Clarence Hayes joined Westport’s Representative Town Meeting in 2023. He serves on its Long Range Planning, Environment, Transit and IT committees.
He recently retired from a career in information technology. His final position was senior vice president of global networks at Bank of America.
Clarence Hayes
Clarence has 2 daughters and 5 grandchildren (2 are at Kings Highway Elementary School).
An avid amateur naturalist and walker, he is concerned about the future of the planet — and the environment’s effects on Westport.
In May, Clarence wrote an Opinion piece for “06880” on electric cars, hybrids and SUVs in Westport.
It was not very encouraging. Despite a small drop in emissions from 2018 to 2023, it was like trading in your Hummer for a Suburban – a little less polluting, but nothing to brag about.
Today, he addresses greenhouse gas emissions. Clarence writes:
As part of my volunteer work in support of the RTM Long Range Planning Committee, I am analyzing Westport’s greenhouse gas emissions.
This analysis is on emissions generated by home heating. Unfortunately this situation is worse than my previous one. If cars get a “D” on the NetZero report card, home heating gets an “F.” Emissions have gone up.
Even though there has been a strong movement from oil heat to gas, it has been overwhelmed by the massive increase in the size of house
From 2014 to 2024, the percentage of Westport’s total occupied building area heated by oil dropped from 64% to 50%, an encouraging transition of 3.5 million square feet. Oil heat generates roughly 39% more greenhouse gases than natural gas for the same heat energy result. So this represents sizable progress.
However, accompanying this was a total net addition of 3 million more square feet to be heated. So even though all the new living area uses natural gas, the total net new emissions are greater than the reduction from the drop in oil heating.
This 7-bedroom, 8 1/2-bathroom home near Compo Beach is 10,061 square feet. It was built in 2014.
Additionally, there has been only a trivial increase in electric, geothermal or solar assisted heating in the same 10 years, moving from 3.7% of the town total to a mere 4%.
How can we be going backwards?
The answer is obvious. Look around at the enormous white boxes with black windows, popping up all over town. Every renovation or teardown replacement results in a new structure which has at least doubled the living area of the one it replaced.
In the past 3 years, there were 179 teardowns, with an average increase of 222% in size. The average living area went from 2,567 square feet per property to 5,704.
Although the new structures are generally better insulated and sealed than those they replace, the improvements would have to cut energy consumption in half just to get back to the status quo ante.
Efficiency reductions of 30% or more are possible with new structures. Let’s say I have a house with 139 units of GHG emissions using oil to start with. I convert to gas and go down to 100 units.
Now I build bigger and increase the size 222%; we get 222 units of GHG. Then assume a 30% reduction in energy required due to improved seal/insulation in new structures. We drop back to 155 units of GHG – which is more than the 139 units of GHG we started with.
These results are based on the Westport Grand List at the end of 2014, and as of February 2024.
Westport is making zero progress on its “NetZero 2050” objective.
The people with the largest GHG emissions in the world are those who can most easily make a meaningful contribution. It is much less impactful on one’s quality of life to make a 3 tons per person reduction, if your starting point is 28 (like Westport, -10.7%), as opposed to say 15 (like Bridgeport, -20%), or 7 (like China, -43%).
Much of Westport energy consumption is for show – a big, largely unoccupied house; big, impressive cars; large properties manicured by small armies of landscapers, etc.
If any town can afford to do something for the greater good of the global climate, it is Westport.
(Please contact me at chayes@westportct.gov with any questions on the analysis, or for access to the data.)
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