By Audrey Henderson for Energy News Network.
Broadcast version by Terri Dee for Illinois News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

As low-income households face the dual burden of weather extremes and high energy costs, energy efficiency is an increasingly important strategy for both climate mitigation and lower utility bills.

Passive House standards - which create a building envelope so tight that central heating and cooling systems may not be needed at all - promise to dramatically slash energy costs, and are starting to appear in "stretch codes" for buildings, including in Massachusetts, Illinois, Washington and New York.

And while some builders are balking at the initial up-front cost, other developers are embracing passive house metrics as a solution for affordable multifamily housing.

"We're trying to make zero energy, high performing buildings that are healthy and low energy mainstream everywhere," said Katrin Klingenberg, co-founder and executive director of Passive House Institute-U.S., or Phius.

Klingenberg says the additional work needed to meet an aggressive efficiency standard, is, in the long run, not that expensive. Constructing a building to passive standards is initially only about 3%-5% more expensive than building a conventional single family home, or 0%-3% more for multifamily construction, according to Phius.

"This is not rocket science... We're just beefing up the envelope. We're doing all the good building science, we're doing all the healthy stuff. We're downsizing the [heating and cooling] system, and now we need someone to optimize that process," Klingenberg said.

Phius in practice and action

A Phius-certified building does not employ a conventional central heating and cooling system. Instead, it depends on an air-tight building envelope, highly efficient ventilation and strategically positioned, high-performance windows to exploit solar gain during both winter and summer and maximize indoor comfort.

The tight envelope for Phius buildings regulates indoor air temperature, which can be a literal lifesaver when power outages occur during extreme heat waves or cold snaps, said Doug Farr, founder and principal of architecture firm Farr Associates.

Farr pointed to the example of the Academy for Global Citizenship in Chicago, which was built to Phius standards.

"There was a really cold snap in January. Somehow the power went out [and the building] was without electricity for two or three days. And the internal temperature in the building dropped two degrees over three days."

Farr said that example shows a clear benefit to high efficiency that justifies the cost.

"You talk about the ultimate resilience where you're not going to die in a power outage either in the summer or the winter. You know, that's pretty valuable."

There is also a business case to be made for implementing Phius and other sustainability metrics into residential construction, such as lowered bills that can appeal to market-rate buyers and renters, and reduced long-term maintenance costs for building owners.

AJ Patton, founder and CEO of 548 Enterprise in Chicago, says in response to questions about how to convince developers to consider factors beyond the bottom line, simply, "they shouldn't."

Instead, he touts lower operating costs for energy-efficiency metrics rather than climate mitigation when he pitches his projects to his colleagues.

"I can't sell people on climate change anymore," he said. "If you don't believe by now, the good Lord will catch you when He catch you.

"But if I can sell you on lowering your operating expenses, if I can sell you on the marketability, on the fact that your tenants will have 30%, 40% lower individual expenses, that's a marketing angle from a developer owner, that's what I push on my contemporaries," Patton said. "And then that's when they say, 'if you're telling the truth, and if your construction costs are not more significant than mine, then I'm sold.'"

Phius principles can require specialized materials and building practices, Klingenberg said. But practitioners are working toward finding ways to manage costs by sourcing domestically available materials rather than relying on imports.

"The more experienced an architect [or developer] gets, they understand that they can replace these specialized components with more generic materials and you can get the same effect," Klingenberg said.

Patton is presently incorporating Phius principles as the lead developer for 3831 W Chicago Avenue, a mixed use development located on Chicago's West Side. The project, billed as the largest passive house design project in the city to date, will cover an entire city block, incorporating approximately 60 mixed-income residential units and 9,000 sq ft of commercial and community space.

Another project, Sendero Verde, located in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, is the largest certified passive-house building in the United States with 709 units. Completed in April, Sendero Verde is designed to provide cool conditions in the summer and warmth during the winter - a vast improvement for the low-income and formerly unhoused individuals and families who live there.

Barriers and potential solutions

Even without large upfront building cost premiums and with the increased impact of economies of scale, improved technology and materials, many developers still feel constrained to cut costs, Farr said.

"There's entire segments of the development spectrum in housing, even in multifamily housing in Chicago, where if you're a developer of rental housing time and again ... they feel like they have no choice but to keep things as the construction as cheap as possible because their competitors all do. And then, some architecture firms only work with those 'powerless' developers and they get code-compliant buildings."

But subsidies, such as federal low income housing credits, IRS tax breaks and resources from the Department of Energy also provide a means for developers to square the circle, especially for projects aimed toward very low-income residents.

Nonetheless, making the numbers work often requires taking a long-term view of development, according to Brian Nowak, principal at Sweetgrass Design Studio in Minnesota. Nowak was the designer for Hillcrest Village, an affordable housing development in Northfield that does not utilize Phius building metrics, but does incorporate net-zero energy usage standards.

"It's an investment over time, to build resilient, energy-efficient housing," he told the Energy News Network in June 2023.

"That should be everyone's goal. And if we don't, for example, it affects our school system. It affects the employers at Northfield having people that are readily available to come in and fill the jobs that are needed.

"That's a significant long-term benefit of a project like this. And that is not just your monthly rents on the building; it's the cost of the utilities as well. When those utilities include your electricity and your heating and cooling that's a really big deal."

Developers like Patton are determined to incorporate sustainability metrics into affordable housing and commercial developments both because it's good business and because it's the right thing to do.

"I'm not going to solve every issue. I'm going to focus on clean air, clean water, and lowering people's utility bills. That's my focus. I'm not going to design the greatest architectural building. I'm not even interested in hiring those type of architects.

"I had a lived experience of having my heat cut off in the middle of winter. I don't want that to ever happen to anybody I know ever again," Patton said. "So if I can lower somebody's cost of living, that's my sole focus. And there's been a boatload of buy-in from that, because those are historically [not] things [present] in the communities I invest in."


Audrey Henderson wrote this article for Energy News Network.


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Nevada legislators and conservation groups this week stood up for policies they say will help lower energy bills, protect the outdoors and grow the state's economy.

Kristee Watson, executive director of the Nevada Conservation League, said NCL is working to hold utility monopolies such as NV Energy and Southwest Gas accountable. A recent survey found that almost 90% of respondents agree that both utility companies must do more to keep bills affordable.

Watson said Nevada families are crunching numbers to cover expenses.

"It is our job to show up and tell our legislators that we're going to advocate for ourselves and the rest of everyday Nevadans," she said. "Times are tough, the fight is hard, I am frustrated, I am exhausted, I know all of us are. But this is also a worthwhile fight."

Watson said they're advocating for legislation to create ratepayer protections to ensure utilities spend customer dollars wisely and responsibly. Meanwhile, companies such as NV Energy and Southwest Gas have contended they're forced to raise rates to ensure all Nevadans receive quality service. NV Energy says it uses grants and other payment options to reduce consumer costs. Earlier this year, the company asked the state's Public Utility Commission to increase its base-rate charges.

Assemblyman Howard Watts, D-Las Vegas, called conservation and clean energy "quality of life issues." He said now is the time to address issues such as excessive heat, drought and wildfires by unlocking the potential of renewables. That's why he's sponsoring Assembly Bill 458, also known as the Solar-Power Affordable Housing bill, which he said "will expand the use of rooftop solar power in affordable-housing communities. These are residents who are dealing with these issues every day, but unfortunately they've been locked out from the benefits that solar energy can provide."

AB 458 awaits action in the Committee on Growth and Infrastructure.

Assemblyman Steve Yeager, D-Las Vegas, sponsored the bill that led to the creation of the Nevada Outdoor Education and Recreation Grant Program. He said the initiative provides outdoor experiences for Nevada students, and that continued support is vital.

"This grant is about equity and sustainability," he said. "It is about making sure that future generations inherit not just the beauty of Nevada's outdoors but the ability to enjoy it safely and responsibly."

By Nina B. Elkadi for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Nadia Ramlagan for West Virginia News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

Egg prices have never been this high. To address this, newly appointed United States Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins recently outlined a five-pronged plan to address high egg prices for American consumers: including potentially importing eggs. Importing eggs is not the norm in the United States, especially considering this country is the second-largest egg exporter in the world. We produce over 100 billion eggs per year, millions of which go to Canada and Mexico.

The U.S. plans to import 420 million eggs from Turkey - barely a drop in the 100 billion-eggs-annually bucket. Even if the U.S. imported one billion eggs, that would only lower prices by a small percentage, Associate Dean of the School of Public Policy at UC Riverside Bruce Babcock tells Sentient. If the U.S. wanted to lower prices by, say, 10 percent, it would need to import close to 2 billion eggs, he says. And by the time that happens, more chickens will likely have been culled - meaning the "lower" price may still be much higher for consumers than pre-avian flu levels.

In order to keep up with avian flu, which is still spreading, the U.S. would need to import billions, not millions of eggs. Other countries also might not want their own domestic egg supplies to diminish, which could in turn raise their prices.

"Whether or not we can actually import that many eggs to have that kind of price effect is probably not possible, because other countries don't have that many surplus eggs, and if they did try to export that many eggs to the United States, their egg prices would rise dramatically," Babbock says. "It's not clear that it's feasible, but is it theoretically possible? Yes."

Importing Eggs: a Fragile Plan

Eggs are incredibly fragile and need to be refrigerated, making them an expensive commodity to trade, explains James Mitchell, Assistant Professor and Extension Livestock Economist at the University of Arkansas. "Think about how careful you have to be transporting eggs from the grocery store to your house," Mitchell tells Sentient.

As avian influenza continues to spread, each day resulting in the death of thousands of chickens (killed by culling), the U.S. government is scrambling to get a hold of how to keep costs low for consumers. Thus far, they have not been successful, and importing eggs seems like one of the least economically viable options considering the scale of the problem.

Factory Farms Have Boosted Cheap Egg Supply, But at a Cost to Public Health

Over 99 percent of farmed animals are raised in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), where they often do not have room to move around or see daylight. According to a new report by Food & Water Watch, the system is incredibly consolidated: 75 percent of egg-laying hens in the U.S. are raised on fewer than 350 factory farms, and the vast majority - 99 percent - of commercial laying hens impacted by bird flu lived on factory farms.

The efficiency of factory farms and increasing consolidation in agriculture has historically enabled eggs to be an extremely cheap commodity at the grocery store. Feed costs are low, and factory farms are highly efficient, churning out millions of eggs per month. But the true cost of these operations can be seen in their externalities: a lack of animal welfare, pollution and compromised worker safety.

"With regards to animal welfare, we're probably the worst country in the world with our battery cages," Babcock says. "Any country that crams those laying hens into little battery cages...It's just inhumane, in my opinion, but that's my opinion, because I care about animal welfare."

CAFOs are notorious breeding grounds for highly pathogenic diseases. Animals often defecate on top of one another and ventilation is scarce.

"When disease hits a production facility, and they have to destroy all the chickens that are laying hens, there's so many in one location that it disrupts the supply of eggs nationally to a much greater extent than if you had smaller production units spread out across the countryside," Babcock says. "Consolidation increases the risk to our food security. It doesn't decrease the risk."

When one chicken tests positive for avian influenza, the entire flock needs to be killed, though new secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is interested in trying out "therapeutic drugs" on flocks to avoid culling.

Uncertainty About the Trump Administration's Avian Flu Plan

Advocates from across the aisle are calling for the federal government to intervene. Rollins responded with her plan to put $1 billion toward avian flu research. But with sweeping federal government cuts from the Department of Agriculture to the Food and Drug Administration, including within the avian flu research team, it is unclear how much will actually get done.

"The actions of the Trump administration to unilaterally disable key roles of government runs completely counter to the proper role of government in providing food security and food safety," Babcock says. "It's almost as if the Trump administration...[is] trying to actually disable the government functions in those areas, and one of them is in food safety."

Additionally, relying on imported eggs also relies on the notion that avian flu will not spread to, or highly affect, the countries the U.S. imports from. So far, avian flu has been detected in 108 countries.

"We don't have a crystal ball, so we don't know how this could look like for those other countries in a month, two months, two months, six months, a year from now," Mitchell says.

Both Mitchell and Babcock agree that the solution rests in collective action to restructure the industry. Mitchell says more research on vaccines and biosecurity are needed, and that the problem extends far beyond factory farms to migratory flocks, too, ushering a need for more cross-departmental collaboration.

"The public good is the ability for producers to produce in a disease-free environment," Babcock says. "Private industry does not provide public goods at the right level."


Nina B. Elkadi wrote this article for Sentient.


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New legislation would bring the insurance industry under Oregon's Unlawful Trade Practices Act.

Supporters said the change would protect consumers from deceptive practices.

Tyler Staggs, an attorney in Portland, represented insurers for nearly 20 years. He said his law firm now advocates for consumers because of the insurance industry's growing unfairness. He cited such cases as a client left homeless when an insurer denied living expenses after a house fire. In another case, he added, a client was denied a claim after a brain injury from a car accident.

"Rather than paying the benefits that the insured paid for, the insurance company lowballs them and delays, to see if they can force them to take a settlement," Staggs explained.

Oregon's insurance industry is the only major industry in the state not subject to the state's Unlawful Trade Practices Act. The bill is scheduled for a work session in the Senate Tuesday.

Staggs pointed out insurance companies argued the change will lead to more lawsuits and higher rates for consumers. He countered if companies are treating people fairly, rates will not have to increase.

"To say, well, 'We shouldn't have this enforcement mechanism because it's going to raise your rates,' really seems like disingenuous and it seems like blackmail," Staggs contended.

Staggs explained under the law, if the court finds a lawsuit to be unjustified, the insured would be responsible for covering the insurance company's legal fees, which protects insurers against baseless claims.

Mike Leib, vice president of Precision Body and Paint, an auto-body repair shop based in Beaverton, said insurers exploit consumers' lack of time and money to fight claims. He noted negotiating with insurers has become combative, as they routinely delay and deny legally required repair reimbursements.

"They are declining required repair procedures by manufacturers," Leib observed. "That can result in an unsafe repair, which can result in a death."

Both Leib and Staggs said insurance companies' quality of service has been worse since the pandemic, when they closed local offices and started depending more on artificial intelligence. They added the legislation would make insurance companies accountable to fairly evaluate claims.


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