The more infrastructure they lay and the more customers they connect, the harder to shut them down. The more bail-worthy they become.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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Yeah they're trying hard to achieve the "too big to kill" status, like shamu.
Shamu would have succumbed to a .308 to the brain pan. There ain't shit that is "to big to be killed", just those unwilling to do the killing.
Because we live in Canada and our design day heating energy requirement is typically far greater than our design day cooling energy requirement. Add in the fact that best pump efficiency falls way off at design day heating (to half or less of design day cooling) and you end up with equipment that may be able to do heating and cooling but is way oversized for cooling, so lots of people opt to save capital (and potentially maintenance) money by relying on gas heat for the coldest days.
Because water heating with heat pumps is currently garbage on the residential scale... the heat pump capacity on residential water heaters is quit low, which is fine for keeping the tank warm but not for dealing with a half decent draw, so they all include full electric capacity which means you need the service size and associated operating costs to go along with it. Commercial heat pump water heating isn't much better, it may get better once CO2 or propane take off as a refrigerant here.
Because more and more buildings are putting in emergency generators, which require either natural gas, propane or fuel oil. One of those is significantly easisr to install and maintain than the other two.
Although this might be accurate, what would be the true cost of gas if you removed all the subsidies and added the cost of fossil fueled warming from the continued GHG release? What will be the cost of gas if climate change really starts to pop and we undergo radically accelerated decarbonization? What is the projected cost of renewables + batteries + electric heating in 5, 10 or 20 years?
These are more relevant details regarding the building of infa that should be built to last, and is costed to last, for several decades.
I just had to buy a new gas furnace and air conditioner, so, with my mind on global warming, I asked the furnace guy what it would cost to put in a heat pump. He said he has put in quite a few, but the costs have gone way up. He also said that in our climate I would need an electric back-up furnace for winter because a heat pump loses efficiency quickly at temps below -15C. The cost was going to be around $30,000, compared to $15,000 for the new gas furnace and AC. Also, electricity in Ontario is an incredibly expensive way to heat, so that would be a big extra monthly cost in the winter. An in-ground geothermal system would be about $65,000, he said.
It isn't hard to see why gas is still popular, and that it will continue to be far into the future unless we undertake some kind of national project to replace our fossil fuel infrastructure with nuclear for the needed electricity and then convert our cars and homes over to full electric.
Did you asking about getting a heat pump to run the AC coil above the gas furnace instead of just a regular outdoor AC unit? The cost difference in hardware is only a few hundred dollars at most (for same sized unit, maybe $500-$700 if you are going up a size to hear for longer into the winter), installation cost should be the same and while it doesn't eliminate gas burining you can reduce it by probably 50% - 70%.
This is basically what I'm in the process if doing, except rather than a furnace replacement I'm only doing it to add AC because I currently don't have AC on my furnace.
No, I didn't know that was an option. Cool idea, though. No pun intended, but I'll take it.
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The boat salesman says you need a boat.
YOU pay for the infrastructure, YOU pay for the maintenance, YOU pay for the gas. Why would they stop now?
"Growth at any cost" is a great motto for corporations, and cancer.
Because number has to go up. Always. Forever. Unending.
Because money.
The problem is, they aren't going anywhere. They'll just funnel money to politicians to stop any attempt to stop them.
That's great for climate goals, but can someone tell me how we're supposed to heat our homes? Electricity?
- Better insulation.
- Heat pumps.
- By the time gas heating is eliminated, climate change will have solved that problem.
Climat change won't magically remove heating needs. It will bring hotter summers, colder winters, bed weather etc.
Heat pumps sounds like a good way forward. I haven't looked into the cost to replace a heater in a home, but I guess new homes could just have them installed by default.
What about natural gas use in home cooking/restaurants? Surely, you can't just replace that easily.
EDIT: And what about heating water? I mean, natural gas is used for more than heating the space in a home.
Induction stovetops are fast, efficient, and safe. (but regular electric is fine as well)
Water heaters are similarly available in electric and heat pump configurations.
I have a 200v induction cooktop. My only complaint so far is that I don't quite have as fine-grained control as I did with gas, but that doesn't matter most of the time. It also isn't heating up and around the pan. In any case, I have a portable casette gas stove if I really want to make Chinese in a wok with high heat and the flame coming up the sides.
My water heater is an eco-cute and does quite well for energy efficiency. It was a bit of a change coming back from instant on-demand gas water heaters, but it's fine now that I'm used to it.
Surely you can. Modern electric stovetops use infrared radiation from a wire coil to heat cookware. The stovetop is covered with a ceramic that allows infrared radiation to pass through, and if you put something on it, it'll absorb the radiation as heat. The technology is also scalable to industrial applications.
I'll let Brown Jacket Man explain the principle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ff04ecF9Dfw
(edit) My house has an electric water heater that was built in the Soviet Union. It uses a ~200-litre tank with a large heating element inside.
Those ceramic/glasstop ovens are shit. An old school coil will always be better, or modern induction.
Donβt confuse the old school glass flat tops with the induction ones. They use different methods and work very differently even though they look alike.
Meh theyβre fine. Yes induction is better but theyβre not shit.
Ceramic/glass top electric is shit. I've used gas and induction a fair amount, but at home I have a mid range priced electric ceramic and it's terrible compared to the other two options.
Shitty modern electric stove tops use infrared radiation. Good modern electric stove tops are induction
And what about heating water?
A heat pump water heater is pretty great, if my basement ever gets too hot I run the dishwasher or take a shower and the water heater cools things down nicely. In winter I close the door and vent to the utility room and it doesn't hurt the heating very much. It's smaller than my previous gas water heater but it lasts significantly longer and heats up faster if you do end up using all the hot water. My house of 4 uses about 50kWh of hot water a month, which works out to about 5bucks a month. I've messed with it a bit so it runs mostly during off peak hours.
I replaced my water heater, got a heatpump and improved insulation at around the same time (through the greener homes loan program) and on the whole saved about 50bucks a month overall, and will save another 30 when I cap off the gas pipe and get to stop paying all the bullshit fees for just having it connected. I live in southern Ontario, away from the lakes, so -30 - 30 weather typically. (All this week has been 40+ though, wonder why...........).
Oh and fwiw, I would take my current induction stovetop over a gas stove anyway, much more consistent, easier to clean and heats up faster, and doesn't heat up the whole house to run.
Um, yes? Heat pump until -15C, baseboards for the relatively fewer days that go below that. Plus good insulation.
In Quebec we have cheap hydroelectric of course, but I mean, between nuclear power, renewables and hydro, that's basically how.
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Annnnnd this is exactly why we need the carbon tax.
Natural gas infrastructure and heating could be transitioned to hydrogen or biogas.
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