Sublime

Even though few realized the implications at the time, section 210 of the Public Utilities Regulatory Policies Act (PURPA for short) effectively broke the utility’s total control over everything that entered, moved through, and exited their power system.

This turn toward conservation and energy efficiency was the first crisis, of three, that would shock the electric utilities during the Carter era. Their business model, long premised on endlessly increasing consumption linked to endlessly increasing production of ever cheaper electric power tied, in turn, to the construction of ever bigger, more te

the web, of course) a study conducted by some very clever researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

Many of these policies that prize efficiency over emissions are still on the books, restricting your ability to lower your emissions by swapping out a gas-burning furnace for an electric heat pump—even