in that fossil fuel infrastructure. And there's a little bit of like a cultural attachment to it. You know, I think of like, gas stoves and like the culture war over gas stoves and how much of it is an identity thing. It's like, oh, yes, I use natural gas, you know, for everything. It almost makes me think of like, you know, propane and propane accessories. Like, yeah.
The culture around what fuel you use for different things and how, again, it's just kind of normalized and you unpack, you know, some of the pieces that are like, you know, it doesn't happen by accident. You know, there's intentional.
Some of those investments translate to costs. And, you know, as a consumer, that's where your decision making comes in is like, well, if our country invests a lot in this infrastructure, that sometimes mean it's cheaper.
So that means I'm going to use that energy because I'm budget conscious and I'm thinking about how to save money on my end. So, yeah, all the points you made. Very interesting. And I'm curious how long as we start to see some of those investments happening now in the US how long it might take for us to catch up and get some of those technologies at the same scale that we see in Europe. But that's another question. I won't ask that right now.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a big question. But I will add one more thing to that. Cause you made me think it too, is like the kind of corporatization and the idea of lobbying and interest and being able to create laws and policies that are in the interest of fossil fuel. Right. Is also something that's there too. There's a lot of things that are codified, like you mentioned, it's not just culture or saying things like, now we're cooking with gas as a positive thing or our love of king of the hill and, you know, somebody selling propane and propane accessories. But I was thinking also about that policy as well, of just like the idea of lobbying and creating laws to protect and to advance kind of those private interests. Speaking of Europe being kind of ahead of the game, one thing that stood out to me is the relatively slower adoption of heat pumps. It seems like it's such a logical thing when you think about heating and cooling and all that being together, all of that being way more efficient than what we're using now and it being cheaper as well to produce. And I know you do some work with getting people to transition to heat pumps. And so my question for you is, like, from your perspective and as you've been working in the field, do any of the barriers that we discussed with Jordan resonate with you? And how would you speed up the adoption of heat pumps?
[00:08:30] Speaker B: The great question, and actually I feel like it kind of dovetails nicely off the conversation we were just happening about, you know, investments and energy landscape and all that. One of the things that we kind of talked about with Jordan with some of the equipment. So this as a reminder for folks who didn't have a chance to listen to the episode, you know, at nycha, they've piloted different types of heat pump technology and, and, you know, trying to find the right equipment that works in, you know, big multifamily buildings where, you know, you don't want to have to make all these electrical upgrades and something that kind of is as plug and play almost as like a regular either window AC unit or just can like work well in existing infrastructure without having to make a bunch of changes. And I think that that kind of touches on one. One of those pieces that I, that I feel like is a barrier for a lot of people is if they're renters, how does this fit into their, their buildings? Can they, can they access this as, as a renter, as a piece of technology? Because it's just like any other of those, you know, weatherization or, or energy efficiency upgrades that you would want to make in a building.
Most of the benefit is for a renter. You know, as a renter, you know, you're the one living in, in your apartment, you're using energy and you're also paying the bill. I know it's a little bit more complicated in New York where, you know, heating is kind of the expected, is provided by the landlord. But something like heat pumps adds a whole complicated layer to that which we talked about with Jordan a little bit, where now it's just something that's in your unit. Now you're the one who has control over the heating and cooling. Like, how do you, how do you, how do you deal with the cost piece, then when, you know, previously landlords were responsible for the heat piece. But going back to my point about being a renter, there's this barrier that's very real of like, well, I want to have a more efficient heating and cooling system in my building, but I live in this big building. I can't swap it out for my entire building. So it has to be kind of at that large scale.
So that either means you need to come up with something that you can plug into your window, kind of like a window AC unit, or you to make a big investment in this entire building. So, you know, for big buildings like that, you know, like, like, like we see for nycha, lots of large buildings, you know, they were trying to think about, you know, the scale of the scale of this something that would be able to be scalable.
That's where I think, to your point about making investments, you start to see different types of like rebates and incentives to encourage, you know, property owners and people who are both in big multifamily buildings and also in small, like co ops and small, smaller apartment buildings to be able to afford that upfront purchase. Because I think that is the other, you know, big barrier at whatever scale you're working on is being able to afford the upfront cost of any of this technology. And that, that doesn't just apply to heat pumps, but I think it's, you know, we're talking about heat pumps and that applies to like, things like, you know, solar, rooftop solar and stuff like that. You know, how do you ease that, you know, reduce that barrier of all that upfront cost when, you know, over time you'll probably end up saving money. But you know, for anyone who's on like a fixed income or just has income constraints, like you can't necessarily dump all that money up at the beginning. So things like, you know, rebates and incentives to help reduce that upfront cost. But then thinking about how the technology can kind of fit into the existing structure of buildings, and that's why I was super excited about that piece of technology that we talked about with Jordan, which is essentially a, a heat pump in this small package that just basically goes into a regular window. It's kind of like a U shaped, a saddle shape where it doesn't take up as much window space as like a regular AC unit, but it does all the, you know, functionality of, of a heat pump. So it can just, you know, go right in your window, do heating and cooling down to pretty low temperatures. I can't Remember? Exactly. But you know, it's, it's helping to provide all the same benefits of a heat pump, but in a much more small and efficient like package. Technologies like that I feel like are something that a, they're a little bit more expensive per unit. Something you could do as a renter, you could just go and, and purchase one of these or if there's rebates and incentives again from a utility to help a boss at that cost, you could, you could do that. So I think a mix of those, you know, newer, more, more renter friendly versions of that technology which exist, which are out there and you're, you're starting to see those kind of really all over the place and in different apartments, but then also making sure that people can afford them both for their, either for their own unit or their own building or for the larger scale buildings. Making sure that there's like those incentives and rebates that folks can easily take advantage of without having to go through a whole rigmarole. Like there's a whole process. Like I know that that's the other perceived barrier of like, well, you know, I want to make this upgrade for my building. Like I, either I want to put a heat pump in or rooftop solar or whatever, but like I, I, there's all this work to get the incentive, a rebate. But like as, as, as easy as those things can be made for people, the better just knowing about them, knowing how to like apply for them and all that and just helping people navigate that process. I, I know it can go a long way and being able to actually make sure that people can afford, afford those technologies. So I feel like there's been a big wave. I, I, I feel like two or three years ago like I didn't really hear anybody talking about heat pumps. I mean to be fair, you know, a couple years ago we were still reeling from the pandemic, so we had other things on our mind. But I feel like everywhere I go, anytime people are think, talking and thinking about, you know, making energy efficient upgrades, heat pumps are in the conversation. Like people, people are, want, want these things. They realize how effective they are, how much they could potentially be saving and honestly how much more comfortable the space can be. I think about all the apartments I've lived in in New York where I have this old radiator that's noisy and.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Man, the struggle so real.
Anyone who lives in New York City knows exactly what we're talking about. Just the, the game of open your window in the middle of the winter when it's negative 10 degrees because it's so hot in your apartment.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Makes no sense. Yes, but that, but just the ability to be comfortable in your own space and have control. I think that's the other big thing that, you know, having something like this over older technologies that you have, you have control because everyone is comfortable at different temperatures. What's comfortable to you is not necessarily comfortable to me.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, I agree with you. And I think you kind of hit on something too that we talked about a lot, I think throughout this series as well. And we talked about it, we kind of opened up with it is investment in money and cost. Right. Like those are the things that are usually the bigger barriers to a lot of things. And again, it's about how are we taking the money that we are spending on fossil fuel industry and fossil fuel infrastructure and how are we just transferring it into these things that we do want to see now and in the future as well. And you also touched on something that I completely forgot about, is there are existing buildings, especially in New York City. This is an old, old city.
There's buildings that have been around for a very long time and those buildings need to be retrofitted. And how are we doing that? How can we go about that? It takes a lot of innovation, research and development to make sure that happens. But this is why policy is also very important, because we can future proof for some of these things and also spur economic interest in heat pumps by, for example, passing a law in New York City that says that after a certain year and certain type of buildings that they have to be electric, basically.
And if you do gut renovations for certain buildings, they have to be be all electric. And that kind of spurs a lot of different things. First, it kind of eases our mind a little bit thinking about the future, knowing that future homes that we could live in, in the city, in a dense area will have heat pump technology. You will have that control and you will have that comfort in hopefully being run by renewable energy and being cheaper, if not free. Right. That's the goal. Right. Energy should be free for everyone. And so I think that's why policy is really important to kind of, to do that work, to think ahead and say, well, what's not working now? How do we prevent this in the future? Because we don't necessarily just build new all the time. New York City run out of space, so there's not much more we can build in terms of brand new. And so when we are demolishing and building renew, we need to take the opportunities to make These transitions while we can.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Thank you for bringing the conversation back to New York, specifically New York City. I feel like these conversations always start at kind of higher level when you're talking about all these technologies, because they're showing up all over the place and we need to see them kind of deployed all over the U.S. but again, we're always thinking about how is this translating locally. Think about environmental justice. It's always tied into, you know, local, local impacts. So trying to tie these things back to what we're seeing in New York, specifically. So in our first episode of the miniseries, we talked with Shalanda Baker, as we mentioned, about the idea of a just transition.
And one of the main takeaways was that a just energy transition should create opportunities for folks who have been disproportionately impacted by fossil fuel infrastructure. So with that in mind, here in New York, which of the technologies that we talked about in the miniseries do you think have done the most to help create a just energy transition? And I'm sure there's elements of all of them, but, you know, which one stands out to you the most? And what do you think would help make it even better? What, what, what would kind of help support that just energy transition even more for that technology?
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, my, my gut instinct initially when I was thinking as you were kind of setting up that question was to say solar, just because of it's everywhere now. People know a lot more about it. Everyone's a lot more comfortable with it as a technology. There are so many programs. We act even has programs teaching people how to install solar on buildings, even in cities like New York. So that was my first instinct. But I was thinking about the conversation with Alex and Robert and thinking about wind energy. One thing that kind of. I really didn't realize was how many different types of jobs it creates in kind of that longer term, when you're thinking about that job creation piece of it and transferring people from having skills that are going from fossil fuel industry into renewable energy and building it out. I think in my head I just kept thinking wind turbines. You know, it's a factory job. You got to make them, and then you got to move them somewhere and you got to put them there. Right? And I've just kept thinking of this very narrow idea of what that means for jobs. And in my head, it's like two people, three people doing the same thing. And then when they were talking about it and thinking about, you need deckhands, you have boats involved, there's ships, there's people who need to be able to dive. There are people who need to be able to have like, you know, be able to be oceanographers, they need to understand landscape. There are sonar technologies. There are just so many different elements to wind energy, increasing it in that way. And there's so many different types of jobs, different skills and different skills that also are really important into other aspects of life that can create, you know, very lucrative and family sustaining jobs. And kind of think about that green economy and think about to just transition in that way too and making sure people who have been left out of these kind of jobs before, during fossil fuel industry and infrastructure boom now can partake in this. Because there are so many different avenues and ways for people to plug in to this kind of green jobs and green economy. So my first was solar. Just because of all the work that we've done around solar and job training and thinking of it that way, especially in the communities of color and low income communities and communities have been impacted first and worst from climate crisis. But there's something about hearing about everything that involves wind and putting up a turbine and running it, especially offshore wind, that I just didn't think about it that way. So that to me is kind of like those two were very close in that sense. And I think again thinking about that conversation that we had, Robert or Alex, how can we make these transitions even better is kind of the work that they're doing. The they're going out into these communities, they're going out here into communities of color, low income communities, people who don't seem to have any pro many prospects or they don't have jobs, or they don't have college educations or degrees and going and saying, hey, there's jobs out here that can make you really good money and you can provide really good skills and training and you don't even need a high school diploma. You don't have to have gone to college, you haven't had to gone to college to get these jobs. So I think kind of what makes this all better and it's just transition, just transition is better is if we start to embed all of these things, the trainings and the education for these skills all over everywhere. I think one of my things that I'm most excited to see, kind of now that you're seeing a little bit more too, are kind of community colleges and even high schools that have kind of vocational training on are starting to incorporate some of these renewable energy kind of skills and tech and aspects to the work that they do kind of almost immediately so there's many options for people who are in high school or coming out of high school. It's not just go to college and pick from these three or four careers. It's like, oh, you have even more options here.
So I think that's what makes that just transition even better. Better is by making sure that communities have access to these skills to get into these industries.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: I totally agree though. I think that one of the most important components of a just transition and a just energy transition is making sure the folks who have been left behind from the fossil fuel economy, bringing them into the space and giving them opportunities that they were less out of. And all those things that you're talking about, the different opportunities for training and, and training and pairing that with job creation, you know, making sure that all those investments that we were talking about earlier and new renewable energy infrastructure, that that's paired with this, this training and these opportunities so that as folks are building these skills and able to support these technologies through the job, that they're connected with those jobs. That is a through line that they building the skills and then have that connection to those opportunities. And I think that that like you said with Robert and Alexander, like that pathway is being built, you know, those connections are being built for, for wind and solar. So I 100% agree. There's a reason that we always, when we first, when we talk about renewable energy, renewable energy technologies, those are almost always the first two that we think of, you know, and, and especially here in New York, seeing those getting scaled up in a real, real way is really exciting. So I'm optimistic that, you know, the work that's being done in that space is, is heading in the right direction. No pun intended.
[00:23:49] Speaker A: That was a good, good pun. I give you, I'm going to give you credit for that. I don't give him credit for his little puns all the time, but I'm going to give you credit for that one. That was an accident.
[00:23:56] Speaker B: It snuck up on me, but it felt right.
But with that, you know, hopefully you enjoyed our little reflection. We always like to have this at the end of a miniseries just to think about the lessons that we learned and tie it back to the main theme. The point of this conversation is how do these technologies support a just energy transition and supporting environmental justice.
And hopefully we touched on that at least a little bit in our interview. So thank you for listening. And with that, I will say, if you like this episode, make sure, rate and review the show on whatever platform you listen on. If you have thoughts about the show. We encourage you to reach out to
[email protected] and we'd love to hear from you all about what you thought of this miniseries and what you'd like to see us explore.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Next, check out we act on Facebook at We act for ej. That's W E A C T F O R E JJ on Instagram, Bluesky and YouTube at weact4ej. That's we a C T number 4ej. And check out our website, weact.org for more information about environmental justice.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Till next time.
