Courtesy/LAC

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

Is Los Alamos a greenhouse gas guzzler? How can it best reduce its greenhouse gas consumption?

Los Alamos County is tackling these questions by developing a climate action plan. County Sustainability Manager Angelica Gurule is heading the project along with Cascadia Consulting Group.

During the Environmental Sustainability Board (ESB) meeting Tuesday night, Cascadia representatives updated the board on the results of its greenhouse gas study as well as the responses made in a recent community survey on climate change.

Los Alamos’ emission of carbon dioxide was calculated in three different inventories, according to Jenna Decker of Cascadia.

These inventories are:

• Community Wide Geographic, which are emissions that occur within the County’s geographic boundaries.
• This includes emissions from residents, visitors, and activities such as transportation, heating and cooling buildings and solid waste disposal.
• County Operations are considered a part of community emissions, not in addition to. County operations includes the County fleet, energy consumption, solid waste disposal and its wastewater treatment facilities.
• Consumption Based Emission, which are upstream emissions occurring anywhere in the world from residences purchasing goods and services including food, medical services, and traveling.

Here’s what each of these inventories revealed:

Community Wide Geographic Inventory:

Decker reported that the amount of generated carbon dioxide emission is estimated to be 135,976 metric tons in 2022. The largest sources are the building and transportation sectors. The building energy contributes about 53 percent and transportation emits about 39 percent. She noted that Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL) emissions are not included due to data limitations and that the Laboratory is not under the County’s purview. However, LANL does impact the County’s emissions. In 2022, LANL reported that it emitted 405,186 metric tons of carbon dioxide. Decker pointed out that LANL is subject to the executive order 14057, which requires it to reduce emissions by 65 percent by 2030 and be carbon neutral by 2050.

Going into more detail, Decker explained that the building sector addresses the consumption of electricity, natural gas to heat and cool and power homes and commercial properties. Residents’ energy is the leading contributor of building energy emissions at 67 percent and commercial is at 33 percent. Natural gas is the leading source of building energy emissions at 61 percent. The community’s largest emitter in 2022 are passenger and freight transportation at 38 percent, followed by natural gas consumption at 33 percent and electricity consumption at 21 percent.

“Based on these results we recommend that the climate action plan … should aim to expand sustainable transportation options such as biking, walking and public transportation, expand electric vehicle infrastructure … increase building energy efficiency, increase renewable energy sources and promote building electrification,” Decker said.

County Operations Inventory:

Decker reported that the County contributed 12,326 metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022. The County’s largest emissions sources were from transportation at 55 percent and building energy accounted for 31 percent.

She said transportation includes employees commuting as well as the County’s vehicle fleet. The remaining factors are the public transit fleet and employee traveling for work.

Regarding building energy, Decker said that electricity is the biggest contributor and natural gas is second.

“Based on these results we recommend that the County … aim to increase commute trip reduction strategies for County employees, decarbonize buildings and enhance energy efficiency, reduce waste generation and increase waste diversion and shift to a lower carbon fleet and equipment,” she said.

Consumption-Based Emission Inventory

Ben Gould of Cascadia reported on the results of the consumption-based emissions inventory.

He explained the consumption-based emission inventory looks at emissions that are allocated based on purchases that are from national surveys and models, which are scaled down to the local level, Gould said. This modeling approach uses local data as well as six household characteristics: income, vehicle ownership, household size, home size, homeownership and education attainment.

Gould reported on data collected in 2021. Los Alamos’ statistics are higher than the national average for all six characteristics.

The findings show that transportation is the biggest emitter. Gould said the data shows 16 metric tons of carbon dioxide is generated per household. Housing is the third largest at 9 metric tons per household. Food also is at 9 metric tons per household, goods generate 6 metric tons and services emit 10 metric tons.

Overall, the total metric ton of carbon dioxide per household is 50 MTCO2e, Gould said. Community wide consumption-based estimates are 413,000 metric tons.

Even though this number is quite a bit higher than what is reported in the geographic community wide inventory, Gould said there are still overlaps between the two. For instance, transportation is the top greenhouse gas emission in both inventories.

The consumption-based emission inventory also reveals some interesting insight into what releases the most emissions, particularly with food consumption, Gould said.

“If you look at the food category, overall, it is relatively significant … we find meat and dairy combined or animal-based food products are slightly higher than other categories like air travel and electricity emissions,” he said.

There are some bright spots, Gould said emissions are shown to have gone down per household over the last 14-15 years. The total emissions per household were 52 metric tons. The driving forces are a reduction in housing and food emissions, he said.

Environmental Sustainability Board Member Joe Chandler wondered since the inventories were showing different calculations for greenhouse gas emissions, if one inventory should be focused on over the others.

“…which one should the community shoot for, adopt and feel the most confident in because there is a magnitude of difference …,” he said.

Gould said all the inventories are valid since they overlap with each other.

“(They) are not looking at the same thing,” he said. “They’re really more like a Venn Diagram so where they overlap is household activity in the community – so household gasoline consumption, natural gas, electricity use.”

For the government, Gould said the community-wide geographic inventory should be acted on because this is where County government has more authority and jurisdiction. For residents, the consumption-based emission inventory would be more applicable to them.

Results for Climate Action Plan Survey

Decker reported on the results of the Climate Action Plan Survey, which was conducted Sept. 19 through Oct. 18 and garnered 552 respondents.

“Results showed that respondents are most concerned … about drought and water supply … respondents are least concerned within these impacts about extreme precipitation and flooding,” Decker said.

Other concerns, indicated in the survey, she added, are economic and environmental impacts of climate change, the impact of climate change on biodiversity and wildlife and the voiced skepticism toward climate.

“There are a range of responses regarding the broader community’s vision and priorities and what community members want the County’s role to be in climate change,” she said.

When asked what sustainability looks like, Decker said survey responses included energy efficiency, transition to renewable energy sources, water conservation, public transportation, access to electric vehicle chargers, safe and connected pedestrian infrastructure and bike ways, waste diversion, a strong, diverse local economy and wildfire resiliency.

Decker said the survey asked what strategies should be focused on to address climate change. Transitioning to clean, carbon free energy sources was the top choice. This was followed by protecting green spaces and making buildings more energy efficient. The strategies that got less support were reducing emission for goods and services, improving community resiliency and reducing community waste generation.

As far as new strategies, Decker said survey respondents identified education, outreach and transparency, sustainable infrastructure, renewable energy sources, sustainable transportation options, access to electric vehicle chargers, support for local businesses and jobs, water conservation and waste management.

When asked what the barriers or challenges are, Decker said respondents reported cost, general skepticism of validity of climate change, resistance to the change and the politics around climate change.

It was asked by the Environmental Sustainability Board how these results should be interpreted and how to address the community members who are voicing concerns for the climate action plan.

Decker replied sustainability is a County Council priority but there is an effort in creating the climate action plan to mitigate people’s concerns. Public engagement is a key component in this plan and will be used to help inform the outcome of this plan, she added.

The next steps in the development of the climate action, Alicia Fennel said, are to create climate action plan goals and targets and draft analyses in April 2024, finalize strategies and make a draft plan in June 2024 before presenting the final plan to council in October 2024.