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Power Earth

Can Heat Pumps Still Save the Planet from Climate Change? (msn.com) 294

"One technology critical to fighting climate change is lagging," reports the Washington Post, "thanks to a combination of high interest rates, rising costs, misinformation and the cycle of home construction. Adoption of heat pumps, one of the primary ways to cut emissions from buildings, has slowed in the United States and stalled in Europe, endangering the switch to clean energy.

"Heat pump investment in the United States has dropped by 4 percent in the past two years, even as sales of EVs have almost doubled, according to data from MIT and the Rhodium Group. In 13 European countries, heat pump sales dropped nearly in half in the first half of 2024, putting the European Union off-track for its climate goals." "Many many markets are falling," said Paul Kenny, the director general of the European Heat Pump Association. "It takes time to change people's minds about a heating system." Heat pumps — essentially air conditioners that can also work in reverse, heating a space as well as cooling it — are crucial to making buildings more climate-friendly. Around 60 percent of American homes are still heated with furnaces running on oil, natural gas, or even propane; to cut emissions from homes, all American houses and apartments will need to be powered by electricity...

In the United States, experts point to lags in construction, high interest rates, and general belt-tightening from inflation... [Cora Wyent, director of research for the electrification advocacy group Rewiring America] added, heat pumps are still growing as a share of overall heating systems, gaining ground on gas furnaces. In 2023, heat pumps made up 55 percent of all heating systems sold, while gas furnaces made up just 45 percent. "Heat pumps are continuing to increase their total market share," she said.

Homeowners may also run into trouble when trying to find contractors to install heat pumps. Barton James, the president and CEO of the Air Conditioning Contractors of America, says many contractors don't have training on how to properly install heat pumps; if they install them incorrectly, the ensuing problems can sour consumers on the technology... In the United States, low gas prices also make the economics of heat pumps more challenging. Gas is around three times cheaper than electricity — while heat pumps make up most of that ground with efficiency, they aren't the most cost-effective option for every household.

The Post also spoke to the manager for the carbon-free buildings team at the clean energy think tank RMI. They pointed out that heating systems need to be replaced roughly every 15 years — and the next cycle doesn't start until 2035.

The article concludes that "even with government policies and subsidies, many parts of the move to clean energy will require individual people to make changes to their lives. According to the International Energy Agency, the number of heat pumps will have to triple by 2030 to stay on track with climate goals. The only way to do that, experts say, is if incentives, personal beliefs, and technology all align."

Can Heat Pumps Still Save the Planet from Climate Change?

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  • Problem identified (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bumbul ( 7920730 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @10:42AM (#64916149)
    "Gas is around three times cheaper than electricity" That's your problem right there. United States should tax gas much more, so that using greener energy sources would be incentivized. Instead of burning gas and pumping carbon to atmosphere, green energy should be used.
    • by Retired Chemist ( 5039029 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @10:53AM (#64916167)
      Increasing energy costs by taxes is not going to happen in the US. Any politician who suggested such a thing would soon be unemployed. Besides much of that gas is used to generate electricity. Heat pumps may be more climate efficient than gas heat, but you also have to include the costs of creating the electricity. Overall, I am not sure that you would find any real improvement.
      • Here in Califtopia, gas is far far more reliable than electricity.

        • Here in Califtopia, gas is far far more reliable than electricity.

          It is. I can't remember the last time my gas stopped working. Problem is, that's fine for running a stove (if I don't mind not venting it) but that's about it.

          Oh, unless I plumb a generator to run from the gas line, which I'm seriously considering. It's 20% of the cost of installing a battery backup.

        • I'm in my 60's at this point. I can recall exactly 0 times in my lifetime no matter where I have lived where the gas went out, and every place I've lived has had gas. When the juice companies offer that level of reliability, I think I'd consider moving off gas. There have been years my juice company has been lucky to maintain 1 "9" of reliability. They definitely don't manage 99%. There is a reason that people put in natural gas generators for backup.
      • Based on Betteridge's law of headlines - headlines ending in a question should be answered with a NO since the article is most likely unable to provide convincing evidence to answer yes to the question

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Betteridge's law of headlines is an adage that states: "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no." It is named after Ian Betteridge, a British technology journalist who wrote about it in 2009, although the principle is much older.[1][2] It is bas

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Ed Tice ( 3732157 )
      Gas is cheaper than electricity because it's more efficient! Combined cycle gas (the source of electricity in most places) only gets about 60% efficiency. With transmission losses and such, lets make it 50% to keep the math easy. A heat pump with a CoP of 2 would produce exactly the same amount of carbon as a gas furnace. A heat pump that has a CoP of 4 would, in theory, use half as much gas. But that's only if it's never necessary to resort to resistive heating strips. It doesn't take having the eme
      • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @11:24AM (#64916229)

        The nordic countries are leading in heat pump installations. Are they doing something wrong? https://www.euronews.com/green... [euronews.com]

        • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

          Add to it that 15 year old heating systems in the Nordic countries are more or less just considered to be broken in.

        • Yes, they produce the vast majority of their power using something other than gas.

          https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]

          So the CoP of 2 factor doesn't matter. Using a heat pump will effectively reduce emissions by 100% regardless of efficiency.
        • The nordic countries are leading in heat pump installations. Are they doing something wrong?

          Norway is a global outlier that benefits from absurd amounts of hydro. People in Norway moving from resistive heating to heat pumps in no way reflects the energy mix and realities other regions face.

      • by aaarrrgggh ( 9205 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @11:37AM (#64916265)

        The main benefit is going all-electric. If you eliminate your gas bill and add solar you can come out ahead if your totalized electric rate is over about $0.12/kWh, $0.10 if you are on propane.

        • by Entrope ( 68843 )

          Your argument seems backwards. How can it be cheaper to go all-electric as the price of electricity rises above the threshold you gave? If breakeven is at $0.12/kWh, then somebody paying the New England average [eia.gov] would pay more than twice as much for that electricity.

        • by HBI ( 10338492 )

          Try running resistive aux heating on solar and batteries. I had 3 heat pumps and all three (replaced ~2020-21) would actually continue to produce heat down to the mid 20s F, but then the resistive kicked in and ..ugh the electric bills made me long for summer AC.

          The alternative in that house was burning wood. Which doesn't seem more environmentally friendly.

      • by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @11:37AM (#64916267)

        To be fair I would imagine most places are on a mixed grid today, coal and gas are currently less that 60% of the national grid. We have to also take into account the fact that grid is only going to get cleaner over a heat pumps 10-20 year lifespan.

        Also with regards to emergency strips as my AC unit recently breathed it's last breath I have been quoting and seraching for heat pump units to swap in my home. Even the cheapest of units operate to 10F which I would say at least half of the nation never experiences maybe ever and most places likely experience for 5-20 days over an entire winter. Think of much of the Southern US, sunbelt, Southern CA, millions of homes where a heat pump can easily provide 100% of heating through a winter and that's before youa ctually start considering actual "cold use" models.

        heat pumps don't produce as comfortable of a climate.

        What does this even mean? It's the same climate as your central AC, just warmer. It's the same system. Having a forced air gas furnace isn't a great winter climate either in my personal opinion.

        You are proposing a tax that forces people to use something

        Yes, this is perfectly valid economics. We do this for lot's of things already.

        Pigouvian Tax [wikipedia.org]

      • by gregstumph ( 442817 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @12:04PM (#64916299)
        Speaking as someone way, way up in the northern half of the US who replaced his gas furnace with a heat pump (that's tied in to our existing heating ducts), I couldn't be happier. But you go ahead and keep trying to convince people that heat pumps don't work unless you're in the South. And as for "resistive heating strips," I don't even know what those are; we've never had a problem keeping the house warm, down into the single digits of outside temperature. What else is great about our heat pump?
        - It's quieter than the old gas furnace
        - It doesn't dehydrate our air as much in the Winter
        - It doesn't need an exhaust vent, so it's not sucking outside air into the house which is great in the Summer if there's a lot of wildfire smoke in the air
        - It cools the house in the Summer (we never had AC before)
      • by serviscope_minor ( 664417 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @12:25PM (#64916353) Journal

        Gas is cheaper than electricity because it's more efficient!

        It is not.

        A heat pump with a CoP of 2 would produce exactly the same amount of carbon as a gas furnace. A heat pump that has a CoP of 4 would, in theory, use half as much gas.

        The best new heat pumps reach 5.

        It doesn't take having the emergency heat kick on very often for heat pumps to be at similar overall efficiency to a gas furnace.

        You can work it out. On a whim I looked up Butte, MT (apparently the coldest city) for December and Jan 2023 (the coldest months). Assuming a modern heat pump which can operate well at -13F (-25C) (these exist), there were a grand total of 5 days where the resistive strips might need to come on at night and 0 where the resistive strips were needed all the time.

        So, you hardly need any even in the coldest months.

        And your logic only applies of course if the gas is used to fire power stations. Heat pumps run of fungible electricity. They can run off nuclear, solar and wind turbines just as easily as gas.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @12:37PM (#64916395) Homepage Journal

        Gas is cheaper than electricity because it's more efficient! Combined cycle gas (the source of electricity in most places) only gets about 60% efficiency. With transmission losses and such, lets make it 50% to keep the math easy. A heat pump with a CoP of 2 would produce exactly the same amount of carbon as a gas furnace. A heat pump that has a CoP of 4 would, in theory, use half as much gas.

        I don't know about Europe, but at least in California, that's not the reason gas is more expensive. Most power is not produced with gas. The problem is not the efficiency of the technology. It's the efficiency of the bureaucracy around that technology, resulting in electrical prices that are nothing short of extortionate.

        In California, I'm paying 50 cents per kWh for most of my power. A 4 COP heat pump produces 4 watts of heat per watt of power consumed. 1 kilowatt hour would produce 4 kWh of power, or 13652 BTUs. The standard unit for heat is a therm, which is 100,000 BTUs. So with a 4 COP heat pump, I would pay $3.66 per therm.

        When I replaced my air conditioner last year, I stuck with a traditional air conditioner, rather than spending negligible additional money to get a reversing valve so that I could use it as a heat pump. Why? Because my furnace uses natural gas that costs $2.59 per therm.

        The most staggering part of this is that if I didn't mind torturing my neighbors and ignored the whole "don't use this continuously" rule for backup generators, it would cost me less than 38 cents per kWh to create my own power from natural gas, even when buying natural gas at retail prices. That's lower than the PG&E baseline rate.

        If our electrical rates were 10 cents per kWh like they are in Tennessee, nobody would use gas, because it would be 7 times as expensive as a heat pump. But because our electrical rates are downright extortionate, everybody uses gas, because it costs almost one third less than electricity.

        Want to get people to adopt heat pumps? Convince the state of California to buy all of the power grid operators and the generating companies and combine them into a single nonprofit. Take profit out of the equation, take huge CEO salaries out of the equation, etc., and run power production the way it is run in civilized countries. Cut power costs to 15 cents per kWh. In fifteen to twenty years, when everyone's air conditioner has failed and been replaced, you'll see close to 100% adoption of heat pumps.

        As long as power production is run by for-profit corporations, there are perverse incentives to drive the cost up to what the market will bear, and this almost inherently results in heat pumps losing out to gas.

      • WTF are you on about? It'd be pretty dumb to install electric resistance heaters & generate electricity from gas. Nobody's proposing that except you.
      • You have several bad assumptions there.

        1. It's a choice between burning gas for heat or burning gas to produce electricity. Where I live, most of the electricity is from renewables. That makes heat pumps much much more efficient. The same is true in a lot of places. Globally the share is 30% [ourworldindata.org] and rising quickly. Assuming all electricity comes from gas makes your conclusions invalid.

        2. You assume a COP of only 2, which is unrealistic. For household heat pumps, it's typically around 4 [iea.org].

        3. You assume you'l

    • by 2TecTom ( 311314 )

      all due to entrenched upper class interests, this is the inevitable result of classism

      greed and irresponsibility will be our undoing once again

    • We don't even have to tax it more, we can just stop giving those industries free stuff. Though of course we should have carbon taxes on industry, we should have started them already so that we could start them very small but it's kind of late to be fooling around now. The so-called and alleged invisible hand isn't going to correct anything unless it's motivated. Private industry can solve these problems but will not unless forced.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      42% of our electricity comes from gas, so taxing gas will have an effect on the price of electricity on the same order of magnitude as it would on heating directly with gas. It might also prompt a renewal in coal fired electricity.

      Really you need an overall carbon tax which matches the economic externalities of fossil fuel use. This will enable the free market to find the optimal mix of energy sources considering *all* costs.

      The reason this hasn't happened is its effect on low to moderate income people.

    • I think that heat pumps are more focused to people who would be either using baseboard heaters or portable AC units and can instead use the heat pumps and they are easier on the power grid / less pollution and also save themselves money. I don't think anyone expects you to go to a heat pump if nat gas works for you. Maybe it will stay cheap, maybe it won't. It's good for people to have options.
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That would be rational and forward-thinking. Have you looked at US politics recently? It is all about hate and fear and keeping things as they are.

    • "Gas is around three times cheaper than electricity"
      That's your problem right there.

      Gas is about three times cheaper than electricity because the largest source of electricity is natural-gas-fueled generators, and, including transmission losses, it takes about 3 Joules of heat energy to produce 1 joule of electrical energy.

  • The long term problem is we are using more and more and more energy, converting it into waste heat you can't use except to sweat a lot

    • I don't know where you live or what your lifestyle looks like, but I shower with hot water every day. And I sure wish I could use some of that "waste" heat to heat up the hot water rather than a horribly inefficient resistive electric heater.
      • Heat pump water heaters are a thing. And would do exactly that.

        • Heat pump water heaters are a thing. And would do exactly that.

          And if you're lucky it will even last long enough to achieve a breakeven ROI. Seriously, read the reviews on those things, they're not exactly shining beacons of reliability compared against traditional electric or gas-fired storage water heaters.

          Prior to cramming small heat pumps into water heater tank housings, another way to recover heat was running hot water lines to a heat exchanger outdoors near the home's central air conditioning condensing unit. While they're still available [hotspotenergy.com], they're labor intensi

          • If heat pumps don't work well as water heaters, why are they being marketed & installed as replacements for central heating boilers in the UK?
            • Firstly, I'm specifically referring to single-family storage tank water heaters, the kind you'd typically find in the garage or basement of a residential home in the US. They're used for washing and bathing hot water needs, and not for providing any sort of comfort heating for the living spaces inside the home.

              Secondly, heat pump water heaters do work, I never said they didn't. They just aren't as reliable as traditional water heaters, and when something does break outside of the warranty, they're signifi

              • Heat pumps operate at lower temperatures than gas boilers therefore they degrade less quickly, giving them longer life-spans & they require less maintenance. In other words, they last longer & break down less often than gas boilers. They also avoid issues with carbon monoxide poisoning & catastrophic gas leaks. But that's not the main point. The main point is that they substantially reduce how fast we're cooking the planet & poisoning people's water supplies. How much methane does the fracki
      • Drain water heat recovery devices are available at the local hardware store and even required for new builds in some areas. Simple passive heat exchange device that loops the incoming water supply around the drain pipe for around 50% efficiency. With the break-even cost timeframe, and required proximity between the heater and drain, it's not a particularly popular retrofit.
  • by Jfetjunky ( 4359471 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @10:56AM (#64916173)
    In some places, like Vermont for instance, you cannot get a homeowners insurance policy with just a heat pump. You must at least have a more traditional heat source.
    • Use a wood stove for backup heat.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      That is _really_ messed up. Heat pumps are not less reliable than traditional heating by now.

    • There is a limited number of wood stoves that turn themselves on when your in miami and the power goes out at the northern homestead.

      NG boiler at full run with the pumps moving hot water at full speed uses 200-300W. My battery backup gets charged off one of the generator every 48 hours if the solar is covered in snow to keep the house alive at -10F. That system on its own is dirt cheap and I use another 200W to keep starlink, security, fridges, deep freeze and cable modem alive.

      Stop telling peopl
    • That I can understand. The heat pump occasionally fails to successfully complete a defrost cycle and turns itself off. If I wasn't home to reset it things could easily become expensive.

      There is also the case of the extra cold weather when the heat pump can't keep up. Then the resistors come on. That was three days last winter.

      So backup is still needed even if infrequently.

  • I am looking to replace an AC with an air source heat pump, but Biden's promised IRA rebates for doing so are still not available - my state won't have them set up and available until (hopefully) this coming spring in 2025.. I can't be the only one waiting to save some $$$ on an over priced heat pump.

    Oh, and a new refrigerant is about to be phased in (and the old one out). Another reason for consumers to be confused and decide to just wait for the new tech when they can.
  • Where I live, there are heavy government subsidies all the HVAC installers promise to handle on your behalf and it still isn't really making heat pumps particularly competitive with forced-air gas furnaces with a tied-in traditional AC system.

    And if you're worried about power loss in winter storms, it's a lot easier to attach a UPS or gas generator to a furnace than to a heat pump with its significantly higher power requirements.

    • And if you're worried about power loss in winter storms, it's a lot easier to attach a UPS or gas generator to a furnace than to a heat pump with its significantly higher power requirements.

      If you live somewhere the heat going out is more than just a minor inconvenience, you probably should have a backup form of heat available. In the old days I'd have recommended a portable kerosene heater, but with the availability of inexpensive (usually around $100-$150) Chinese diesel heaters [youtube.com] which vent the exhaust outside, there's no reason to be filling your living space with kerosene fumes. Another option would be to install a wood-burning stove, which requires no electricity whatsoever.

      So yeah, not

  • by ZipNada ( 10152669 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @11:06AM (#64916201)

    "many contractors don't have training on how to properly install heat pumps"

    That's puzzling, a heat pump is installed much like an air conditioner.

    • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

      A water to water heat pump only needs an electrician and a plumber, not even a HVAC technician.

      Of course you could still have use for a HVAC technician to get it properly sized and tuned.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      More like many contractors do not have insurance that covers their screw-ups for heat pumps. Looks like a litigation-nation problem to me.

    • Can a standard central air handler "evaporator" coil work efficiently with heat pumps? Or in other words is say 100F coil temperature enough for the central air to get the energy into the air and the heatpump to get the energy into the coil?

      The problem with hydronic here in Europe is that old radiators can't do much with 100F water and unfortunately FCUs are alien technology to most residential heatpump installers (even though it's pretty much standard in commercial). In the bad old days they just put in th

    • by jsonn ( 792303 )
      This is a major roadblock here in Germany at least. There are far fewer companies in the AC field, mostly around temperature controlled rooms (like server rooms) and industrial freezers. Most contractors for heating systems are operating in traditional furnaces and generally lack competence when it comes to heat pumps. It doesn't help if the biggest German (yellow press) newspaper tells everyone that heat pumps are stupid without having anyone at hand knowing something about the topic.
  • Heat pumps will take energy away from those who need it the most: The poor, starving AI LLMs and Bitcoin miners. Have you no conscience?

  • by MpVpRb ( 1423381 ) on Sunday November 03, 2024 @11:34AM (#64916255)

    I asked the salesman about heat pumps, and he said they were a poor choice in my climate area.
    I've read reports that some experimental or uncommon heat pumps work in cold climates, but they appear to not be widely available.
    Even the manufacturer's website says that they are not recommended for my area.

    • by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Sunday November 03, 2024 @12:05PM (#64916301) Homepage Journal

      If you live where it gets really cold, then you need to do a GSHP Ground Source Heat Pump. That involves varying amounts of digging which is best done before a house is built and which can be impractical or just impractically expensive later depending on the situation. They are technically viable pretty much anywhere, but maybe not economically.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        I just saw one of these installed in a house here. They are apparently now economically viable even in relatively mild climates. Obviously, heat pumps get cheaper, more reliable and more long-lived the more the numbers go up.

      • In suburbia ground source heat pump is expensive, in rural america, its just a ton of work for less than stellar returns over NG combi boiler and Air to Air Heat Pump for cooling. Your better off putting more solar on your ground mount array and more batteries in the bunker to keep the heat pump going on hot humid nights. Having a NG furnace as the last resort is amazing where the gas main goes by your property. Lots of us are in that nitch, solar is frosting on top of alot of other heating/cooling s
    • What is your area?

  • We have one state that has banned the use of natural gas for new homes (New York) and 24 states have passed laws prohibiting local governments from restricting natural gas use. A few cities have attempted to ban natural gas on their own, but our Federal Courts seem to be on the side of the gas companies. https://www.utilitydive.com/ne... [utilitydive.com].

    Converting a home to heat pump from electric is generally much more expensive and time consuming than just buying a heat pump unit. A new 240V circuit is needed which
  • by gweihir ( 88907 )

    Any "saving the climate" is now far out of reach. If we had acted decisively in the 1980's when the science was solid, sure. Not anymore. All we can still do is make sure we do not get the really big (extinction level) catastrophe, and time is running out fast on that one. Also, so you see any efforts that are reasonable in size given what is at stake? I do not. Or rather I do, but these are all about denying the problem.

    • It would only take one rogue billionaire or one rogue country to take action to cool the planet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] . There is still hope, just not for CO2/Methane reduction which are currently at levels that guarantees another 2C increase in temperature if we completely stopped adding greenhouses gases immediately -- which we are clearly incapable of, so +2C on top of our current +1.5C is inevitable at this point with out some sort of geoengineering.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Geoengineering will not do much. The human race still needs a few centuries of experience with geoengineering to be able to do it competently and at the scale needed. There is no enough time for that. Funny how non-engineers always _massively_ underestimate how complex, slow and expensive engineering new things really is.

      • by jsonn ( 792303 )
        Humanity has been engaged in geoengineering for thousands of years, generally making everything worse. What makes you think aerosol injections would beat the curve?
  • Sort of. I have a conventional air conditioner, plus electric heat. Since this all plugs in to hydro dams here in British Columbia I see no reason to spend the money to change it any time soon. If everybody switched to heat pumps and electric cars we'd need several Site C [wikipedia.org] dams to supply the power we'd need. Not going to happen any time soon.

    The climate here (Kamloops) is a challenge for heat pumps to work well on the very hottest (40C) and very coldest (-20C) days.

    ...laura

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