Biden Uses War-Time Law to Fund Heat Pumps Citing Climate Crisis | Hacker News Reader

Biden Uses War-Time Law to Fund Heat Pumps Citing Climate Crisis

bloomberg.com

27 pointstoomuchtodo18 comments

While I understand that electricity (depending on how it is produced) is a "clean" energy, isn't it better to hedge your bet and rely on oil or gas heaters in case the electricity conks out? Imagine being stuck in a blizzard with the grid knocked out, in freezing temperature. With an electric heat pump, you'll need to buy a generator as a backup safeguard.

Why are you attributing being stuck to a grid to electricity and not oil or gas? It is far easier and cleaner to generate electricity in a distributed fashion (yes, even by burning oil and gas) than to be free of the oil and gas supply chain.

Oil and gas can be stored and also acquired more easily. It just seems prudent to rely on more than 1 source of energy.

Even oil and gas heaters require a significant amount of electricity to run. The fan for our HVAC uses about 600W while on, which will tax most battery systems pretty quickly, even assuming you still have gas or oil to burn.

Sure, you can use propane heaters or something that require no power at all, but those tend to be unsafe in enclosed areas.

That's the thing, using electric appliances and vehicles means you can actually rely on more than one source of energy (including oil, using generators). A gas heater uses nothing but gas. An electric heat pump can be powered by anything that pushes electrons.

See the last few winters down here in Texas for examples. Electrical failures aren't unlikely

Cold/freezing means heavier lines that may fall and so on

Gas compressors also failed because ERCOT and local utilities were blind with regards to load shedding and critical loads. You must build for total system resilience, and not assume your continuity plans will be robust because of disparate energy sources. Clearly you can’t assume the competence of some system operators.

https://www.masterresource.org/texas-blackout-2021/electrifi...

https://techxplore.com/news/2023-04-natural-gas-pipelines-vu...

https://archive.today/EDYZT

Around me, the bottleneck is with drilling, not the heat pumps themselves

Air source heat pumps require no drilling or ground loops such that geothermal heat pumps do.

https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/air-source-heat-pumps

https://www.rewiringamerica.org/app/ira-calculator/informati...

https://www.energystar.gov/products/air_source_heat_pumps

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pump

Thank you. The bloomberg article didnt mention anything what was different from conventional heat pumps.

I am looking into it for my own home. Air sourced heat pumps are slightly more energy efficient than traditional forced air, but geothermal heat pumps are significantly more energy efficient than other options. But hey, I thought this was about addressing the climate crisis.

Edit: clarified efficiency

Did you mean that air source heat pumps are more capital efficient, but ground source heat pumps are more energy efficient? When I try to parse the sentence I get "efficient vs. efficient", so I think you must be referring to different kinds of efficiency? Well -- the air source ones are somewhat easier to install; I guess that's what you're referring to? So, like, "air source is easier, but ground source is more energy efficient"? That must be it...

I was comparing air sourced heat pumps to traditional forced air systems. Geothermal heat pumps are much more common outside of the United States, have a much higher upfront cost, but significantly lower operating and energy costs after the install.

My original point is that if you want to combat the climate crisis, you need to utilize the free heat source in the winter and heat sink in the summer that is the earth below us.

Drilling for this type of heat exchange is a specialized skill, requiring specific equipment. In my area, very few people do it, they have a long backlog, and they are using drilling equipment that is not produced domestically.

> My original point is that if you want to combat the climate crisis, you need to utilize the free heat source in the winter and heat sink in the summer that is the earth below us.

I believe this is a false dichotomy. Air source heat pumps can work anywhere where the weather is above -15F most of the time, but if you have the capital available and the equipment to install ground loops, that is a better option. Not everyone can install geothermal heat pumps, whereas everyone can install air source heat pumps and that is a reasonable measure to contributing towards the climate crisis. Any efficiency loss can be mitigated with more renewable or low carbon energy generation to offset the aggregate efficiency delta. We should not let perfect be the enemy of good enough.

I didn’t say anything about making a choice. My point is that if you’re utilizing wartime powers to combat climate change, there are additional options left on the table. FWIW, there is a federal 30% tax credit for installing geothermal heat pumps. Not possible for everyone, but drilling vertical cores for geothermal ground loops is surprisingly accessible. However, I can’t get a driller to call me back.

> I can’t get a driller to call me back.

Makes mental note in case the whole software engineering thing stops working out.

Get your HVAC license and trades education instead, there is decades of work ahead installing heat pumps and the work can be done anywhere in the world. Way easier than acquiring a drilling rig and being constrained to a geography and its local economic trajectory. Just my two cents from the perspective of optimizing for optionality.

If you’re retired or are otherwise financially independent and are just looking for a hobby, buying a drilling rig and digging water wells and ground loops is not a terrible option.

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