There is no doubt that eliminating fossil fuels from our home heating is going to be both costly and inconvenient. There will be huge change-over costs followed by increased running costs, whether we are forced down the heat pump route or the hydrogen gas route.
When the UK chose to move from town gas to natural gas in the 1970's it was a clear benefit as the gas was going to be cheaper. That is clearly not the case here. We still don't know which system our rulers will choose or when or how it will be paid for.
Here in this linked article we can see a detailed look at the problems with the hydrogen option.
Conversion of the UK gas system to transport hydrogen - ScienceDirect
A personal experience with our heat pump. Our cottage that is 115 miles away, we just installed a heat pump in May. How am I going to be able to tell if we came out ahead in our energy bills.
ReplyDeleteMy wife was confused when we received our bill from the utility, thinking we had left a load on in the cottage. We shut down the cottage for the winter. Turns out the bill covered about 15 days before we shut it down. One thing the utility does nicely is tell us the usage the month before and the same month a year ago.
Oh interesting. How does it compare? Our usage was lower than last years. Doesn't mean its from the heat pump. We had the last year's bill also. Which also gave the year before that. Our heat pump time usage was lower than the previous 2 years.
Admittedly we installed this without subsidies in our cottage. In the US, 2023 there will be federal assistance availlable for heat pump installation. If we had completely installed a natural gas furnace, it would of been a higher cost due to duct work installation.
A heat pump is an entire system installed into the zones of your home. We have 3 different heads installed that can heat to 3 different temperatures. Heat pumps are both heating and aircondtioning. This unit we had installed has very high efficiency compared to the add on airconditioners for a NG furnace.
Its something we feel very good about in our home. Our comfort level is much higher than having a baseboard heat. It is very reasonable low level of fan noise that does not interfere with watching TV.
The previous heat is electric base board heat which is expensive to run.
That's interesting. I understand that a heat pump is most efficient in a fairly mild climate, where you just need a little extra heat in the colder months and perhaps a little air conditioning in the hotter spells. I believe they are less efficient in very cold spells. They also require very good insulation to have a good performance and are costly to install, particularly a ground source type. Here in the UK I cannot see them being popular for that reason.
ReplyDeleteI had a choice of a couple of different low temperature points on the heat pump itself. I chose the lowest working temperature of -15*F (-26*C). That would be its lowest heating efficiency which is basically a 1 to 1. I don't know what GB uses for air conditioning efficiency. Our airconditioning efficiency has a seer rating between 21 and 23. Our newly installed air conditioner combined with gas furnace in Illinois was a 14. I couldn't talk my wife into a heat pump installed in Illinois. A friend of mine told me Japan is the leading user and supplier in the world. Our brand is a Fujitsu installed at the Michigan cottage.
DeleteBack to the efficiency. The heat pump for heating has a 4 to 1 efficiency at the higher temperatures. 40*F and 50*F gets us our higher efficiencies. Basically these machines are refrigeration circuits in either direction. To switch from heating to cooling, the pump needs a few minutes to make the transition to reverse directions of heat flow.
DeleteThese are institutions working for the fossil fuel industry. His information he puts out on the web is not peer reviewed material, it is his point of view supporting the fossil fuel industry.
ReplyDeleteOther professional affiliations: Dr. Spencer is on the board of directors of the George C. Marshall Institute, a right-wing conservative think tank on scientific issues and public policy. He listed as an expert for the Heartland Institute, a libertarian American public policy think tank. Dr. Spencer is also listed as an expert by the International Climate and Environmental Change Assessment Project (ICECAP), a global warming "skeptic" organization [DeSmogBlog].
Nothing wrongwith fossil fuels. CO2 increasing in atmosphere is highly beneficial to crops to feed increasing world populations while fossil fuels hugely prevent grinding mediaeval levels of poverty
ReplyDeleteWhats even better is what is not wrong with fossil fuels. CO2 is a clear proven GHG that is the main warming of our earth. Just this very slow cancer that will snuff part of life on earth.
Delete