Electrification for Beginners

Like a lot of people, I’ve felt powerless to confront climate change. Gestures like recycling, cutting down on driving, and eating less meat feel pathetically disproportionate to the global problems of megafires, out-of-control weather, and habitat destruction caused by humans.

Collaborating with engineer and inventor Saul Griffith to write Electrify: An Optimist’s Playbook for Our Clean Energy Future (MIT Press, 2022), I learned that each of us can do more than we think to positively affect climate change. Electrify, which we wrote with technical assistance from scientist and engineer Sam Calisch, became the backbone of policy for Rewiring America, the climate advocacy group Griffith cofounded in 2020 to help people lower their carbon emissions.

It turns out that one of the most effective tools we have for fighting climate change is electrification. About 42 percent of our energy-related carbon emissions come from the fossil-fueled appliances in our homes and the vehicles we drive. If we swap those gas-powered machines for electric ones, we’ll go a long way toward lowering our emissions. Modern electric versions of ovens, dryers, and cars are also cheaper to run and cleaner for our personal environments.

This article appears in Issue 24 of Alta Journal.
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The switch to electrification isn’t something you have to do immediately. For many of us, changing our home’s heating systems or the cars we drive before the end of their life cycle would be prohibitively expensive, but we can and should replace those things with electric versions when they become obsolete. The up-front costs of electric machines are going down (EVs should achieve sticker parity with gas-guzzlers by 2026, for example), and over time these upgrades also lead to greater savings. The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest piece of climate legislation ever passed, includes $369 billion in incentives to electrify.

Going electric is challenging for renters but not impossible. On the advice of Calisch, who lives in Berkeley, I bought an electric rug heater (about $200) for my uninsulated San Francisco apartment. I’m a picky cook, but I rarely use my gas range now that I have an induction cooktop and a large toaster oven. My husband and I got electric bikes when one of our cars was totaled, and we plan to drive our 2005 compact, with its bumper sticker that says “My Next Car Will Be Electric,” into the ground.

Each small step we as consumers take toward electrification increases demand for electrified machines, encouraging manufacturers to build more. At scale, the costs will come down even further.

Here are the six most important ways you can upgrade to electric and downgrade your carbon footprint.•