Just In! is NY-GEO’s weekly news feed for members. NY-GEO’s calendar-year memberships are open to everyone and available for as little as $35. See more information on memberships here. Click here to see some of the work a NY-GEO membership supports. We also feature three of the top news item summaries on the NY-GEO home page every Monday.

Burlington VT Mayor Brings Renewable Heating to Town Meeting Day Ballot– Mayor Miro Weinberger – “we fought hard for new regulatory authority over building energy – the largest single source of carbon emission in Burlington. On Town Meeting Day 2021, more than 64% of voters approved a charter change to allow the City to use a price-based system to regulate buildings to ensure that they are designed to use renewable energy for heating. Now, we are using this new municipal authority for the first time and bringing a proposal back to voters this Town Meeting Day that requires all new construction be heated with renewable sources of energy, and that City buildings and large commercial buildings only replace heating and hot water systems with renewable technology – or else pay a reasonable fee that correctly reflects the true cost of carbon pollution. This new policy was developed in consultation with builders, affordable housing developers, and the larger institutions that will be most impacted by it.” Full message here.

Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger

How Gas Costs are Causing New England’s Electricity Price Spikes, and How Electrification Will Help Protect Customers in the Future – Strategen Report done for the Sierra Club – The report also clarifies that the cost of fossil gas for electricity generation is reflected in customer electricity bills before it shows up in gas bills because there is a lag of several months before customers see the increases in fossil gas costs on their heating bills. The report highlights that the recent electricity price spikes in New England demonstrate the risks of continuing to depend on fossil gas, concluding that far from being a reason to delay electrification, the fossil gas price spikes demonstrate that moving away from fossil gas in the electric sector and in the buildings sector and transitioning to electric appliances powered by renewable energy is the most effective way to protect customers from volatile fossil gas costs in the future. –  See report here

 New Ways to Put Waste Heat to Work – Steve Hanley – Canary Media – “Danfoss, a Danish company, has released a white paper that advocates for capturing and reusing waste heat in homes and businesses… Danfoss criticizes the rush to import millions of gallons of LNG to Europe to offset the loss of methane gas from Russia. It says there is a better, cheaper, and more sustainable way — recapture waste heat… Waste heat can be reused through existing and well proven technologies, most notably heat pumps, which are electrically powered devices able to transport heat from one place to another.” Full article here.