A program was introduced at the Light Department to help fund renewable energy projects. The idea was that willing ratepayers could agree to chip in a little extra and those funds would then be put towards renewable energy & conservation initiatives. At the Light Department this often takes the form of participating in various renewable energy projects or also purchasing what are called Renewable Energy Credits (RECs).

RECs are a bit like monopoly money created by renewable power generators. They’re the “proof” that you are helping to fund renewable energy. When a company like our Light Department purchases RECs, it’s meant to help directly fund renewable businesses and drive the development of new and better renewable technologies.

One of the big problems with the Renewable Energy Credit market is that the more affordable the REC is, the less actual impact it’s having on solving renewable energy problems. The less expensive RECs typically are more meant for keeping the lights on at a green energy company, not helping it to grow or innovate. And there’s also the problem that sometimes those cheap RECs are resold a few times, so money is exchanging hands among brokers and other companies who aren’t even producing additional renewable energy. It takes a higher caliber of RECs, where the money is focused on things like research and development, to truly drive things forward. But higher tier RECs cost more.

Well what if we lifted the ceiling even higher and created a premium tier of contribution for those who can and want to specifically fund those Class II RECs and other substantial projects that the basic renewable surcharge program just can’t meet? With the advent of more publicly visible Light Commissioner meetings, those residents would even get to see the impacts of their investment much more readily. In my private sector job, our industry offers a wide scale of price pointing, so that each person can contribute as much or as little as their lifestyle allows, and the net result is that we capture the full range of customers. Those who can’t give much give as much as they’re able, and those who can give far more do so willingly, so long as they can see the returns for doing so. I think one size fits all is an outdated business model that constrains ratepayers from participating as fully as each of them wants on transforming Norwood’s energy portfolio. Imagine if we had 3 tiers you could pick from for the renewable energy surcharge, a basic like we have now, a premium where it’s focused on funding higher quality programs, and a deluxe where you get cool perks of some kind like public recognition or we put the delux contributor names on a project, or invitations to special events with the Light Department, or who knows what. But the point is let each ratepayer decide how hardcore they want to go, don’t force everyone into the same price bucket.

Now we do an excellent job at our airport on the ground doing everything possible to reduce our impact on the wetlands around it. It’s really commendable and measurably successful work.

Yet we also know that the aviation industry contributes 3% of global emissions. The sector is still a long ways off of having fully electric planes or running directly off renewables. The pandemic has inspired a rise in private jet flights as people seek to avoid populated commercial flights. We also know that jet fuel in many cases is worse than gas in terms of emissions due to the aromatics not burning as cleanly as alkanes.

Sounds scary and frustrating right? Here we are, doing all this hard work on the ground to be environmentally friendly, only to dump emissions right over our heads? BUT …

What if I told you there’s also some serious positive environmental potential at the airport too? We know that we are positioned in a prime location for this region, so if we found a way to sell lower emission jet fuels instead of standard jet fuel, it would mean we had a pretty broad impact on regional flight emissions here, and all the places those planes fly to.

Here’s another interesting fact: The Federal VALE Program can be used to fund projects that “improve airport air quality”, as high as 95% funded. Think of all the different ways we could use that. All the innovations we’d want to try that we’d barely even have to pay for ourselves!

And who knows, maybe if the industry does make some big time advances in electric flight, we’ll be here to sell them their electric fuel too.

There are a multitude of benefits we could experience from increasing the ratio of native plants, shrubs, and trees in the town. Both in general, and also in places that the DPW and other groups beautify. And there’s financial savings.

One of my joys in life is finding effective solutions to Climate problems that literally cost you less than if you kept doing things in the less environmentally friendly way. Because let’s face it, if we were good at doing things for the “right reasons” we’d already be doing them. So finding those times where sustainability and fiscal responsibility overlap is as huge win. What if we used CPA funds to obtain native plants, shrubs and trees specifically? Here’s all the things we would gain from a more substantial focused effort of native plantings:

• Because this is their natural habitat, those plants WANT to live here, and thus require less fertilizer

• They grow deeper root systems, which means less watering them. Water conservation!

• Deeper root systems also means more capture of rain water before it hits our stormwater system

• Interesting ways to replace non native lawn with low growing plants that require less cost to maintain. Less mowing, less chemical treatment to maintain appearance, etc.

• Reduction of the heat island effect, lowering ambient temperatures during the summer in the places where canopy and plant coverage has been added. which leads to …

• Reducing energy consumption for buildings near the tree canopy

• Some plants are threatened species that have existed here in our region for countless generations. By planting them, we’d be restoring literal pieces of Norwood’s natural history, the plants that Norwood ancestors grew up around.

We might even have ways to extend this effort to willing residents, similar to the tree planting events. The more places around town that have native plants to soak up water and other things we don’t want in the storm drains, the better off we will be for sure.

The Senior work program was an interesting idea. But my retirement planner recently mentioned a frightening statistic about the number of Seniors who want to work past retirement, yet end up not being able to. Hardworking people who literally can’t work. So what are other creative ways to give Seniors relief? Here’s one concept:

Can people lend parts of their property to renewable power infrastructure? Don’t just think of things like putting solar panels on the roof. Think batteries. Think thermal heat banking. Think using one’s electric car as an extended battery. Think big and get creative.

Speaking of plants, this is a project I wholeheartedly support. What’s the best way to combat food supply chain issues? Not needing to have food brought by said supply chain in the first place.

We know that many of the cultures who were living here for thousands of years were able to curate the forest and plants to create an edible landscape. By finding ways to grow food closer to us, we reduce the impacts to residents of supply chain volatility. I’d also honestly love to see us find opportune places to set up hydroponic food studios. Have the food where we are.

Many folks have commented on the success of the pedestrian & picnic table area that was set up during the pandemic at the Common. When I’d ask people what it was they liked about it, they couldn’t quite articulate it. But pondering it further, I think it comes down to: it was a space that visually invited you to linger. To spend some time dwelling in it. Accessible Seating. Shade. Greenery. Decorations. Proximity to art and points of interest. Why does this matter?

Besides the obvious economic benefits of increased foot traffic to local businesses, I realized that over the summer, rather than driving to the Common, I walked to it more often. Because it was a nice space to walk in. Fewer car trips, less power consumed. By increasing pedestrian activity, we reduce not only emissions but traffic congestion! I say we should try to find ways to bring more such dwelling districts to the town. Maybe an art grant can be used for works of public art. Maybe CPA funds for improving the experience. But the goal is make spaces that people *want* to be in. Spots that are so enjoyable you literally skip using transportation so that you can enjoy passing through them as a pedestrian.

I believe this may already be on several team’s radars but I’ll repeat it for the sake of support: keep helping residents get the new air heat pump technology in their homes to get them off fossil fuels.

One of the things that struck me as I was reviewing the list of reportable spill incidents for the town over the last many years is how many times the poor Fire Department had entries for having to go and help someone with home oil tank spills. So any chance we’ve got to make it easier for residents to get off fossils if they’re willing, let’s make it happen.

This means not passively sitting and waiting for residents to come to us. We need to go to them to explain why it’s beneficial. Did you know a majority of US energy consumption is used on temperature control of buildings? Did you also know however that modern Heat Pumps utilize energy far more effectively than oil or gas to accomplish the same goal? Residents aren’t going to know this stuff off hand. We have to help them get the info they need to make smart sustainable choices.

I am sure that the best minds in our Department of Public Works are already putting their heads together on how to deal with the problem of: we are running out of room to put trash. I commend the efforts to increase composting and recycling by residents, but even with that effort we have a big hurdle ahead of us. Last I checked, 40% of what can’t go into compost or recycling is … packaging. In many cases, consumers have little choice in making that packaging not a contributor to the landfill. And in 2027, the landfills were due to hit capacity. And the landfills beyond those are already topping up as well. “Wait, I thought that we burn trash, not landfill it?”

So burning trash does not evaporate it into nothingness. It’s logical if you think about it, consider a campfire - no matter how much you burn that wood down, there’s still a pile of ash after you’re done. Burning trash shrinks trash down into large amounts of ash (both the “bottom” ash, as well as the fly away ash from smoke that they try to recapture). And that ash still has to go somewhere. That somewhere is … in the landfill. In fact it’s even less valuable as ash than it was as trash because it takes all the elements and munges them into a useless amalgamation that no one has figured out yet how to repurpose. So that is definitely going in the landfill, there’s not yet any upcycling of ash piles. So our already overclocked landfilling system is still struggling to accept tons of ash. Make no mistake, it takes up less space than it would have as trash, but it’s still many cubic feet of matter that has to get buried.

So can we explore opportunities to do something with that trash other than bury it or ship it to someone else to bury?

This idea is a long shot because I have not yet finished the exploration, but I still think it’s worth talking about. Supposedly, there are places who actually want to purchase such trash to reutilize it in experimental ways. There is a global economy for example around waste energy estimated to be worth like $37.6 billion as of last year, particularly as the technology to do so has become more and more environmentally friendly (keeping carbon byproducts from pumping out into the air during the process for example). How do we cash in on that?

We often think of building solar farms and selling that energy right? Have we ever thought about selling energy banking space? Are there places in town that we can’t do much with ourselves in terms of development or desirability, but that would make excellent energy storage solutions? Remember: “energy” and “battery” are BROAD concepts. It’s not just magnets and lithium ion batteries. There are a lot of ways to get energy, and lots of ways to bank it too. Examples:

• Gravity batteries, where energy is used to move objects up somewhere, and then the release of the object from that height is capable of releasing that stored energy.

• Water batteries, where you move large amounts of water uphill using solar power, then release it back down after your solar power peaks. (Fun fact: apparently this tech has existed at utility scale since the early 1900s!)

• Solar roads. This one is likely pricey, but the concept is that the heat that blacktop absorbs is transferred elsewhere for reuse. Imagine if we were capable of selling the heat from our heat islands, so to speak?

• At one point I was staying in a building with an experimental energy system. Rather than a big solar array on their roof, they had a big block of granite painted in a super sun absorbent black material. This heated the block until it got so hot that it heated pipes beneath it, which fed a steam system to power the rest of the house. And that steam energy could obviously be put towards other purposes. Any places we can get creative with that?

If we already know that many renewable energy sources suffer from not being available during peak consumption time, and that battery technology is where real inroads need to be made, why don’t we try to get in front of that and find new and interesting ways to turn profit on banking energy around town if we know that it’s something everyone in or out of Norwood is going to need?

This one is more simple but no less important in my mind. I would love to see us expand more emergency preparedness training to residents.

A big key to us being resilient to Climate disasters is having some knowledge beforehand. It’s less shocking and frightening if you face a disaster and can think of “Oh yes, I know what to do if this situation happens.”

At this point we are pretty familiar with the types of disasters that we are likely to face based on our inventory of known Climate risks for the town, and the rather accurate climate models for our region. Giving residents that training also helps them to regain a sense of autonomy and empowerment, which allows them to take appropriate action more quickly, which in turn can save lives.