The 40th Ward Environmental Board introduces the Electrification Working Group

Electrification is the concept of switching out technologies that utilize fossil fuels to those that utilize electricity. We can can pursue electrification on an individual basis by switching out technologies typically running on gas like your furnace, water heater, dryer and stove.

Why might you want to electrify?

• Reduced utility bills – natural gas (especially in Chicago) is really expensive, and switching to efficient electric appliances can save you losts of money
• Increase in comfort – a well insulated all-electric home is more comfortable than heating with a natural gas system
• Better indoor and outdoor air quality – gas appliances pollute the outside and inside air while electric appliances don’t burn anything

Net Zero Emissions is the concept of keeping the overall amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) added to the atmosphere after a specific GHG parts-per-million (ppm) is hit to zero. Any further accumulation of GHG ppm beyond this point would increase global warming, significantly harming the global environment.

This is typically done in a two-pronged manner: reducing overall emissions and removing emissions.

Decarbonization refers to reducing the level of excess carbon in the atmosphere produced by concise energy using sectors. On a systems level, we can address the power generation sector by replacing generation from combustion and GHG-emitting sources to renewable and non GHG-emitting ones.

Similarly, we can decarbonize the buildings sector by understanding what buildings-related embodied carbon (carbon emissions in upstream production) and operational carbon (carbon emissions in day-to-day usage) exist and how to get that sector to Net Zero Emissions.