By Ines Q Compton

It is the 39th celebration of Earth Day today. It all started in 1970. In the 60’s and early 70’s, Democrats and Republicans came together and signed into law both the Clean Air Act (1963) and the Clean Water Act (1972), beginning an effort to take care of our environment. Things have back-slided and if you check in, there is much to be done to get our country to function sustainably.

I attended an Earth Day talk given by Susan Joy Hassol, a woman living in Basalt Colorado who stands before Congress  translating the science of our current global climate situation into english. Her speech contained many interesting facts. The one I could remember and keep in my awareness was the number 40% to 60%.

This is the percentage by which the 10 biggest CO2-EMITTING AND CARBON-PRODUCING COUNTIRES in the world have to reduce their emissions as soon as possible.

She mentioned a window that is very brief. She demonstrated how California uses 40% less than average households in the U.S. How is that possible? she made the point: they are still heating and cooling their houses, having cool beers, doing all the things we all think we must go without to save that much energy. How are they doing this? Almost entirely through making their power consumption 40% more efficient. And they have.

SO it is possible.WHat and how to do this?

Our houses represent our biggest area of potential improvement, on the smale scale . Fossil-fuel-generated electricity for a single home emits more carbon dioxide into the air than two average cars do? So you can just imagine the impacts of office buildings and factories…

So I decided to look into getting grants for retrofitting your house to be energy efficient. GOOD NEWS! The Assisted Housing Stability and Energy and Green Retrofit Investments Stimulus Program

Grant DCFA number: 14.318

It has not been posted yet. Keep checking in at grants.gov , click on search the recovery act, click on New Search, enter the CDFA number mentioned above, 14.318.

When it is made available, is meant ” to make energy and green retrofit investments in the property, to ensure the maintenance and preservation of the property, the continued operation and maintenance of energy efficiency technologies, and the timely expenditure of funds.”

A friend of ours in California just  finished retrofitting a house to the extent that they are off the grid and producing excess green energy to sell back to local power gird at a fairly decent rate of passive income. The cost of the retrofit, which was comprehensive, and the house was large, amounted to $200,000. The government funds, local and state rebate programs, will amount to $150,000. Not bad.

Here are some other things to look into besides the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (“Recovery Act”) , passed in February of 2009. There are all sorts of grants the government has given to local and state organizations to disburse in their areas.  There is a fairly comprehensive list at this website here , at Dsire USA.

Here you can select by state, whether for private or business needs, from corporate energy efficiency rebate programs and Tax Incentive Programs, to rebates per KwH for individual homeowners who choose to buy new energy efficient appliances.
Take a look for your area, click on programs you are interested, contact their contact person and see what else there is out there. Though these are not government grants directly to you, they are indeed grants made available to counties and state bodies to distribute.

I am going to write a proposal myself. Will let you know.