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DeeDee D's avatar

I'd prefer our Fed tax $ go to helping folks relocate. I think it's foolish to spend money rebuilding on the coast or on islands when we know the oceans are rising by FEET not inches.

Even a resilient and low-carbon community cannot survive when its 15 ft. under sea water.

That said, going forward ALL our buildings should be sustainably built, even inland and highlands... because climate change is coming for everyone, whether we believe it or not.

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Teach1's avatar

In perspective, and in support of Mr. Hartman's thesis, I built a climate controlled house in Alaska in the 1970s with Canadian double-wall designs to respond to winter temperatures of -25 degrees F- only to see the same temperature settle at +25 degrees F in the 1990s. In the 2020s I built an ICF house in the South with very thick concrete insulated walls using 146 yards of concrete; the house is all electric and has a GEO-Thermal heating and cooling system with three 200' wells circulating a fluid to capture latent heat in the ground. The house will withstand 200 mph winds and other standards meet Gulf design criteria for 2050. Back up power is enough for 6 months. However the local co-operative utility has all its lines above ground and is 100% dependent on TVA's mix of power, which is 60% renewable - but has less than 10% solar. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tva-ceo-interview-idUSKCN1RE2IV. However TVA has committed to produce over 700 MW of solar power for large customers and envision covering 180,000 cares with solar panels. https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/gm-partners-with-tva-supply-renewable-energy https://www.publicpower.org/periodical/article/gm-partners-with-tva-supply-renewable-energy. However, the grids in the South are all above ground and vulnerable to high winds and flash floods.

Mr. Hartman is correct-we need a massive redesign of building construction, an upgrade of the national electric grid and municipal codes for re-locating utilities underground. However, EU consumers are currently paying 3-400% more for their electricity and their industrial production system has crashed with the lack of massive amounts of natural gas from the Ukraine. Individual consumers in the EU and Scandinavia are paying monthly electric bills that are beyond reasonable. The energy design system needs to be affordable to be practical; this cannot be done without a mix of energy sources. Unless nuclear power sources are readily replaced by hydrogen power plants and each nation commits to a national affordability subsidy average people will never support a green transition.

Mr. Hartman Citation:

Babcock Ranch designed their homes with a low wind profile and the houses were set far enough above the streets that the streets themselves are designed to flood (and run off) leaving the homes high and dry. Power and internet lines are buried and using native plants as landscaping helped to catch and slow runoff to minimize flood damage.

Which is why Babcock Ranch homes came through Hurricane Ian largely intact and its solar-powered school and community center is now full of refugees from nearby towns.

While Babcock Ranch is an upscale community with homes in the half-million to million-dollar (and up) range, that’s because it’s larger homes on big lots, rather than the result of the community’s hurricane-proof design and super-resilient solar power system.

These resilience aspects should be a model for all of Florida — and the rest of the country that experiences floods, derechos, and hurricanes — starting right now. This isn’t rocket science and it’s about the same price as throwing up stick houses that’ll simply explode or get washed away in the next storm: when you add in the reduced cost and increased reliability of electricity and other essential services, it’s cheaper than typical construction over the life of the homes.

There are even innovative economic models already adopted by other countries we could use to rapidly propagate solar across the United States as part of an effort to harden our electric systems.

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