They are indeed coming for your gas stove.
And your trusty 40-gallon tank of hot water sitting atop a natural-gas bonfire.
And the belching, fuel-burning furnace in the basement that makes a Colorado winter survivable.
Home and office building electrification — switching out gas or propane appliances for electric versions powered eventually by 100% renewable sources — is on its way to Colorado neighborhoods as a key element of combating greenhouse gas emissions. State officials and environmental groups have spent years clamping down on climate-changing emissions from power utilities and vehicles. So the next frontier is defossilizing the four walls surrounding you.
“It’s a significant quantity of climate pollution, and a really important area to tackle if we want to hit the goals that we have to reduce climate-change pollution,” said Danny Katz, executive director of the environmental and community advocacy group CoPIRG.
Home and commercial building emissions contribute about 13% of overall U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The primary legs of climate-changing emissions from fossil fuels are power generation, transportation, oil and gas activity, and building use.
Colorado has about 2.2 million homes — 1.6 million of which are heated by natural gas or propane, Katz said.
It’s one thing for the distant electric utility to change from coal to solar. Most consumers couldn’t care less what’s on the other end of the transmission line as long as their TVs and phone chargers work when plugged into the wall.
