Embedded Files
Warm and Cool Homes
MEET WES GOLOMB, THE ENERGY GEEK
Wes Golomb has spent 34 years teaching energy and sustainability at the college level, and more than four decades as an environmental advocate — from organizing the first Earth Day in Boston to serving today on New Hampshire's Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy Board. His next book, The Power Problem, is coming in 2027.
I've been interested in sustainable energy since the '60s. In college, I helped organize the first Earth Day in Boston, and helped build several solar greenhouses. After grad school, where I studied environmental science, I taught high school science, and like any good American teacher, I needed a second job.
My interests led me to energy, and somewhere around 1980, I became the second “certified” energy auditor in New Hampshire and soon after opened my own business called Warm Homes. We did energy auditing and retrofits, built solar greenhouses, and installed solar hot water systems.
Since then, I've spent my life studying and teaching Environmental Science with a particular focus, interest, and passion, which more than one of my friends has referred to as an obsession with sustainable energy!
About 20 years ago, I had a fellowship at the National Renewable Energy Lab. They had an educational display with a question: What percent of our energy could we get from sustainable sources? It was multiple guesses; the answer was more than 100%.
Everything I've learned since then supports their conclusion. For economic, political, and ecological reasons, it is becoming imperative that we make that transition to a green economy as quickly as possible.
Along the way, I founded and directed the first Energy Services Technology degree program in the Northeast, recognized by the NH State Senate and the New England Board of Higher Education — every graduate of the program walked into a living-wage job. I've served on New Hampshire's Energy Efficiency and Sustainable Energy Board by gubernatorial appointment, spent 12 years on the board of the NH Sustainable Energy Association, and chaired my town's Energy Committee here in Deerfield, where we've helped bring solar power to 63 homes and, this fall, our own town offices.
I started The Energy Geek in 2017 to share what I was learning, and it's grown from there. My new book, The Power Problem: Energy, Empire, and the Case for a New Way Forward, argues that what's standing between us and a clean energy future isn't technology — it's politics. It's on its way to publishers now, with a 2027 release planned.
You'll also find:
• Warm and Cool Homes — my book and video series on how New Hampshire's best high-performance homes are built, and what makes them work so well
• The Energy Geek (my Substack) — where I write about the energy transition, and where readers from around the world share how climate change is showing up, and being addressed, in their own communities
Whether you'd like to invite me to speak, bring these materials into your classroom, or just want to keep up with the book, I'd love to hear from you.
Thanks for visiting.
Wes Golomb The Energy Geek
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse