Incentives encourage homeowners to embrace energy efficiency.

Energy-saving systems for the attic, basement, and in between have effectively gone on sale, courtesy of the United States Congress.  But whether shoppers will take advantage – or even notice available discounts – remains an open question.Tax incentives to encourage investments in energy efficiency took effect last week when President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill. That means homeowners with drafty windows, old heating systems, or other root causes of high energy bills can be rewarded in tax season if they make improvements in 2009 or 2010.

“This is by far the most the federal government has done in the past several decades” to reward energy-efficiency investments, says Steven Nadel, executive director of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. “In many cases, this will make the high-efficiency product cheaper than the low-efficiency product. [For consumers], this is pretty lucrative, and I’d be surprised if it gets extended into 2011.”

New incentives increase the size of tax credits for homeowners who buy qualifying products. For instance, those who invest in highly-rated insulation, replacement windows, duct seals, or high-efficiency heating and cooling systems can now receive a tax credit worth 30 percent of the upgrade cost (maximum credit value: $1,500).

Previously, homeowners could get a tax credit worth just 10 percent of an upgrade cost, up to a maximum of $500. Now, taxpayers who spend $800 on an efficient water heater, $1,000 on insulation, and $2,000 on windows could lop $1,140 off their federal tax bill.

Awards for switching to renewable energy sources have become especially generous. Congress this month did away with caps on 30 percent tax credits for homeowners who install solar panels, geothermal heat pumps, or windmills. Now a $24,000 investment to make a home solar-powered would generate a federal tax credit worth $7,200. (Before the stimulus, credits were capped at $2,000 for geothermal and solar; $4,000 for wind).

These tax code revisions have altered the affordability ballgame, says Craig Perkins, executive director of the Energy Coalition, a nonprofit in Irvine, Calif., that helps consumers become more energy-efficient. He estimates more than 1 in 4 Californians can now borrow to install solar panels and immediately be paying less out-of-pocket per month (including payments on solar panels) than if he or she were to keep getting power from conventional sources. Others, he says, will often recoup the costs of adding solar or high-efficiency air conditioning over a few years.

One key to maximizing savings, Perkins says, is to choose projects that qualify for a rebate from one’s state or utility and are also eligible for a federal tax credit. Such “piggybacking” is both permissible and encouraged. The challenge: getting consumers to research options and take action.

“The problem we find constantly is that [navigating incentives] can be extremely confusing,” Mr. Perkins says. “People don’t want to become wonks about what’s eligible and what isn’t.… It’s the nuts and bolts of making it happen that really stops a lot people.”

Merchandisers are already moving to educate consumers about new tax benefits. At Home & Hearth, a heating stove dealer in Hampton Falls, N.H., manager Bob King was talking up tax credits with every customer hours after Congress passed the stimulus bill. Brochure in hand, Jim Marshall of Exeter, N.H., liked hearing from Mr. King in the store’s parking lot that a new wood pellet stove would qualify. He’d like to make a switch and stop spending more than $300 per month for oil heat.

Burning pellets made from sawdust and other wood byproducts “doesn’t hurt the environment,” Mr. Marshall says. “You’re just using something that would be thrown away. And if they’ll give me a tax credit for one of these stoves, I’ll look at doing it sooner.”

Home energy experts often recommend people first invest in eliminating wasted energy. That includes tightening a building’s shell with attic insulation and other sealing measures before investing in new mechanical equipment.

Mr. Nadel suggests consumers with questions about priorities contact a contractor trained by the federal Home Performance with Energy Star program. He or she will analyze, sometimes at no cost, how to align a particular home’s needs with available tax incentive and rebate programs.

In these tough economic times, consumers shouldn’t necessarily cling to conventional wisdom. Since contractors need work, homeowners might find that well-priced labor will catapult a systems upgrade to the top of a home-improvement priority list, according to Alan Meier, associate director of the Energy Efficiency Center at the University of California, Davis. What’s more, he says, the new federal push for renewable energy could affect a homeowner’s calculus, especially in states with aggressive incentives of their own.

“The federal government wants you to invest in solar and other renewables,” Mr. Meier says. “Given all the tax credits, it may in fact make solar panels more cost-effective for the consumer than energy conservation,” such as adding insulation or highly rated windows.

Outside the home, hybrid vehicle owners have new reason to soup up their rigs. Plug-in conversion kits, which replace existing batteries with larger ones that plug into electrical outlets, now generate tax credits worth 10 percent of the kit’s cost (maximum credit value: $4,000). Congress this month also increased the number of new hybrid plug-in vehicles, expected to debut in showrooms later this year, which will qualify for tax credits worth anywhere from $2,500 to $7,500, depending on battery size.

No matter which investments consumers choose, the process of claiming benefits may require perseverance. King, the heating stove dealer, says he’s received calls this year from accountants who had mistakenly challenged their clients for wanting to claim tax credits on stove purchases. Other accountants note consumers aren’t always sufficiently organized or diligent to claim what’s due to them.

“This is a very unique and narrow bunch of credits,” says Mark Steben, vice president of tax resources at Jackson Hewitt Tax Service. “You’re going to see a large group of people who qualify but don’t take advantage of it.”

Energy credit help

Taking advantage of new tax incentives for energy efficiency involves figuring out what qualifies and what doesn’t. The following websites can help consumers make informed decisions:

• aceee.org/consumer – This site, operated by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, has checklists and step-by-step guides for planning upgrades. It also has links to sites that detail which types of purchases qualify for federal tax credits, state incentives, and rebates from utilities.

• energystar.gov – A clearinghouse for information about products and programs that win the government’s seal of approval. Click on “Home Performance with Energy Star” to find contractors trained to do energy audits and advise on how to take advantage of incentive programs.

• ase.org/consumers – Site of the Alliance to Save Energy has tips for saving energy and a guide to tax credits.

This article by G. Jeffrey MacDonald was published The Christian Science Monitor

from the February 23, 2009 edition.  It was datelined in Hampton Falls, N.H.

If you’d like to  do some reading in advance of the meeting,  take a look  especially at chapter 8, “Coasts” by Daniel Huppert et al.  (available on the same web page).  Here is the abstract of this chapter:

Physical changes caused by climate change on the Washington coast include: (a) inundation of
low-lying areas by high tides as sea level rises; (b) flooding of coasts during major storm events,
especially near river mouths; (c) accelerated erosion of coastal bluffs; (d) landward retreat of
beach profiles, moving the position of the Mean High Water line landward; (e) saltwater
intrusion into coastal freshwater aquifers; and (f) increased ocean temperature and acidity.
Similar physical forces will be working everywhere, but shore areas will respond differently
depending upon substrate (sand versus bedrock), slope (shallow versus steep cliffs), and the
surrounding conditions (exposed versus sheltered from storms). We expect substantial impacts
on coastal systems from bluff erosion, shifting beach berms, shoreline armoring, and inundation
of coastal lands. Further, increased ocean temperatures and acidity will negatively impact
shellfish aquaculture. As beaches adjust to sea level rise, coastal property lines and intertidal
aquaculture leases will need to be carefully defined through modified property laws. We
anticipate relatively minor impacts on coastal freshwater aquifers. Additional research is needed
to develop a more comprehensive assessment of climate impacts on all coastal features in the
state.

More summer days when streams grow dangerously warm for salmon — and worse winter floods flushing away or burying their eggs.

More people dying in King County from heat stress. Less drinking water in the summer. A quadrupling of the acreage burned in summer wildfires.

But more electricity to heat our homes in the winter.

Those are a few of the effects projected for Washington by the first comprehensive look at how climate change is likely to affect the state by the end of the century.

Released early Wednesday, the study was ordered by the Legislature and carried out by 64 scientists, many affiliated with the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington.

“This is the most detailed description of the effects of future climate change that we’ve ever had for any of the Northwest states,” said Philip Mote, a report author and the outgoing Washington state climatologist.

On Thursday, the scientists plan to huddle with state officials to brief them on actions that can be taken to prepare for climate change and — they hope — blunt its worst effects. Many of the impacts outlined in the new report assume continued use of fuels whose emissions trap heat in the atmosphere. Those effects could at least theoretically be lessened through technological innovations or reduced fuel use.

The new study delves into some areas not researched thoroughly for Washington in the past: How a changing climate will affect agriculture, human health and the systems that carry away rainwater to prevent flooding.

“There’s more work to do, but this is a first step,” said Jeremy Littell, a forest ecologist who helped organize the report.

The picture is not uniformly grim. For instance, because winter storms are likely to bring more rain and less snow, we should see higher stream flows in the winter. That means we can make more hydropower — a plus, since winter heating sometimes requires importing electricity.

But the flip side of that coin is that there will be less snow left around in the summer — when we count on it to melt slowly, recharging reservoirs and dropping stream temperatures enough to keep salmon healthy. Plus, more people will be cranking up the air conditioning in the summer — the very time Northwesterners now profit by selling the juice to sweltering Californians.

That kind of if-then-but scenario is played out in a number of sections of the report. For example, increased carbon dioxide, or CO₂, and the increased productivity that comes with warmth should help forests grow more vigorously. On the other hand, the drier, hotter climate is likely to mean more fires — not to mention increasing the range of the forest-shredding mountain pine beetle.

And it looks like overall, forests will grow better in the early decades of the century, as CO₂ increases, but then show worse growth as the climate dries and warms, particularly in Eastern Washington. There are likely to be wide variations among sections of the state, though.

“It’s one of those issues that, it very much depends on where you look,” Littell said. “When you take it statewide, that’s what we’re looking at.”

The report, titled “The Washington Climate Change Impacts Assessment,” pulls back from previous projections on whether we’re likely to see more of the intense winter storms that caused flooding the past three years.

That’s because when scientists examined whether intense downpours had increased over the last few decades, they saw little difference. However, the analysis did not include the storms that sparked state-of-emergency declarations the last three years. Also, two computer-based projections showed increases in intense storms are likely — but disagreed on how much, and where, they are likely to occur.

So while on balance scientists still expect more of these cats-and-dogs downpours, they’re not nearly as confident about that as, say, their projection about wildfires in the U.S. part of the Columbia River Basin. Those are projected to increase from burning an average of 425,000 acres annually to 800,000 in the 2020s and 2 million in the 2080s.

Or look at agriculture. Dryland wheat farming is likely to benefit, because a major climate-warming gas is carbon dioxide, which helps plants grow more vigorously. That same CO₂ benefit holds true for cherries and apples, but because the warming stands to exacerbate water shortages in the Yakima Valley, where many are grown, overall the state is likely to see lower yields.

For salmon, the picture is bleak — but it depends on the species and its location.

“The stream conditions in the summertime are just looking to be deteriorating,” said Nathan Mantua, a fish researcher who helped produce the report. “It’s hard to see it any other way.”

For sockeye and chinook that return to spawn in the summer, that could mean big trouble. Currently they seek deep water or other spots that stay cold longest. But some of those are likely to disappear as temperatures increase. And even fish that make it to cold water refuges may not be able to leave in time to swim to their spawning grounds before exhausting themselves and dying, Mantua said.

We already saw an example of the kind of thing that’s likely in the extremely hot summer of 2004, Mantua said. Workers counted some 300,000 sockeye salmon swimming past the Ballard Locks on their way to Lake Washington. Biologists estimated only 100,000 made it to the spawning grounds. Maybe 20,000 or so got caught by anglers, Mantua said. The remainder presumably died, probably because of extremely warm temperatures in the Lake Washington Ship Canal.

Coho and steelhead are also likely to be affected, but at the other end of their lives, when they spend summers in fresh water before heading to sea.

On the other hand, pink salmon, chum salmon and fall-returning chinook aren’t likely to be affected very much, because they’re out at sea in the summer.

Human health is also likely to be affected. And while the picture in Washington may not be as dire as some other regions, “Climate change in Washington state will likely lead to larger numbers of heat-related deaths,” the report says. “The greater Seattle area in particular can expect substantial mortality during future heat events due to the combination of hotter summer and population growth.”

At the meeting Thursday to discuss courses of action, officials hope to begin sketching out steps to prevent as much damage as possible.

“Adapting to climate change must be seen as a continuous series of decisions and activities undertaken by individuals, groups, and governments rather than a one-time activity,” the report says.

P-I reporter Robert McClure can be reached at 206-448-8092 or robertmcclure@seattlepi.com.

This article was published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on February 11, 2009.