In the US, people spend the overwhelming majority of their time inside buildings that burn fossil fuels, which are bad for both the environment and human health. (Think: breathing in air pollution from gas stoves, furnaces and water heaters.) If we're going to fix this problem, we need to retrofit millions of buildings with all-electric equipment, says energy upgrader Donnel Baird. Hear about his ambitious plan to rip the fossil fuel infrastructure out of aging buildings and upgrade it with smarter, cleaner, healthier technology.
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[00:00:00] Ted Audio Collective
[00:00:16] In most of the public discourse about the changing climate,
[00:00:20] I've noticed a focus on the great outdoors.
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[00:03:04] Easily find your favorite shows, like Reacher season 2. healthier lives. Find TED Health wherever you listen to podcasts. So my wife and I have two young children and like many of you, we are terrified about what the worst impacts of the climate crisis are going to be for them in their lives.
[00:04:25] Do we honestly have a plan that's specific, and heating. This is an apartment complex in Harlem that we visited back in 2014. And I remember visiting it. I was a little worried because we could smell gas kind of leaking. And a few blocks away, a few weeks before this visit, an apartment building had a gas furnace that exploded.
[00:05:43] It collapsed the entire apartment building.
[00:05:45] It collapsed the apartment building next door.
[00:05:47] And eight people died. fossil fuel engines out of vehicles and replacing them with smarter all-electric engines. We wanna do the same thing for buildings. We wanna rip out all the fossil fuel equipment and replace it with smart, green, all-electric equipment. And we want that equipment to be powered by electricity that's clean. Stanford Professor Mark Jacobson has written a plan
[00:07:00] for all 50 states to be powered by wind,
[00:07:03] by hydroelectric power, by solar state by state
[00:07:06] so that our entire grid can be clean. that gas ovens, gas heating systems in our home leak benzene, they leak methane, they leak nitrogen dioxide. There's so much nitrogen dioxide emitted into American homes that it causes about 13% of chronic childhood asthma. There's so much methane leaked into our homes
[00:08:20] that it's equal to the emissions
[00:08:21] of 500,000 gas powered vehicles.
[00:08:25] And benzene, benzene is a carcinogen to use these ovens and systems. They can boil hot water in less than 60 seconds. Pretty awesome. And one of the new technologies that I'm really excited about is the cold climate heat pump. Cold climate heat pumps are like a silver bullet for reducing emissions in buildings. We can now do things that we could not do five years ago because of this technology. They use electricity and refrigerant and compressors
[00:09:40] to pump hot air into your home in the winter,
[00:09:42] to pump hot air out of your home during the summer
[00:09:45] to heat up hot water.
[00:10:47] Now, is it simple? Is it easy to electrify buildings? No, there's challenges and opportunities.
[00:10:51] We have to solve a finance problem, we have to solve a workforce problem, we have to solve a data problem. Electrification can cost 10, 20, $30,000 per building. And that's not affordable
[00:11:00] for the average American. But what we can do is most Americans can't afford to buy a
[00:11:04] home on their own, and so we have a mortgage. And so we them, we hired them, we took them back to Rikers Island, they installed solar panels in the parking lot. We have a data problem. Every building is unique like a snowflake, so in order to make sure we have the right size of the electrification equipment for that building to unhook it from fossil fuels, we have to collect data and make sure
[00:12:21] we specify and recommend the right equipment. We've been working with the Bezos Earth Fund It's not simple, it's not easy, but it is possible. And what that means is if we can electrify one building, it means that we can electrify a whole block of buildings. If we can electrify a block of buildings, it means that we can electrify a neighborhood. If we can electrify a neighborhood, it means that we can electrify a city.
[00:13:41] And if we can electrify a city,
[00:13:43] that means we can electrify a country.
[00:13:45] There's a saying, you have to be the change
[00:13:48] that you wish to see in the world. I'm an IAMBA student at the University of Illinois, Geese College of Business. Currently, I'm head of content strategy for the office of CTO for a tech company. I have a career path that I pretty much understand. I'm looking to expand my capabilities and move into more senior leadership roles. And so an MBA was always something that was on my mind.
[00:15:01] You know, I would consider myself a lifelong learner.
[00:15:03] You know, I enjoy it.
[00:15:05] When narrowing it down certainly a possibility. I do not think you will find a program that has put more time and energy and effort into how they deliver the coursework,
[00:16:23] how they interact with the students,
[00:16:24] how they build the curriculum,
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