Presentation by Audrey Schulman, Co-Founder & Co-Director of HEET

Abstract

Last year, Massachusetts issued an order that the state must begin to transition off of natural gas. The question is how? There are 30,000 miles of gas pipes in the state that together contain four times the energy at winter peak than our electric grid can currently hold. Thus both electric and gas systems, as well as our buildings, will need to be transformed or retrofitted over the next decades. The once-in-a-century transition has to be planned in a street-segment and phased way to reduce costs and disruption, while delivering cleaner energy in an equitable way. Learn about this problem and help think it through.

Bio

Schulman co-founded HEET in 2008. A lover of maps, she created the first-in-the-nation statewide map of utility-reported gas leaks. Through her co-leadership of the FixOurPipes.org study, she helped municipalities coordinate with utilities to find the most effective way to fix gas leaks. She started the Large Volume Leak Study, which discovered a way for gas utilities to identify super-emitting gas leaks and repair them. She also initiated the research that led to the study Home is where the Pipeline Ends, focusing the country’s attention on the health impacts of gas stoves.   Together with Zeyneb Magavi, she has developed HEET’s innovative solution to transition gas utilities from gas to geothermal networks, an approach that is gaining traction among utilities and state legislatures nationwide. Schulman is also the author of six novels, which have been translated into 12 languages and reviewed by The New Yorker, The Economist and CNN.

Presentation Slides