Energy Matters

  Good News for Energy Conscious Households The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 will offer some nice opportunities for households to save on energy costs and reduce their carbon dioxide emissions.  Electric vehicle tax credits, extension of the residential rooftop solar tax credit, a new 30% tax credit for residential battery storage systems, direct rebates to low and moderate income households, and tax deductions for household energy efficiency upgrades are featured. While a thorough summary of these programs does not seem to exist yet, here is what we’ve been able to piece together from various sources: Electric vehicle tax credit   New vehicles:  up to $7500 credit for a new EV. You no longer need to have $7500 in tax liability to receive the full credit. It can be used at the time of purchase rather than waiting until tax filing. It applies to all manufacturers regardless of the number of vehicles already sold (The old credit stopped after a manufacturer had sold 200,000 EVs). Used

  Quiz Time!!  Have you been paying attention in class?  Here’s a chance to test your “energy literacy” - don’t worry, you get to grade your own paper. Answers below (go ahead and cheat even!). But if you want to nerd out a bit or try to get a good grade, we invite you to revisit the referenced columns at www.paulandcynthiaenergymatters.blogspot.com. Extra credit if you email us! During the big polar vortex freeze of January 2021 Texas experienced a massive blackout and failure of its power grid. The main cause of the failure was (article #20) Frozen wind turbines The Green New Deal Water freezing up in natural gas pipelines  Snow on solar panels True or False - Currently there are twice as many solar jobs in the U.S. as jobs in the coal industry (article #45) True or False: Currently the world's largest direct-air carbon capture plant can only capture enough carbon to compensate for the CO2 output of 300 average Americans (article #41) True or False: An acre of photovoltaics prod