I Turned My House Into a Zero-Carbon Utopia

Last April, I decided to break up with my gas company. It wasn’t me; it was them. Like so many other fossil-fuel companies, SoCalGas was lobbying against clean energy while it continued to spew carbon pollution into the atmosphere. Yet here I was, an academic who had devoted my life to advancing clean energy, still paying them money, month after month. I’d had enough.

But like a divorce after a long marriage, the process was even more complicated than I had thought. I had to remove all the appliances running on gas and swap them for clean, electric machines. Goodbye gas furnace. Goodbye gas stove. Goodbye gas fireplace. And good riddance. SoCalGas wasn’t my sole energy provider, but I vowed to go one step further and run my home without burning any fossil fuels at all.

In addition to my home renovation, I