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Electrify NY! Panel November 19, 2:30pm (free online registration)

Join us for a panel presentation of opportunities for NYers to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions through efficiency and electrification!

 

Electrify New York (efficiency & electrification opportunities)

See also the Nov 20 companion hands-on Energy Expo: Featuring fossil-fuel-free equipment, tools, tech, & management strategies

 

 

PANEL: Electrify New York (efficiency & electrification opportunities)

Efficiency+Electrification = Improved Air Quality + Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions + Conserved NYS Natural Resources

In 2019, New York State passed ambitious greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigating legislation. Most of NYS’s greenhouse gas emissions come from combusting fossil fuels for heating, cooling, and transportation used in our personal and professional lives. Anything we can do in our local communities to reduce this fossil combustion improves our air quality, reduces GHG, and reduces the demand on rural landscapes to support renewable energy projects. Come join a panel of Extension, Community Organizers, NYS Office of Climate, and Technical Service Providers as we discuss opportunities that mobilize energy efficiency and electrification projects in our local communities to conserve our shared natural resources.

Panelists:

  • Overview: Integrating Multiple NYS Goals to Conserve our Finite Landbase –Jenifer Wightman, Cornell University
  • Farm Energy Efficiencies: Accessing Technical Support & Grants -Gabriel Gurley, CCE-Tompkins
  • Electrify Landscaping Equipment: Save Money, Energy, & Heath -Ken Estes, CCE-Livingston
  • Weatherize Homes: Save Energy, Reduce GHG, Protect Health -Josh Randall, CCE-Niagara
  • Efficiency Pilots: Life Changing Impact for Low Income Homeowners: Join a Manufactured Housing working group to help build policy in NYS -Danielle Eiseman, Dept of Public and Ecosystem Health, Cornell University
  • pending, Steven Winter Associates, Multi-family building retrofit playbook
  • NYS Cap and Invest (NYCI) Program (zooming in) -Maureen Leddy, Office of Climate Change

 

Did You Know

Most of our Greenhouse Gas emissions come from fueling our buildings and transportation?

    • These emissions can be reduced dramatically by efficiency and electrification while improving equity and well-being for all.

 

 

Did You Know

In 2019, NYS passed unprecedented legislation: Reduce GHG emissions 85% by 2050?

 

 

This panel is part of the larger 3-day Cornell Cooperative Extension conference: Agriculture, Food & Environmental Systems In-Service (Nov 19-21, 2024)

DEFINITIONS:

  • Decarbonization: reducing or eliminating carbon (fossil fuel) emissions from a sector (transportation, buildings, and power).
  • Electrification: replacing technologies that run on fossil fuels with alternatives that run efficiently on electricity. It also means generating all that electricity from clean energy rather than fossil fuels.
  • Weatherization: home improvements that reduce energy use and make homes more comfortable (moisture control, air sealing, ventilation, and upgrades to insulation, doors and windows).

Conservation Easement Programs for Rural Landowners, Webinar, Dec 5

Join us on Thursday, December 5th from 7:00 to 8:00 pm to learn about conservation tools such as easements and potential funding opportunities available to rural landowners in New York. Land Conservation Specialist Kate Riley from the Finger Lakes Land Trust (www.fllt.org) will cover the options available to landowners to protect and preserve the legacy they have created for their land. Bring your questions. To join the free webinar, register ahead at: https://cornell.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_N7wjZI90QTK5N7DTYBzMjQ Organized by the Southern Finger Lakes Chapter of the NY Forest Owners Association (www.nyfoa.org) and the Cornell Cooperative Extension SCNY Ag Team. Contact Brett Chedzoy at bjc226@cornell.edu with questions.

Brett Chedzoy
Sr. Resource Educator – Ag and Natural Resources
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Schuyler County
South Central NY Agricultural Team
office: 607-535-7161 – cell: 607-742-3657
bjc226@cornell.edu
www.forestconnect.info

Replace AC with heat pump – NYS incentives for electrification

Heat pumps cool efficiently (and heat efficiently).

Next time you need to change out your AC, consider installing a heat pump!

Replacing central ACs with heat pumps in New York State’s single-family homes

Original publication by Urban Green Council • October 30, 2024

Replacing central air conditioners (ACs) with heat pumps is a sleeper electrification opportunity for many New York State homes.

About 45 percent of the state’s 5.3 million single-family homes have a central AC distributing cold air through ducts. When an AC fails in those homes, replacing it with a new central heat pump will deliver both cooling and heating through the same ductwork. That new heat pump provides more efficient cooling and can also displace oil, propane or gas used for heating—a win for homeowners and the climate alike.

This “cool switch”—replacing an AC with a cold-climate central heat pump—can be straightforward and strategic. California and Colorado are already pursuing policies to drive central-AC-to-heat-pump swaps. Around 120,000 central ACs capable of cooling single-family homes are sold each year in New York State. Every new AC installed is a missed chance to decarbonize, locking in outdated equipment for 15 years or more. The benefits and barriers in New York State depend on a range of factors, like the climate, the condition of the home, the size of the heat pump and more. But if every New York homeowner replaced their central AC with a heat pump, electrifying winter heating could cut on-site residential sector emissions by up to 30 percent annually.

New York’s Scoping Plan outlines ambitious steps to cut building sector emissions through electrification. The state’s vision to quadruple heat pump sales and achieve two million climate-friendly homes by 2030 is a call to action. In this report, we examine the opportunity, retrofit considerations and costs associated with AC-to-heat-pump swaps. We also detail the policy steps needed to advance this electrification pathway in New York homes so that as all central ACs age or fail, they are replaced with cold-climate heat pumps.

More here

Cool Switch

Part-time building K-12 lesson plans, Greenland ice sheet, Columbia Climate School

Are you passionate about climate science and interested in bringing cutting-edge research to your students? Columbia Climate School’s NSF-funded Research Experiences for Teachers program, “Beyond Basic Science: Connecting Climate to Communities,” is seeking a K12 educator to join our GRate project team!

Position Overview:
As part of the GRate project, we’re reconstructing the history of Greenland’s Ice Sheet during the Holocene, a warming period of Earth’s recent ice age. By analyzing diverse proxy data like ocean plankton, lake sediment samples, mosses, and more, the project brings new insights into Greenland’s ice dynamics, climate change, and sea-level rise.
We’re looking for a teacher to collaborate with our science team to:

  1. Finalize existing lessons on proxy data and climate science.
  2. Develop a comprehensive lesson linking proxies to provide a complete picture of the Greenland Ice Sheet’s history.

Position Details:

  • Duration: 8-10 hours/week over 12 weeks, with a flexible schedule, aiming to complete by February 7, 2025.
  • Total Hours: Approximately 150
  • Stipend: $6,000 provided in two installments across time on the project
  • Prerequisites: Background in Earth or Environmental Science and comfort with New York State Science Learning Standards or Next-Gen Science Standards is preferred.

This is a fantastic chance to bring climate science into the classroom and gain professional experience in climate education! We strongly encourage applications from educators in Title 1 schools and those from underrepresented groups.

Mentor:
Margie Turrin, Director of Educational Field Programs, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (mkt@ldeo.columbia.edu)

Apply:
Please send your resume and cover letter to Laurel Zaima-Sheehy (lzaima@climate.columbia.edu), Assistant Director of K12 & Continuing Education, Columbia Climate School. A full position description will be shared with interested applicants.

Application Deadline: November 12, 2024.

Read more about the GRate project here and join us in advancing climate literacy!

Policy Dashboard – comparing climate work across the States

Haven’t had a chance to truly evaluate this dashboard of policies across the country – but it certainly covers 7 policy areas for compare, contrast and consideration.

so for example in NYS, there are 42 enacted policies

 

You can explore different features

They make a Business As Usual (BAU) graph which happily has a downward trend! But of course is far from our Actual Goals by 2050.

Notably, it appears that transportation sector makes the most progress with the BAU, and buildings have the least change in the current BAU.

I believe these BAU were created by Energy Policy Simulator here: https://rmi.org/energy-policy-simulator/

 

You can search within NYS, using a keyword such as “environmental justice” and see what policies NYS has for EJ.

And from that, you can see how different states are defining EJ

You can also select states and compare policies on a topic area. So for Working Lands, I chose 3 other states plus NY and it shares this composite info.

Remember, this is crowd sourced. So may not be comprehensive etc. But it certainly helps direct you to other states with model legislation to consider.

To see how Electricity is building out

See Model Rules from Legal Pathways to Deep Decarboinzation, a Dashboard contributor: https://lpdd.org/

See Georgetown Climate Center’s Adaptation Clearinghouse here: https://www.adaptationclearinghouse.org/?swcfpc=1

A great DB for energy policy is https://www.dsireusa.org/

State Policy Opportunity Tracker, with component-based clean energy policies: https://www.spotforcleanenergy.org/

 

To think about a single policy and what is happening, you can just search a term like Net Metering

you can see no states have policy enacted

then you can look at every state to see status and language

 

Or see who is funding weatherization campaigns

 

details by state

And then it links you to other tools like

Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD) Tool

An interactive map of each state’s energy burden, energy costs, an area’s median income, and key population demographics. State comparisons are available in the tool.

https://www.energy.gov/scep/slsc/lead-tool

 

Funding: RCPP Upper Susquehanna Ag BMPs, due Aug 23

Accepting Applications for the Regional Conservation Partnership Program in the New York portion of the Upper Susquehanna Watershed.

July 25, 2024

The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) announces the sign-up period for Farmstead Practices in the Upper Susquehanna Watershed of New York through the Regional Conservation Partnership Program (RCPP).  The application deadline is August 23, 2024.

This funding is part of the RCPP Upper Susquehanna Agricultural BMP Implementation Project. The RCPP uses partnerships to coordinate and target resources to address climate change, improve the nation’s water quality, combat drought, enhance soil health, support wildlife habitat, and protect agricultural viability. The Upper Susquehanna Agricultural BMP Implementation Project is focused on reducing field nutrient, sediment and pathogen loss, improving the storage and handling of pollutants, as well as improving livestock production limitations in the Upper Susquehanna Watershed portion of New York.

All applications are competitive and are ranked based on locally identified resource priorities, as well as the overall benefit to the environment. Interested landowners within the project area in New York should contact their local NRCS Service Center or their local Soil and Water Conservation District for more information.

 

Contact

Emily Dekar

(607)972-7983

dekare@tiogacountyny.gov

Energy Efficiency Programs for NY farmers, homeowners, businesses

Collaborate to Improve Energy Conservation and Efficiency on Your Farm, Home or Non-Farm Business

(and Save Money!)

(note this fact sheet was made for Western NY, but is generally applicable to the state! Thanks for sharing John Whitney!)

Jordan Miller, EnSave, Inc., (contractor on Behalf of NYSERDA)

John Whitney, Agricultural Educator, CCE-Erie

Josh Randall, Natural Resources Educator, CCE-Niagara

Farms in Western New York counties are playing a vital role in the overall success of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s (NYSERDA) Agriculture Energy Audit Program (AEAP). In Erie and Niagara Counties alone 82 farms have participated and received no-cost energy audits through the AEAP. The estimated annual energy cost savings from these 82 farms is $677,443. equipment and system modifications, if installed, mean on-farm fuel savings, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, and a stronger and more sustainable agriculture community. But we need your help to do even more.

Collaborative Opportunities for Farms

To learn more about these programs, click: https://www.nyserda.ny.gov/All-Programs/Agriculture-Energy-Assistance

On Thursday, October 24, 2024, CCE-Erie will host a Western New York Ag Energy Efficiencies Webinar from 12:00-1:30 pm. Gabriel Gurley, the Ag Energy NY Program Manager will discuss these many opportunities in more detail. Watch for registration details.

Energy Conservation for Homes and Businesses

While these agricultural energy conservation programs do not directly support home and non-farm businesses, NYSERDA is funding a network of clean energy conservation “hubs” across New York State. In Western New York, under the leadership of PUSH Buffalo/PUSH Green, the WNY Clean Energy Hub is coordinating home and business assistance for:

  • Home Energy Surveys
  • Energy Efficiency & Weatherization
  • Clean Heating and Cooling
  • Rooftop Solar
  • Community Solar
  • Green Jobs
  • Health and Safety

Seven partner organizations, under the leadership of PUSH Green (under the PUSH Buffalo umbrella) are collaborating to support this NYSERDA-funded initiative:

If you have any questions or if you want to discuss these opportunities and services in person, contact:

  • Jordon Miller, Contractor on behalf of NYSERDA, EnSave Inc., 802-434-1872, or Toll Free 800-732-1399, jordanm@ensave.com, (ensave.com);
  • John Whitney, Agricultural Educator, Cornell Cooperative Extension – Erie, 716-796-3204, jrw44@cornell.edu;
  • Josh Randall, Natural Resources Educator, Cornell Cooperative Extension-Niagara

716-433-8839, jmr486@cornell.edu;

  • Lou DeJesus, Community Energy Program Manager, PUSH Green, 716-886-1780 x215
  • Gabriel Gurley, Ag Energy NY Program Manager, Cornell Cooperative Extension-Tompkins, (607) 272-2292 ext.248, rg523@cornell.edu

5 steps for regenerative agriculture with respect to climate (targeting Hudson Valley NY)

These 5 steps were designed for small/medium farms (fruit, vegetable, grazing) in the Hudson Valley NY to build climate resilient farming.

Each step has a worksheet to help you think about it on your farm.

For more details, go here: https://regenerativefarmresilienceguide.org/

Step 1

Gather and summarize information about your operation including your assets under management and your farm goals using two simple tools to create a snapshot of your farm’s current business condition and revisit your farm and family goals.

Step 2

Learn more about the current and expected climate change effects in your region to identify the climate-related threats and opportunities specific to your farm operation.

Step 3

Select a complementary set of climate risk management strategies that draw on a diversity of farm resources to cultivate the specific and general climate resilience of your farm.

Step 4

Evaluate selected climate risk management strategies and associated practices to identify those that are a “best fit” for your farm operation.

Step 5

Make a climate resilience plan to implement a group of complementary “best fit” climate resilience practices, including a timeline, specific steps to implementation, and monitoring the performance of your new practices to climate risks.

 

 

JOB- measuring dairy greenhouse gas in the Northeast!

ProDairy has a new job listing!

Research Support Specialist I – Dairy Environmental Research Support Specialist

Position Summary (abridged)

This position will provide direct operational leadership and support for a research programs measuring emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases from dairy farms in the Northeast, involving the use of on-farm research equipment, coordination with collaborating farms and their staff, organization and analysis of data, and development of relevant reports, papers, and educational materials in support of the Dairy Environmental Systems program. This position will also support related work of the PRO-DAIRY Dairy Environmental Systems program evaluating farm systems moving dairy farms toward sustainability and translating science on this topic into outreach. The position requires the incumbent to informally supervise a research technician and graduate students who will be supporting projects, and to work directly with dairy producers throughout the state, their professional advisors, other members of the PRO-DAIRY statewide and Cornell Cooperative Extension area teams, and faculty related to farm management and dairy production.

 

More Details here: https://cornell.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/CornellCareerPage/job/Ithaca-Main-Campus/Research-Support-Specialist-I—Dairy-Environmental-Research-Support-Specialist_WDR-00046003-1?q=Dairy

Let me know if this link doesn’t work.

Required Qualifications

  • Bachelor’s Degree in agriculture, engineering, environmental science or related field and 3+ years of experience in field, research, extension, or the equivalent combination of education and experience.
  • Must have knowledge and/or education in agricultural/environmental science research methodology.
  • Demonstrated proficiency in the use of a range of field and laboratory equipment, methodology, and statistical analysis. Knowledge of standard laboratory and fieldwork safety protocols and guidelines.
  • Must be willing to maintain and keep research equipment, materials, and laboratory organized.
  • Must possess excellent organizational skills. Proficient in the use of Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
  • Experience in data collection, database management, and online data-sharing tools (e.g. BOX, Google Docs)
  • Ability to handle sensitive and confidential material in a professional manner.
  • Ability to adapt to challenges and anticipate potential issues with applied, on-farm field work. Ability to prioritize multiple project tasks.
  • Must be willing to work for long durations under harsh and hazardous conditions.
  • Must be able to lift up to 50 pounds.
  • Ability to work evenings and weekends as essential job functions require.
  • Must be able to meet the in-state travel requirements of the position and have and maintain a valid and unrestricted New York State driver’s license.
  • Must be personable, flexible with a proven demonstrated ability to express thoughts clearly, both orally and in writing.
  • Ability to work successfully independently as well as in a team environment.
  • Must be willing to communicate with team members using a personal cell phone.
  • Must be able to interact effectively in person with large and diverse groups, including organizing presentations, leading demonstrations, and delivering engaging and interesting presentations to large audiences.
  • Exercise sound and ethical judgment when acting on behalf of the University.
  • Experience in and/or demonstrated commitment to supporting diversity, equity, access, inclusion, and wellbeing.
  • Ability to cultivate and develop inclusive and equitable working relationships with students, faculty, staff, and community members.
  • Must complete University Supervisory Training within 6 months.

County Working Groups hosted by NRCS

Local Working Group Meeting to be Held on July 16th for Erie County

The USDA – NRCS will hold a Local Working Group meeting for Erie County. This meeting is open to the public.

WHEN: 07/16/2024
TIME: 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm
WHERE: USDA Service Center Conference Room
Address: 50 Commerce Way, East Aurora, NY 14055

The Local Working Group will focus on identifying agricultural and natural resource issues existing in your community and providing information and feedback to NRCS. Participants may be agricultural producers; owners of nonindustrial private forestland; representatives of agricultural and environmental organizations; and representatives of governmental agencies carrying out environmental, agricultural, or natural resource conservation programs and activities.

NRCS Local Working Groups are subcommittees of the NRCS State Technical Committee and provide recommendations on local natural resource priorities and Farm Bill program conservation activities. For information about the State Technical Committee, contact Angela VanDyke via e-mail, angela.vandyke@usda.gov.

To participate in your Local Working Group, please contact Ray Hummel, your local District Conservationist, via e-mail at Raymond.hummel@usda.gov. Directions and phone numbers to your local USDA Service Center can be found online at https://www.farmers.gov/working-with-us/service-center-locator.

 Please Contact Ray Hummel by July 12th if you would like to attend!