this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Where Heat Pumps Win — And Where They Lose | Five findings from an extremely thorough study by the US National Renewable Energy Lab. (heatmap.news)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] derf82 2 points 7 months ago

The rules let you get the tax credit as a rebate when the upgrade is done, though I don’t think that has fully rolled out.

That would be nice, but I cannot find a source. Heck, I was checking and it turns out these credits are NONREFUNDABLE, so you can only get a max of what you pay in taxes.

The reality is that in much (though not all) of the country, it’s cost-effective to replace a near-end-of-life fossil furnace with a heat pump, since it will lower their ongoing heating bill. People do still need to substitute capital for future fuel payments, and that’s a big deal, but it’s a lot better than it was.

Eh, sadly, it is a bit fuzzier for many of us.

I just added up the last 12 months of gas bills. Came to about $837. But as I said at the start, $43.30 is a fixed charge. So really I only spent $318 on fuel. Based on my summer bills, I use ~$7/month in gas for cooking, drying, & hot water. So the reality is I only paid less than $250 on heating fuel. Granted, it was a warm winter and those costs will likely go up in time, but still.

At my current electric rate of ~$0.07/Kwh, and assuming that the added use will be at least 1,500 Kwh, that means I save, what, $150/year? That may sound good, but that is a painfully slow playback.

And, again, that is if I can even afford ANY increased cost. Whatever I get, I will have to finance it as it is. Most of us don't have $12,000+ sitting around for HVAC. I want it, and I think heat pumps are great, but not enough is being done to make them the economical choice for those of us in colder cities with a lot of older homes.