Post-Katrina New Orleans Goes Energy Smart
With this week marking the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans residents are looking back … but they’re also looking ahead, to a more sustainable and energy-efficient future. (They’re also praying feverishly that Gustav doesn’t head their way.)
In addition to all the green rebuilding efforts underway throughout the Crescent City, existing homes that survived the post-storm flooding are also getting eco-friendly makeovers. Those efforts received a boost earlier this summer, when the New Orleans City Council approved the Energy Smart New Orleans Energy Efficiency Program.
Among the program’s goals
- Helping residents and business owners improve energy efficiency, at a rate of 2,500 buildings per year;
- Providing cost-free weatherization improvements to 300 elderly and low-income residents a year;
- Improving 500 homes a year with solar-energy systems;
- Informing builders about ways to make structures more energy efficient.
One hitch remains, though. Officials had hoped to pass a 1 mill per kilowatt-hour hike in electricity prices to fund the program, but that proposal was dropped before council members took their vote. That leaves Energy Smart New Orleans looking good on paper but, for the moment, unfunded in real life.
Two steps forward, one step back, right?
