##VIDEO ID:lfqB0Op29ug## [Music] and uh and we are now recording okay so this is uh the January 29th 20125 meeting of the uh amorist energy and climate action committee which was organized to guide the town in meeting its climate mitigation and resilience goals those goals in the plan for getting there are adopted from the karp the climate action adaptation and resilience plan which was accepted by the Town Council in 2021 with 2016 as its base year carp calls for 25 % reduction in carbon emissions by 2025 50% by 2030 and neutrality by 2050 so this committee has two functions one is to advise the Town Council and recommend or propose policies or actions that will help us meet those goals and the other is to promote a just Equitable and Speedy climate response through Outreach and engagement of town and local stakeholders um and with that we will first find someone to do the minutes today so whose turn is it today I think it might be Steve's turn but I could I actually would like to request that I do it because I have not done it in a while and I'm gonna miss the next meeting so if Steve does it then I will miss again okay go ahead Laura Steve Laura will thank you for volunteering to take thank you um so with that we can go on to uh reviewing the minutes from 15 1:15 so I did have a couple of comments I was just reading them beforehand I'll share them right now I'll share the minutes if I can find the share button minutes share all right and now I got to put you guys back where I can see you good okay so these are the minutes from last time um usually we use last names everywhere so I was going to say uh we should probably change all these to last names I always record first names too but then change them at some point um as I edit a little bit so those those all need to get changed and the only thing I saw that I wanted to ask be changed other than just names is um how this Lori asks how this program differs from existing Mass save it wasn't really how it differs it was specifically about the money if there was additional money so um because I know how it differs in general but uh so Lori asks how the incentives provided to Residents differ from the existing Mass Safe program that was the question um otherwise I didn't see anything can you all see this well enough make a little bigger I think conduit Tech actually has a space there but it doesn't doesn't matter that much depends if you're looking at their website or their name of their company um are we okay here staff updates I don't know why this is all in bold it makes it a little hard to read we could just do it was just a formatting thing Lori I'm GNA I can change that I'll I'll have to change it on my end so yeah okay if there's no further changes um I'll stop sharing do we have a move to accept as they are or do you still want to look a little more I'll move to accept I'll I'll laor can you stop sharing please thank you I was just waiting for the move that's okay drer and roof yes okay um and in no particular order Allison yes rof yes goldner yes L yes Davis yes and roer yes okay minutes are approved with with the changes y as amended right as amended um okay get rid of that and I can send you that later yeah I made notes I think I've got it so all right um okay so the first thing on the agenda for today before we even do public comment is to elect a vice chair so I really I I really got you know I enjoyed I was vice chair for a year or more I don't even remember before becoming chair and it wasn't a lot of work but it was just to have some continuity when the chair was absent and it also let me learn the ropes a little bit so that when I did become chair it was easier you don't have to become chair to be Vice chair but it's nice if I'm not here we know who's going to be chairing meeting um so we really could use and there's also you could join Stephanie and I we Stephanie and I meet every other week the week in between eak we meet briefly to talk about the agenda and stuff like that um I don't think I did those I may may have joined one of those maybe when I was vice chair because I knew I had to chair the meeting the following week or something like that so or a vice chair could do that do we have any nominations for vice chair it's not a lot of work unless you become chair then it's a little more work it's not that much honestly being chair I Stephanie does all the work that's not true that is absolutely not true it is mostly true I mean I meet with you once a week and once every other week and we spend a half hour talking and figuring out what's GNA you know working on the agenda but you prepare most of it and um but I think you do I would say that that you know the work of the chair and the vice chair is that you do a lot of other you know your initiatives and things that you want to pull together you do behind the scenes and the the annual report you know there are certain things yeah the you do have to meet so the annual report is a bit of work yeah and that's typically falls on the on the chair but everyone can contribute to that um I will say that people can nominate themselves as well you don't have to nominate someone else anyone is interested in doing it you can here yes we'll be so happy ah do I need to do some more arm twisting behind the scenes maybe we can we can we'll give it another minute of uncomfortable silence and then I'll come back to it again next week after privately twisting arms something that chair can do I mean the main responsibility really is just covering when Lori is not able to attend a meeting you would share a meeting um but otherwise you know Lori really does the Lion Share but maybe at times you you know she might want to work with you to delegate some task but typically the you know I feel like the Lion Share has often always fallen to the chair as Laura can attest yeah all right so what I will do is I will talk to people I I hope someone will reach out to me but if you don't I'll reach out to especially some of our newer members see if anybody is interested uh in serving as a vice chair um I started as Vice chair pretty early on after I joined eak so um I don't regret it it was it was worthwhile you know I I actually really enjoy this serving on this committee because stuff gets done and you get to see it happen and that doesn't happen in other parts of my life so get to see things actually change um so that's sort of nice but all right we we'll go on from there and put that off put that on the agenda again for next time we'll continue putting it on the agenda until we identify someone but I'll reach out folks and I hope you'll reach out to me all right uh public comment do we have any members of the public no we do not okay in that case Tony's not here today so I do have you'll have to give me a second um I do have a few minor very minor updates from him um so if you want to wait until it's his item on the agenda go ahead um just give me one second okay um Tony has said um there are no Transportation updates tonight so we can just continue with that one um and the east C AC Elevate event it's been changed to a one-day event for 4 hours um primarily to accommodate schedules and he asked that um folks please fill out the when to meet if anyone is interested in helping out or doing something for that event yeah please do I think Tony sent that to everyone or you sent it to everyone through to from Tony Stephanie please do fill that out um that's useful I'm pretty sure I went in there fill it out but if you see that I didn't Stephanie let me know or if Tony sees that I didn't I'm pretty sure I did it right away y but I get a lot of those so and now that it's four hours I think there you know anything that anyone would volunteer to do is going to be um you know very concise and shorter you know amount of time y yeah okay so next thing on the agenda is residential Heat pump initiative Community coaching engagement and support um do we have anything more on uh any reactions to Marina's this talk last week or anything more on the local plan maybe we can get some updates on that first I have I have other stuff that I could talk about in regards to the regional program that Eric Broadbent and others are putting together but that could also wait till eak member updates I'm not maybe we should talk about it all here since Stephanie if you have anything more about the local program sure I I'm just um the plan the information for the plan was finalized um I've just been reviewing that so I'm not quite done with that yet but um the idea is that the flyer will go out probably starting within the next day or two or early next week uh the flyer will start going out to folks um and be posted for interest in the program and announcing the program uh there'll be a press release that should go out next week as well um the program won't officially start until April though you know for the whole community so um that's kind of the only that's the only real update I have since her presentation uh last last week and I have not received any comments or feedback from anybody okay all right so let me fill you in on what else is going on in the region and I know at least one eek member did actually sign up for the Heat Smart coaching thing um so that's that we might have another coach in the area sometime soon um so Eric and I was at the local energy Advocates meeting last week 21st I guess and Eric and company gave a who are organizing a Northampton it was originally going to be a northamp Northampton and Beyond they called it coaching program uh it was sort of funny there was a bit of a disconnect they thought they were putting together a Northampton program because they thought that's what Lea was willing to fund on mass energized so the idea is that these guys want to put together a coaching program they want to use this Mass energize website because it's a way to organize the program and connect people who want coaching with coaches um the mass energize websites go up in price depending on the size of your community so there was a bit of a disconnect I think where uh the group putting together the coaching program thought Lea was only willing to spend enough for one for Northampton but it's it's not completely clear and they might want to put something together for a larger area so they gave a nice presentation on why coaching is important and how it fits into M its goals and um you know what coaches do uh I'm just going through some of my notes here and some of their slides that I don't want to share because they're not done with it yet um but I have since I was at the meeting I have access to the stuff um so again they're focusing on heat pumps for homes but eventually maybe doing more in the way of coaching for not just heat pumps but for other other things the the initial is going to be mostly about um heat pumps uh they were thinking of a soft launch with limited Outreach to the public um cont residents in Target homes for their first set of clients um and they were trying to get folks interested in the Heat Smart Alliance training which is over subscribed by a lot so Heat Smart Alliance is running another very they run great trainings and Eric Broadbent is actually helping run it this time the training is in February March there were three people in the area already signed up six already trained and at least one more uh least a few more uh since then at least one more so I think they'll get in because hopefully uh they're trying to focus it you know if there's a group of people from an area where they want to start a program they have a reason to take more than one person from that area right so even though they're over subscribed by about a factor of two they have about they have like 60 people signed up and they only have room for 30 or something like that um hopefully all the local folks will get in um and their big question is they need a program coordinator so they were thinking that initially the program Coordinator would be a volunteer and ideally it would be somebody who would be municipally supported and that got into a discussion of whether or not Valley Green energy could support something like this um and then they talked about the Heat Smart Alliance coaching model and how that works and I think that about covers it so they're planning on starting also around April soft launch around April with newly trained coaches assigned to Target clients uh using the mass energized intake form that was their their plan so it looks very similar to the time scale for the local heat pump program which is of course quite different because it comes with additional incentives and a lot of other things that this is just a coaching program but one could imagine down the line somewhere these two things you know after the mess the C contract ends having some sort of website where anybody who wants coaching can go um and one might imagine it pointing to this page eventually um and I think that about covers it so it's exciting that there's all this this is all starting to happen in this area which is nice I don't think I have anything else on that I guess the big question is what else can EAC do to help engage right to help um bring people into the other than setting up a I'm I'm looking forward to setting up the heat pump help 5 cents Booth again at sustainability Festival this year and there might even be more than one EAC member who's a heat pump coach who could sit at it if there's anything else we can do um otherwise I guess we go on to the next um agenda item so Laura review of draft letter regarding the UMass climate plan I have some updates on that as well um but do you have a letter yes I do have a letter um I shared it with folks last week I did not receive any comments on it so um I have to apologize this last week I everything got away I mean with all the stuff that was going on I did not I completely spaced it yeah so I think um if folks want to take another day or so to take a look yeah but from my end it's done unless I get comments so um Lori you can also take it and we can submit it yeah um okay let me let me have a um now I got to find it I'm sorry that came from you Laura or through Stephanie um Stephanie forwarded my email I believe on the 21st uh I got a link from Stephanie on the 16th of January okay great yeah I got that one okay with the it's a um shared in Google Drive I can give a little bit of update all right so I apologize for not I will I will send you comments Laura and then if I have any I think I I looked at it last time and it looked fine to me but I I haven't actually carefully read it so I will do that immediately after this meeting um did you want to share that and provide comments now uh I I need to sit and read it carefully we did that last we did it last time at the last meeting so I think it's really just people if people want to Wordsmith it or if anyone has any substantive comments they can of course share those and we can talk about them next time but yeah I I just think we should have the discussion it shouldn't just be you sending comments to Laura we should okay all right so you wanna you want to do this one more time well no I don't want to do that sorry Stephanie can you fine I think we can put it on the agenda next time I don't think it makes sense to talk through it in person right yeah no I wasn't suggesting today I just want to make sure that we have a public process that's all but if you're not gonna be here next time I think you said that right so from my perspective I have addressed comments from last meeting okay so I don't think I need to be there I okay so we'll discuss it in your absence and we'll if there's anything we need to finalize we'll send you comments but we'll also discuss it at the meeting and that should be fine we can we can send you comments separately offline and then post it at the meeting approve it and it can be sent at that point yeah I think that makes sense okay I I do have one general question about it um do we know what sort of um particulate pollution or other pollution besides greenhous gas emissions might be coming from this biodiesel uh all we know is that it passed the stack test to get a permit to be burned in one of the boilers so it's probably not worse than whatever regular diesel is it's not biodiesel remember it's renewable diesel which is refined the same way diesel is but there are renewable diesel products at least one out there that did not pass the stack test I guess I'd be curious if we knew how it Compares with what they're currently using which is natural gas in terms of particulates um Mercury sulfur um we can those pollutants yeah that's something I can ask at UMass I won't get an answer I think we can put it we can we so we do have a section here that's focused on you know we do we do note that it completed the test burn and the current question is how appropriate is it to scale but I think we could also ask a question of what were the how does the how do how do the emissions compare to current I wonder if the permit says anything about that I'm just going to look it up real quick I think this could be a question that we encourage the town to ask to you ask it doesn't have to be a question that we answer right right um it's emissions can be used in two ways the greenhouse gas emissions as well as other kinds of emissions like particulates that you know cause Health um health problems so I just I wanted to to raise that as a concern the health related emissions not just the greenhouse gas related emissions yeah okay so so one one thing I have here um remember there's there's two separate issues here one is this winter UMass is already burning 100,000 gallons of renewable diesel in one of their boilers and it's a boiler that is designed to burn either diesel or methane so it burns both and according to this permit Mass D has determine that this change can be incorporated this change meaning the burning of renewable diesel since there is no increase in facility emissions that this change is in conformance with current air pollution control engineering practices and is in compliance with the administrat Amendment regulations contained in it gives a section 310 CMR blah blah blah so they gave approval based on that it doesn't increase emissions there's a description of the facility and the application oh they give it uh can I share this I can share this and then we can put it in the packet if you'd like this is the permit here um share Chrome share there okay you should be able to see this now correct this is from the whoops sorry uh I'm trying to yeah this is the permit I'm going to make it a little bigger sorry it's can't make it bigger that way um hang on a minute should be able to make it bigger no where's the make it bigger thing I think I have to download it and share it if I'm going to make it bigger uh it's not letting me oh there it is got it window width okay there we go so this is in the permit on page three what they're finding for oh they have natural gas on here too yeah natural gas UL LSD what is that ultra low low sulfur diesel diesel which is probably what they've been using combination L SD and natural gas and the worst case scenario that's is shown below the boiler's potential to so that's ulsd but where do it is it renewable diesel considered ulsd I guess since it's not I'm guessing that it oh REM yeah the emissions from the boiler using only ulsd and renewable fuels meeting that criteria to so this is this is it's included in here so it is the same I think as the low sulfur diesel they usually use I think that's what they're trying to say here wow yeah so I think to Steve's Point like clearly this has more KNX and PM yeah particular yeah yeah then then burning natural gas for sure yeah yeah um um yeah like 10 a lot more yeah so so that's and so that's the bigger problem so the bigger problem I'll stop this share I can I can put this in the packet if you'd like this is just the permit uh that UMass got um the uh the bigger problem here is that they want to transition the code Generation Plant and I wrote to DP and asked them if they had applied for a permit to do that because that's a bigger deal that's changing a co-generation plant that uses only natural gas that was designed to use natural gas changing it over is not a small thing it's expensive but not nearly not two billion dollars to put in geothermal everywhere and to change the steam to low temper low temperature hot water um but it's expensive and it's not easily reversible according to friends of mine who are in the energy business they can make it so that it's reversible but then that would be even more expensive right um so the change to renewable diesel on the co-generation plant is what they propose and that is a bigger problem I wrote to D to see if they have applied for permit to do that and the answer I got back hours later it was great like an hour later was no they have no record of them applying to do that so they haven't applied to do it yet which is good and I think I'm going to stay on top of that and make sure that D knows we object to this because they got this permit without any sort of public hearing or advanced notice or okey do from anybody although using renewable diesel in one of the boilers was actually in the UMass climate plan so what they've done so far is not horribly objectionable except for the fact that they are not using the renewable diesel they were supposed to use which was local and the origins were traceable and they could they could document what the emission cycle what the emission life cycle emissions look like in this case they're using a product that's coming from Singapore and they have no idea and there's every possibility that it's considerably worse than just burning fossil fuel that that's not unlikely um but we don't know because they haven't done any due diligence they did try using the local product but the local product did not pass the stack test is what I have been told so uh in other words it was it was dirty whatever they were doing to refine it wasn't working um so that's how we got where we are any rate so and that that's the issue you know we don't want them I did hear back from the chancellor we wrote the chancellor a letter we heard back we did not get any answers to any of our questions uh we also did not get any response to our concerns about renewable diesel so there will probably be Foya a Freedom of Information Act request for information since we can't seem to get it by just talking to them that will probably be our next step so that's the sort of things that I've been working on that made me totally forget about this letter I've been working on that while dealing with uh when you say we who is the we that's working on this yeah it's an ad hoc group of faculty and students who are involved in student government or the sunrise movement it's a slightly different group every time there's about probably about 30 now in the Google group um and it's just it's just folks who are concerned and one of the concerns we all have is that the publicity on this hasn't gotten out there yet I did get contacted by Scott Merz backer from The Gazette and I've been in contact with Dusty Christensen from the shoestring and also sent emails to Joe comford and Mindy Dome some time ago so we're trying to get word out but I think people are overwhelmed right now with crap excuse a French there but yeah uh and nobody's paying attention and that's my fear that this will slip by because nobody's paying attention so this group of Faculty is trying to make sure that doesn't happen um faculty and now students there were about uh a dozen faculty and students who signed the letter and about 50 who were cced 75 who were cced and of that and full have joined to continue this conversation and figure out what we can do from inside UMass um but I think the town knowing is important I I don't think since they haven't applied for a permit it's not urgent it's not going to you know bur forth any second but um I I do think that we need to get alerting the town and getting this letter out is important and having the town respond and ask questions is important the the the number of students and faculty that have been raising questions that is that a significant number or is that kind of a small number in terms of the overall population it's it's hard to tell I mean I haven't done look I we're trying to figure out how to deal with this Chancellor right we had a massive vote last fall that had no effect on a different topic that had no effect on him at all and that was something I also worked on and we literally had you know 2,000 faculty interested hundreds who signed letters and who showed up at a meeting that was very badly run for hours and hours um so that was a mass effort and it got no response none so this time uh I think a more focused group that has some expertise you know that that has a particular stake in this are going to keep hammering on it and trying to get the word out and then the extension you know Dwayne is also work on this from a different angle he's he works for the energy extension so he can't he's not going to be on the on the letter to the chancellor but he is talking to the chancellor I know and energy transition Institute and is talking to the chancellor in the same way so we've been trying to let all the people who were on the original climate zero T the people who were CCD were on the original climate mitigation task force they are on the chancellor sustainability advisory committee which was supposedly uh supposedly um got a chance to comment on this but from what we hear really didn't um so it it's you know we're trying to contact the people that the chancellor is in contact with and trying to put pressure on him from public sources trying to get the newspapers involved trying to get our you know I think I think that the more different directions he gets us from the more likely he is to respond yeah um you know anything that makes University look bad that's what'll get his attention unfortunately because his goal is to raise the stature of the University right so he needs we need a lot of publicity and we need people talking to him from all directions um all right well that that sounds like a great effort with you and others at you mass and I think I think our role here for ecac is is good what we're doing here is sort of encouraging the town manager to raise some questions and providing the town manager with some information um so that he can be a little bit more knowledgeable as these questions get raised yeah and actually that little that little uh chart from the permit is is pretty telling right because that's what'll happen to all of the admissions and and it is the single biggest Point m in the valley anywhere I think is that yeah and I think that you know people can worry about greenhouse gas emissions and that's some you know future impact on climate blah blah blah but the local impacts Health Human Health impacts of the particulates and the noxes and the sockes those are significant those are real those are going to hurt people in town I I would be surprised if they could get a d permit I mean this is something that I hope people are working on at a different level and that I sort of want to work on too after I retire somebody needs to be talking to D about how bad and I idea it is to give to let power plants convert to renewable fuels like this especially if they're burning methane to start with yeah um which is you know all around cleaner a lot cleaner than Diesel and probably cleaner than most renewable diesels a lot cleaner unfortunately the um in the in the PowerPoint that uh came from UMass there was a picture of a report from nesty the source of the bio the renewable diesel is that do we have access to that report yeah it's not the report that wasn't from a report from nesty the one where they say it's carbon neutral I think it's just a picture in that PowerPoint so um is it more just a sales brochure it's a sale they use the sales brochure there is there is a page where they discuss their evaluation of the life cycle CO2 emission of these fuels ah and they range from 25% of of regular fossil diesel to 50% or 49% or something like that of fossil diesel so there're supposed to be you know or 40% I think it's 25 to 40% of fossil diesel that's what nesty claims if you believe them for some of their products for the ones they they make from waste quote unquote waste oil um and those are the same numbers that the state of California has adopted California actually has regulations on renewable fuels but they pretty much take the word of the companies that produce them so as far as I can tell so um yeah so in no way is anyone except in their brochures where they where nesty also call refers to them as carbon neutral which is just false if you look a little deeper on their website where they talk about the specific products they give numbers for each product and they're 25 to 40% of diesel and remember methane is already I think it's 60 or 70% of diesel I forget exactly it's it's it's cleaner than diesel by quite a bit in CO2 alone I'm not even talking about particulates it also Burns cleaner but just for CO2 it's 60 or 70% of diesel so when you talk about a 50% reduction 40% you know a reduction of of of 60% compared to regular diesel you're talking about a smaller fraction compared to me right it's it's not as even even if you believe nesty's numbers it's not a great deal um so it it you know it's moderately better if you believe their numbers and I for one do not because anybody who tells me they're using waste oil is lying there is no waste oil in the world anymore and I don't know what waste oil means when you're paying for it waste oil is you know you going to your local restaurant and getting their fry oil and using in your diesel truck right that's that's waste oil and that just doesn't happen on a large scale and what does happen is people sell oil and they sell it after it's life they've used it enough to get their money out of it and then they sell it to make more money um you know and then somebody has to plant more oil has to generate more oil to replace that so there's no such thing as waste oil in in a in a industrial scale like this all right uh should we move on I will look at the letter a little bit more closely I've read it once through I will look through in the next day or two to um make any any suggestions I I think it's overall a fairly um sort of gentle letter and I think that's appropriate as it's going to Paul yeah not to you right um and I see Laura's already making some changes in there referring to the noxes and sockes and such and Asthma and that kind of thing so that's good but I will go ahead and and look at that and provide some comments okay and then I guess it sounds like we'll discuss it again next time next meeting yeah and uh and I apologize because it's mostly my fault that I haven't really haven't had a chance to look at it um just between everything else going on in the beginning of the semester con just sorry Lori just a point of order just to make sure that any comments you provide get discussed at the next meeting so um you know if you provide anything make sure that's what you discuss at the next meeting right right right right okay uh back to our usual uh agenda education Outreach do we have anything anyone have anything new Pace I'm I'm not even going to go through them because I think there's probably not d have anything new I'm muted I did attend that ah webinar um on on on what was basically large scale investments in um in Renewables and in climate forward uh uh projects um I'll I'll give you the caveat I mean as I think I said before um where I went to college Williams um has a winter study program and various alumni come back and teach in in this particular January a a woman who is in the U investment and portfolio management team at the New York Greenbank uh came to offer the month-long course on basically large scale financing of um renewable projects um the the caveat is an ungodly number of graduates um from Williams you know take jobs in investment Banks or Venture Capital firms or hedge funds so this was really geared toward you know those sorts of please if you're going to do this you know get yourself involved in organizations that um Finance uh green energy um so I I can't say I learned a lot um although it was kind of there was a focus on areas that I don't pay that much attention to and and I should since at one point in time I represented um the plant manager of a power plant here in the valley that was a natural gas power plant um that was being investigated um for violating its emissions uh and other issues um and so I ended up doing a lot of work at the you know in connection with the grid and this particular webinar I was on you know I mean this woman brought to brought right to the front how the grid is really not built for with Renewables in mind um and so not only do we have an issue of how to develop more Renewables but you know what I consider to be a you know a back office issue of you know H how are we able to meet the demands as the demands change um with Renewables so you know lots of investment in in looking toward batteries but as as you all know you can't you don't store electricity very easily um and so we've got a grid that runs on oh wow it's Peak demand you know start up I mean not so much coal anymore but start up your natural gas plants um because you can start them up and and shut them down um so there was a whole lot of discussion in you know uh you know sort of climate technology Venture Capital funds or organizations and you know better software to manage the grid um but ultimately there's going to have to be a lot of investment in um storing electricity as we uh as as we move toward more and more Renewables so I was kind of fascinated by that aspect and being brought back to the front because it's going to be a big deal yeah um can produce all the Renewables you want but you're not producing them at 10:00 at night um yeah and it's it's a it's a real long-term problem yeah and with that in mind when we get to update somebody remind me to talk about the first light renewal because that's come up again um Don did the the conversation turned to nuclear power at all it did not interestingly enough um although I'm sure if there's money to be made I'm sure some of these Venture Capital uh firms or hedge funds I mean I know I know for a fact hedge funds own a lot of power plants but but hedge fund owns the power plant that I was representing the plant manager in the criminal investigation um they just do wherever they can make money yeah they're in um but there was no there was no discussion of of nuclear although I think it's inevitable we're going to have to deal with that um you know in a in a very real way yeah yeah I agree I think it's happening already with Amazon and others um supporting and buying power from nuclear power plants it's happening Connecticut I believe is going to reconsider um their their restrictions against using nuclear power and I I think it's it's going to take off really fast and more than that there are now these small modular reactors right that the nuclear power industry is selling as um the hottest new thing the the thought is that they're basically the same technology as the old big reactors um with more safety features because they're a newer Generation Um but they are small they you can get a 10 megawatt plant or even a 5 megawatt I think uh nuclear power plant to run your little business off in the middle L Idaho um and it runs all the time and it runs more reliably than anything else and uh you don't even have to be on the grid you can just connect you know you can have your own little grid micro grids out of these things so it's it solves the grid problem and it Sol it solves a lot of problems unfortunately um better or worse and there's a lot of interest in it because the B Administration put money into it and I would expect that Venture capitalists are also now looking at it the problem is it's a little bit nuclear energy is still poison right by by its horrible track record and its dangers um and the fact that it is very very expensive because of all the safety measures that you need to take and to compare to putting up a wind farm it's it's much much much more expensive so it solves your grid problem but it doesn't doesn't solve some other problems um yeah I'm also expecting it to be on the upturn we'll see but I don't I don't think it's inevitable to our new president considers wind farms a particular anathema yes I know all the killing killing the whales or something like that but or the birds or whatever um but no I mean and there's a lot of improvements that can be made in the grid one thing I was Absolut I mean this was like four years ago that I was dealing with this you know criminal investigation into the power plant in agam um and is so old school you know you you called up the Grid on a phone um you know and or they called you and it it's like so there's a whole lot that can be done with kind of software and algorithms and things that can really make that a lot more efficient I mean I was floored you you you make a phone call um or enough but yeah if you want to see something fun um the uh the company remember the company Enron oh yeah yeah Enron is this back sort of and um it's actually the the logo and trademark was purchased by the group that did the birds aren't real spoof year couple years ago so you can go to Enron decom and it's it's a spoof and one of the spoofs that they offer is really great one it's that called the Enron egg and it's a small modular nuclear reactor that you could put in your basement and it could power your house um and they do a really slick job of presenting it um so it's a great spoof okay Enron I'll I'll Google Enron yeah look the Enron egg is Theon egg I want to at least get the empty box for it to put out on the front of my house oh man uh I'm glad we can still laugh yeah that's important all right um I don't have anything else we did heat pumps already Tony's not here and resilient schools I Have Nothing More on so unless anyone else has anything under education and Outreach advisory and support do we have anything on the rental building efficiency bylaw or solar bylaw Steve um no no not nothing much and unfortunately my teaching schedule conflicts with the monthly calls for the um sort of regional rental Energy Efficiency group so I'm I'm not going to be able to participate in those most I guess most Thursdays um this spring there might be a couple that I can um so I'll I'll try to keep up with whatever updates come by and um so either somebody could take my place sitting in on that or or Stephanie if she's still are you still participating in that group yeah I was just about uh to raise my hand to say that I um I am part of that group I wasn't able to make the last meeting but I am part of that group still so okay somebody else doesn't attend I will be able to give some updates okay that's great I um I appreciate with you being able to give updates and I'll I'll try to attend when I can um as far as the draft solar bylaw I don't think the uh CRC has discussed it the meeting last night the agenda at least indicated that it was all about the University Drive um zoning district and nothing on the solar bylaw okay do you know Stephanie if that um if they've got it on a schedule for upcoming meetings it was tentatively on for last night you know to go to be addressed at around 8:00 but it never did so I think um until they complete the University Drive issue I think it's just kind of on hold until that gets sorted it's kind of a priority they need to sort of come to a a decision on that because that's also going before the planning board as well so y that's reasonable I'll try to keep track of that and Stephanie if you could Point give me a little prompts if you know when it's coming up at a future meeting that would be helpful sure I'm you know I hate to I I always feel guilty if I mention it to you and then you're sitting there and then it never comes up so I hate to waste your time too but I will um if I'm more confident that it's going to be discussed I will let you know okay yeah if it shows up in the agenda I'll try to look at the agendas but if it shows up I appreciate your your reminders sure okay I have if that's it uh without Tony here I have one uh Regional update um at some point I want to look at the carefully at the new Mass Save rules and maybe come back with a little report on how things have changed but uh for right now I just want to mention Joe comerford's note uh Regional issue regarding the first light Powers Turners fall Dam and the Northfield Mountain pump storage facility so these are the pump storage facility and and the dam are things that you know are really desperately needed right now the the storage facility is is energy storage it's they pump water up the hill and they let it down the hill and it runs turbines as it goes downhill and so when there's excess energy they use it to pump water uphill and when they need energy when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining they drop they let it flow through their power plant um so there is a renewal process going on and there's a public comment period right now I can forward this email to the to the group to you Stephanie for sending to the group I think um they're looking for third and final public engagement event in the relicensing process which is a hybrid public meeting and a written public comment period on the draft uh wqc which is the water quality certification decision that's apparently the big thing that's been holding this up is the water quality certification um and there's a bunch of information that here the hybrid meeting isn't until February 19th uh it's in Greenfield but I understand that the comment periods are in some ways more important because um they you know the the meeting is just a onetime thing but the public comments come in for a month and uh it's written and they have it to take with them right it's it's on the record um in a more substantial way I think so uh I'll send this to you the co comment period started this week and goes through February 24th at 5:00 pm and there's more information on where to go for information on that so that's something that I would think folks in eak might want to comment on just as individuals and if you know anyone else you might want to forward it to them as well um can you say the name of the project or the it's the first light power uh Turner Falls Dam and Northfield Mountain pump storage facilities thanks but first light power is probably sufficient first light power uh license renewal relicensing they call it so I I haven't been keeping very close track of that except to occasionally throw a comment in but um I hope it's going smoothly I it's it's funny that Joe is sending updates on that because I'm not quite sure how I got on that list so it makes me think that that she might be worried about it and wants to let people know that this is going on but I know there's been a lot of um controversy around it I think mostly around water quality all right that's the only Regional update I have and that brings us to staff up and if there's nothing else under advisory and support brings us to staff updates thanks Lori um I don't really have much since our last meeting same initiatives are moving forward um sustainability so we do have the sustainability Festival though um coming up so that's in April and I just um did some Outreach to last year's participants and already have several folks who have gotten back and said they want want to participate so um I do think this is an important year because some of the things that we thought we would have last year we actually do have this year so Valley you know Valley Bike is up and running so um I'm encouraging them to have a a presence at the festival um so I'm hoping they will and then also heat pumps the heat pump program will be launching so they they definitely have that on their agenda as something that they will table at so you know we'll have the heat pump program going so um and you all you know Lori you're heat P you heat pump coach Booth your you know heat pump coach advice five cents Booth is quite was quite popular last year and I hit so I think that'll that'll be a great draw especially if we advertise it you know and put the word out about it again this year um free heat pump coaching yeah it's great so I think um you know I think we have some really solid things that we want to promote this year I don't know how large uh you know again last year was half the size the event has been in the past and I think now because the farmers market is right on the common with us that's totally fine I don't think it needs to be a huge um event with tons of vendors I think what's more important is having sort of quality booths with information for the for residents of the town like about you know the the heat pump program and the coaching and that sort of thing I think are more you know really more in the vein of what the event is supposed to be about I mean as a you know it's really an educational event is what it's primarily supposed to be and did that email that I got today go out to everybody or is that just to me as chair that go out to everyone on eak which which one sustainability the one about the schedule I not the schedule I got an email about the sustainability Festival oh that um that just goes out to the vendors so that's the one that I just sent out to all of the participants from prior year just to say that you know so just so you know it's the date is April 26 that's wanted to make sure everybody knew so the date isil April 26 please put it on your calendars um it would be great if everybody could be there at some point even if you only put in an hour yes you know it's a really it's a fun event and it's a really great way to engage with people so um it it's fun it goes from 10: a.m. to 4 p.m. and setup is like at 8 and we usually bring out a table and some B I have a banner I have an eat Banner somewhere I think it's on top of my bookshelf back there and um you know we we sit at the booth and talk to people about whatever they want to talk about in different years we've had different approaches to you know do we want to have Flyers do we want to have a specific theme we want to you know how do we how are we going to what are we going to talk to people about and we can talk more about that as time gets closer and we'll also put together a schedule so please if you if you if at all possible try to reserve a little bit of time on April 26th to sit in the eak booth and talk to people at the sustainability Festival it really is a lot of fun um also uh those of you who are engaged with students have access to students um always love it if student groups have Booth Spa you know have a booth and sort of you know can do some engagement around the work that they do um that would be helpful so please encourage any groups that you um are in contact with to to get in touch with me and you know it's free it's free Booth space it's fun day um they get to really engage with the community in ways that they don't typically you know if they're on campus they're not really they don't have the kind of exposure to the you know the broader ammer community so it's great to have them have this opportunity to do that um and also so we do have that demonstration area so if there's something that you know of or again if there are students who have some kind of a demonstration that they want to do in the past we've done agricultural practices we've done things like solar oven demonstrations um there have been all kinds of um groups I mean we've also had folks who taught people how to juggle which was a huge success actually so you know it doesn't have to be just you know necessarily specifically related to um to the to the work that we're doing but you know even something that's kind of fun for the community would be great so your thinking caps just let people know that was there an induction Hot Plate set up last year I don't remember if there was or if there was supposed to be and it didn't happen I don't remember some students I thought were going to do some high school students were going to do something if they don't if nobody else does that I now have an induction hot plate so I can bring it um and plug it in and make people tea on it or something like that you could do that I mean you could do that at the you know have that at the booth too it doesn't have to be a demo that's what I mean yeah it can be right at the booth yeah uh did Sunrise UMass participate do they usually participate I feel like they did last time um so I can reach out to those folks now since I'm now in contact with them I think they did but though yeah we to have them back um or if they didn't we'd love to have them it does conflict with um I think I don't know if it will this year sometimes it conflicts with what's going on at UMass so sometimes falls on the same day uh as something else um let's see if I have anything on my I don't think so nothing that I know of the doesn't mean there's not um all right that let's see items for the next agenda we're going to finish up with the letter um I think we can take the item five off the discussion of the res um heat pump program we can we can do that as part of the heat pump program back in the education Outreach again I think because that can move back to the background at this point point I think um we're still going to try to elect the vice chair or get a volunteer and um I don't know that I have anything else anyone else have anything to the agenda do you want to keep the Elevate event yes yes because hopefully Tony will be here next time and we can talk more about that and Laura's letter and Laura's letter yeah we'll finish that up even if Laura's not here so you can put my name under that too we'll be sure to discuss it but it's okay for us to send our comments to Laura as long as we show the letter next time and talk about what has changed and make sure that yeah you can see the comments you can see the comments okay so we comment directly on the um on the letter I mean I know there's technically some issues but even for doing that but as long as we share it at the next meeting and we don't have a discussion I think it's okay okay so no discussing the comments while we're making the comments just make your comment and be gone and then right and then we can display it and discuss them at the next meeting right sounds good if it's a um is it okay for me to address the comment and leave the comment there so if it's like an editorial comment I could make the change I think it's okay for you to make changes right you can yeah I mean ideally that would all happen at a meeting but I think it's okay if you make note that you're making the change somehow like highlight it make note and then it can be discussed at the at the meeting and then um final decisions can be made about those edits right because if it weren't a shared document it would be okay for us to just email Laura with our input right right it's the fact that you shouldn't all be sharing you should not be using Google Docs so maybe we shouldn't maybe we should just just don't comment make it just viewable Laura and we'll send you comments separately is that okay well I think because she won't be at the next meeting I think if you do what we suggested which was as long as it's all evident all right you know you made a change she edited it and then at the next meeting you all can decide if the edits that were made are okay all right and decide if the letter how you want to finalize the letter right right okay sounds good okay good so if there's nothing else else do we have a move to adjourn move in a second and we already is there no public right no public yeah all right then see you all in two weeks hang in there everybody right night bye