By GARLAND KENNEDY
Sentinel Staff Writer
Hoping to reduce their personal carbon emissions, some Sitkans have ditched oil heat and gasoline vehicles in favor of electric heat and vehicles with assistance from the Sitka Carbon Offset Fund.
On April 24, Mary Saiz used money from the fund to mitigate the cost of an electric vehicle to replace her derelict gas-powered car.
“Our old car died and was really expensive to fix, and our plan was - when we finally ran it to where it wasn’t worth having anymore - we would purchase a (Nissan) Leaf. Sitka is a good place to have a Leaf because you can use hydropower to charge them. It’s a good thing for a planet and you save a lot of money from gas,” Saiz told the Sentinel.
Brandon and Mary Saiz, at left, receive a check from Michelle Putz, of the Sitka Carbon Offset Fund, after the couple purchased an electric vehicle. (Photo provided)
She estimated her previous monthly gas bill at $150, which is about half of the monthly payment on her new vehicle. Saiz said the Offset Fund provided $500 to help her purchase the car.
The Leaf is an all-electric vehicle. The standard model is sold with a 40 kWh battery, and according to the city utilities website, power in Sitka costs just under $0.13 per kWh.
For Saiz, Sitka is an ideal place for an electric vehicle.
“It’s fantastic. Sitka is a really good place. When you drive around you see so many people with Leafs and we have hydropower. If you buy an electric car and power it on fuel-based electricity it’s not doing as good a job as being clean,” she said.
The shift to an electric vehicle was not her first attempt at reducing her carbon footprint.
“We recycle, and we switched to a heat pump so we could get rid of fuel for our heat system,” she said.
Heat pumps, like the Leaf, work on electricity. Many Sitkans heat their homes by burning fuel oil, which emits about 161 pounds of carbon per million British Thermal Units of energy, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says on its site. One BTU can raise the temperature of a pound of water by one degree Fahrenheit.
For a gas vehicle, burning a gallon of gas emits about 20 pounds of carbon, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.
Since the end of the 19th century, global temperatures have risen by a cumulative 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit because of human emissions of greenhouse gases, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration reports. This has led to shrinking glaciers, reduced snowpack, rising sea levels, extreme weather, and ocean acidification, NASA states. More information is available at https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/.
The Sitka Carbon Offset Fund is a project of the Sitka Conservation Society, and to date has helped finance three heat pump conversions in local homes, the group’s website states. These heat pumps have saved an estimated 1,429 metric tons of carbon, the site continues.
The Carbon Offset Fund suggests that a Sitkan donate $10 per ton of carbon emitted. The group’s website, sitkacarbonoffset.com has more details on the fund.
Part of her desire to decarbonize, Saiz said, boils down to a hope that her children will have a chance of a better climate future. Most of Saiz’ vehicle use involves errands and transporting her teenagers around town.
“We’ve got kids, so we want them to be able to enjoy the planet,” she said.
When Phyllis Hackett decided to install a heat pump in an apartment she owns, the idea of a grant from the Carbon Offset Fund didn’t initially occur to her.
“I decided I wanted to get a heat pump for my apartment that I rent out, and I didn’t even think of the Carbon Offset Fund. I’ve never gotten any kind of aid or assistance or grants for anything,” Hackett told the newspaper. “I’m a single retired woman on a fixed income, so I was just doing it and I’d already spoken to the contractor, said he had a heat pump with my name on it, that he would hold it until I was ready. And I was reading the paper and I saw their (Sitka Carbon Offset Fund) PSA in the paper about it.”
After speaking to one of the fund administrators, the Sitka Conservation Society’s Chandler O’Connell, Hackett received $3,500 in aid for the heat pump project. All told, she spent $5,200 on the install.
O’Connell told the paper that funds are distributed based on possible carbon savings and fiscal needs.
“We evaluate candidates based on the estimated carbon that would be displaced by their conversion as well as on financial need,” O’Connell said via text. “Award sizes vary based on income. To be considered for the heat pump program, applicants must own the dwelling, be year round residents and be using a fossil fuel based heating system.”
Looking back on her days of using oil heat, Hackett was glad to be rid of it.
“I don’t like it (oil), it kind of goes against my grain to use it anyway… I am very pro-our dam and the advantages of our wonderful clean energy,” she said.
Her home is heated by electricity. She said she flies frequently, and puts money into the Carbon Offset Fund to help mitigate those emissions.
“Every little bit helps, most successful endeavors begin grassroots,” she said.
The offset fund is a fairly new project for Sitka, though similar programs exist online. The local concept was born from the 2017 Sitka Health Summit. It aims not only to reduce carbon emissions but also provide aid to those who are unable to afford decarbonization on their own, Michelle Putz, another one of the fund administrators, told the Sentinel.
“Through that group, we were doing several different things. And one of them was bringing up this carbon offset idea for Sitka that would reduce our carbon footprint, and hopefully help folks with less disposable income in Sitka move away from carbon dioxide and fossil fuels,” Putz said.
As the offset fund moves forward, Putz said, the plan is to continue installing heat pumps.
“We’re definitely going to keep going with the heat pumps, because like I said it helps to reduce their utility costs and also a lot of times those heat pumps use less electricity than the oil heaters they used before. So it helps to conserve electricity as well as get rid of their carbon dioxide emissions,” Putz added.
She hopes to grow the fund in the future, and said one goal is to increase participation.
“We’re trying to grow the fund and find different partners. We’re starting to work with Allen Marine on a partnership to invite people to participate in the fund. And that’s kind of what we want to do. If there are groups or conferences coming to visit Sitka that have environmental consciousness as part of their mission or interest we’d love to talk to them,” she said.
