"Americans' preferences for bigger houses and wider use of air conditioning could drive up energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. residential buildings, even with a continued trend toward carbon-free electricity, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Yale School of the Environment assessed energy consumption and emissions from residential buildings between 1990 and 2015, according to a university statement this week. They considered the energy and emissions impacts of trends in average household size, floor area per household, access to residential cooling and 'fuel switching,' such as from natural gas to electric heating.

Greenhouse gas emissions from the residential sector have decreased by 2% per year on average since having peaked in 2005. But trends toward larger single-family homes and smaller household sizes could soon cause emissions to creep back up, concluded the study in Environmental Research Letters.

'To achieve more ambitious emission reductions in the coming years and decades, floor space per person needs to definitely stabilize or perhaps decrease,' said Peter Berrill, a doctoral student in industrial ecology at Yale and the paper's lead author. 'This can only really happen if average size of new construction decreases quite a lot.'"

Miranda Willson reports for E&E News May 11, 2021. [2]