![]() It’s an utterly plain house, with Frozen bedspreads and One Direction posters, inhabited by a working-class family of four, two rabbits, and a parakeet named Oliver. #Green power utility softwareThe Borkowskis’ house is not an Aspen earth shelter made of adobe and old tires, built by a former software executive who converted to planetary consciousness at Burning Man. The numbers reveal a sudden new truth-that innovative, energy-saving and energy-producing technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. I’ve travelled the world writing about and organizing against climate change, but, standing in the Borkowskis’ kitchen and looking at their electric bill, I felt a fairly rare emotion: hope. The Borkowskis reduced the footprint of their house by eighty-eight per cent in a matter of days, and at no net cost. ![]() President Obama has announced that by 2025 he wants the United States to reduce its total carbon footprint by up to twenty-eight per cent of 2005 levels. From October of 2014 to January of 2015, they used twenty-eight hundred and fifty-six kilowatt-hours of electricity and no oil at all. Before the makeover, from October of 2013 to January of 2014, the Borkowskis used thirty-four hundred and eleven kilowatt-hours of electricity and three hundred and twenty-five gallons of fuel oil. The Borkowskis paid for the improvements, but the utility financed the charges through their electric bill, which fell the very first month. They also switched all the light bulbs to L.E.D.s and put a small solar array on the slate roof of the garage. In the course of several days, coördinated teams of contractors stuffed the house with new insulation, put in a heat pump for the hot water, and installed two air-source heat pumps to warm the home. Last summer, however, persuaded by Green Mountain Power, the main electric utility in Vermont, the Borkowskis decided to give their home an energy makeover. Mark drives a school bus, and Sara works as a special-ed teacher the cost of heating and cooling their house through the year consumes a large fraction of their combined income. Mark and Sara Borkowski live with their two young daughters in a century-old, fifteen-hundred-square-foot house in Rutland, Vermont. Construction by Stephen Doyle / Photograph by Eric Helgas Innovative, eco-friendly technology is now cheap enough for everyday use. ![]()
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