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Heat pumps twice as efficient as fossil fuel systems in cold weather, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Technology
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I haven't seen this argument listed yet, but my reason for wanting to go off natural gas is how much we lose in transmission. I don't feel like finding sources right at this moment but most estimates I've seen are ~2%, and methane is a pretty potent greenhouse gas.
Methane is one of the cleanest burning fuels there is. There should be more effort put into fixing the distribution leaks rather than trying to switch everything to electric.
Fossil methane is still fossil. Ie. not part of the CO2 cycle, and thus contributing to the greenhouse effect. Methane itself is 20 times more potent, and we should do everything we can to limit methane emissions, both fossil and natural.
Agriculture is a big source of natural methane emissions, and even fairly small dietary changes can significantly reduce livestock emissions, but don’t see anyone doing that either.
Highly suspect small gas line leaks won’t be fixed either.
That is a rather big ask and maybe that effort would be better directed elsewhere.
Also, think of it this way. Isn't it a bit crazy we send lines of pressurized, explosive gas directly to most homes in North America? If we do need to keep burning natural gas, we can do that in power plants and get about the same, if not better efficiency by using this electrical generation with heat pumps.
That's a fair argument. Even if every used a tiny bit, there would still be a lot of loss to the atmosphere through leaks/etc of the distribution system.
So yes 100% elimination would be ideal.
But this could be a viable middle step between 100% gas heating -> Supplemental/Heat Pump -> 100% Heat Pump