Re:Heat Pumps – The Well-Tempered Future of A/Cs
by ThatPlayer on Wednesday July 05, 2023 @08:41PM
(#36609380)
Lots of places are looking into phasing out natural gas though. California gives you rebates for heat pump water heaters and there's plenty of discouragement to block new gas appliances and hookups.
There will be a feedback loop once that really starts: individual prices go up because infrastructure costs remain the same. Once natural gas prices go up, people will switch to more efficient appliances, or switch to electricity. Forcing prices to go up some more to make up for infrastructure costs.
At some point running a heatpump will be cheaper than maintaining a natural gas hookup in your house. And that will just make it more expensive for everyone else until they do the same.
It's not a little more though, that was the point. In my area, California, it's about 4x more. Gas here is so cheap, it's almost free.
Anecdotally, I don't know anyone who's opted into the "green energy" plans offered by the area's utility providers - because they all cost a lot more than regular.
People talk a lot - but their bank account dictates their actual decision making. Running a heatpump seems very expensive for a lot of the country, with negligible gains.
Natural Gas isn't exactly what we would call "dirty"... seems like a min-max issue, with people forgetting there's still areas burning coil and oil for electricity production.
> Heat pumps can be powered with solar
Not in the dead of winter you can't... not everyone lives in big cities folks, and where it snows, it gets quite cold.