Watch Live Stream from Paris #COP21 skeptic conference here – including new film, "Climate Hustle"

Joe, I was a wide eyed kid whey Jimmy Carter took office. I was using my math skills to build solar reflective ovens to large to move from the basement to the roof and soldering PV panels together that could produce enough energy to power a small light bulb whose light was not visible and dwarfed by the sunlight that powered it. Now more than 40 years later I still have no positive cost benefit of using and storing PV power. I am still wide eyed and very disappointed. I constantly want to sulk and drive off in my flying car mindlessly for hours, but I can’t even do that.
I have read and reviewed many writings on geothermal sinks, many here in Sweden. I do not have confidence in this technology. During today’s Paris summit Patrick Moore, a man I greatly admire; his achievements, accomplishments and his ability to navigate through the obstacles that he has had to run through, said that geothermal heat sinks for residential new construction for Sweden, the country where I live is a sound technology. I am not convinced and would like feedback.

Joe and Paul – I have been using a water to water heat pump for 14 years to heat a 3600 square foot heavily insulated house and designed for some solar gain, all underfloor radiant heating with high velocity air from waste heat if needed or desired), 2500 square feet to 14 C and main living areas to 18 C (1100 square feet) with wood heat to increase to 20-22 C in the kitchen and living room. I use well water circulated through my fish pond. It works very well, but electricity costs have increased and will increase a lot more as the Alberta government has committed to shutting down coal power and subsidizing wind and solar. I am presently installing in a propane “instant on” heater on the system since propane is so inexpensive at the moment and is expected to stay low for some time. With both, I can adjust the set points to take advantage of whichever energy source is more cost effective. I also have the ability to use the heat pump to take heat off my septic tank and sewage effluent. I use the system intermittently to heat my 1200 square foot shop to melt snow on the slab entry and to make a warm working floor when working on equipment, then I shut it off. (Last bulk propane fill up was 26.9 Cents Canadian per litre)
Of course, I have the advantage of living in the country. The ground source heat pump systems in the city using vertical wells take a lot more engineering and some folks don’t take into account the long term cooling caused by pulling heat out of the ground especially with our 30 below winter weather. (Although if the system is used for air-con in the summer, it adds heat to the ground.) I have the ability to recirculate water in an out of two wells that are 150 feet apart. My system pulls water out of the ground from two wells at 42 degrees F and discharges it at 37 degrees F at 15 USgpm. When I recirculated back to the wells, I discovered that over a period of months it cooled the whole aquifer region that both wells were in so that over the winter the heat pump discharge got closer and closer to 32 degrees. So, I switched to circulating through my trout pond next to my house. That has worked well for many years.
I don’t achieve the 3+ coefficient of performance over electricity (CSA test performance for my 42000 BTU/3.3kW unit) but that is because I pump groundwater and that reduces the overall efficiency. On the other hand, for the week per year I use air conditioning, only the well pumping costs apply since the heat pump isn’t required for cooling with 42 degree F water.