“Wartime” Climate Policy vs. Natural Gas: Biden Gets Desperate

From MasterResource

By Mark Krebs 

“While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to Green New Deal discrimination, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such ‘watermelon’ policies. It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.”

Yes, the President of the United States has pulled out a Korean War authority (Defense Production Act) to fight against American energy that Americans prefer. It is an overreach that is being noted widely, as outlined below as well as here and here.

The American Gas Association (AGA) started this latest flurry with a press release November 17, 2023. The same day, Reuters and Fox News published their articles. Epoch Times published its article (and video) on November 20, 2023. The Reuters article most noteworthy contribution is that it names recipients of the Biden Administration’s [mis]appropriations of DPA funding. Both the Reuters article and Fox News article cite the AGA’s press release.

It is a good sign that news outlets are at least beginning to read AGA press releases.

  1. American Gas Association (11/17):
     AGA responds to President Biden’s use of Defense Production Act powers to fund electric heat pumps
  2. Reuters (11/17):
    US aims to speed heat pump manufacturing using Cold War-era law
  3. Fox News (11/17):
    Biden invokes wartime powers to fund electric heaters as he cracks down on gas appliances 
  4. Epoch Times 11/20)
    Biden Uses War Powers to Target Household Appliances 
  5. Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) Statistical information on HVACR equipment shipments:

Central Air Conditioners and Air-Source Heat Pumps Shipment Data

6. AHRI’s position on the inflation Reduction Act (includes background on DPA)

7. Fallacies of Supplying American LNG and Electric Heat Pumps to Europe to Fight Putin and Global Warming

This May 09, 2022, article for RealClearEnergy 1) discussed DPA funding for electric heat pumps, 2) strongly refutes the inherently flawed  “energy efficiency” claims still being made by DOE for electric heat pumps and 3) does not blindly adhere to  LNG as the best use of our nation’s irreplaceable natural gas inheritance. It received nearly 200 comments.

Discussion:

The AHRI data clearly shows that gas appliances are losing at least some ground to electric equivalents as evidenced by the above graphs.  Moreover, this trend appears to have accelerated under the Biden Administration.  AHRI’s discussion of the IRA and DPA is non-committal advocacy (an oxymoron?).

The likely reason is that AHRI has members on both sides of these issues.  As my good friend Ed Reid commented on today (Nov 21, 2023), there are many reasons to be thankful this holiday season.  Unfortunately, the war of attrition against consumer choice for non-electric appliance may not be one of them. On the other hand, at least Biden hasn’t (yet) invoked the DPA in total in what his Administration continues to equate to the most existential threat to humanity of all; anthropogenic global warming.

And in other related news:

A consortium of the AGA, the Natural Propane Gas Association (NPGA) and the American Public Gas Association (APGA) has just issued what could be “a shot across the [DOE’s] bow” in the form of what they titled a “PETITIONERS’ NON-BINDING STATEMENT OF ISSUES TO BE RAISED.” (Click here for the for a PDF of an official copy.)

Footnote 1 to their “petition” indicates that it is aimed at a recently ended Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) titled “Energy Conservation Program: Energy Conservation Standards for Commercial Water Heating Equipment.” However, there is no reason apparent (to me at least) why this petition could not equally apply to other recent DOE NOPR’s.  For example. DOE’s recently ended NOPR for  “Consumer Boilers” which I published an update on MasterResource dated October 24, 2023. Regardless, their petition clearly indicates that the retail distribution part of the “gas industry” intends to appeal a Final Rule that would eliminate at least one type of non-condensing gas appliances.

Since the body of that petition is relatively short, it is shown below (in italics) in its entirety:

  1. Did the Department of Energy (“DOE”) exceed its authority under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act by imposing new energy conservation standards for commercial water heaters without a separate class for non-condensing commercial water heaters?
  2. Did DOE exceed its authority under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act by imposing new energy conservation standards for commercial water heaters that will result in the unavailability of noncondensing gas-fired water heaters?
  3. Did DOE exceed or arbitrarily or capriciously exercise its authority under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act by failing to consider important “performance characteristics (including reliability, features, sizes, capacities and volumes” that are currently provided by non-condensing commercial water heaters, which will be made unavailable by the Final Rule?
  4. Did DOE lack “clear and convincing evidence” to justify new energy conservation standards for commercial water heaters that will result in the unavailability of noncondensing gas-fired water heaters?
  5. Was DOE’s decision to make non-condensing gas-fired commercial water heaters unavailable to consumers arbitrary and capricious?
  6. Was the DOE’s consideration and treatment of fuel switching contrary to its authority under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act?
  7. Did DOE act arbitrarily, capriciously, or contrary to law by failing to follow its own Procedures, Interpretations, and Policies for Consideration in New or Revised Energy Conservation Standards by, among other things, failing to consider the negative consequences of accelerating fuel switching from natural gas to electricity?
  8. Did DOE lack “clear and convincing evidence” to support its conclusion that the new standards for commercial water heaters in the Final Rule are economically justified?
  9. Was DOE’s determination that the new standards in the Final Rule are economically justified arbitrary and capricious?

Conclusions

While gas appliances may presently be losing some market share to electricity due to anticompetitive and counterproductive Green New Deal’s energy and environmental travesties under the Biden Administration, there are also increasing indications that the public is both weary and wary of such “watermelon” policies (green outside, red inside). It’s not about saving the planet from the ravages of fossil fuels; it’s about enslaving the planet by banning fossil fuels.

The eighteenth-century naval hero John Paul Jones was doing battle with a British ship when his own ship was badly damaged, and the British commander called over to ask whether Jones had surrendered. He answered, “I have not yet begun to fight.” He and his crew then captured the British ship. While regulatory capture of the “administrative state” appears to be the rule and not the exception at present, this bit of history should be remembered so we do repeat it and recapture a government “for the people” as our Founding Fathers intended.

————————-

Mark Krebs, a mechanical engineer and energy policy consultant, has been involved with energy efficiency design and program evaluation for over thirty years. Mark has served as an expert witness in dozens of State energy efficiency proceedings, has been an advisor to DOE and has submitted scores of Federal energy-efficiency filings. His many MasterResource posts on natural gas vs. electricity and “Deep Decarbonization” federal policy can be found here.

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Scissor
November 27, 2023 10:10 am

Quite simply it’s about robbing you before they do away with you.

antigtiff
November 27, 2023 10:11 am

The old fossil promised to eliminate fossil fuels….fortunately, the old fossil himself will be gone before FF.

strativarius
November 27, 2023 10:13 am
Scissor
Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 10:22 am

Good song.

And Michael Mann exclaims, “I have not yet begun to lie,” which itself was just another emanating from him.

Dave Fair
Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 10:26 am

Worthy or not, why do people insist on posting links to items with no descriptions? As a matter of principle, I never click on unexplained links.

strativarius
Reply to  Dave Fair
November 27, 2023 10:34 am

Why do people insist on being spoon fed?

Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 12:02 pm

Hello …its a blog. Time is short. if you know the punch lines in your link , copy and paste and leave the full read for the few with time.
if you were running an online store it would go broke in a week as you must have its essential selling points listed

Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 12:17 pm

comment image&t=chromentp

Dave Fair
Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 12:19 pm

Why do people insist others follow them down every one of their little inane rat-holes? Narcissism?

[What is an narcissist person?
Narcissistic personality disorder involves a pattern of self-centered, arrogant thinking and behavior, a lack of empathy and consideration for other people, and an excessive need for admiration. Others often describe people with NPD as cocky, manipulative, selfish, patronizing, and demanding. Mar 28, 2023]

Reply to  Dave Fair
November 27, 2023 3:23 pm

A concise and complete description of that cockwomble Trudeau.

Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 12:28 pm

Don’t be lazy. You want somebody to follow the link? Give some details and maybe they will.

MarkW
Reply to  strativarius
November 27, 2023 1:40 pm

Life is short. I don’t have time to read or listen to everything that someone on the internet thinks is interesting.
It has nothing to do with being spoon fed and everything to do with being respectful of other people’s time.

Reply to  strativarius
November 28, 2023 9:59 am

Why do people expect others to click on random links?

November 27, 2023 10:14 am

The feds want to run everything in this country to the point of knowing where you are at all times and what you. are doing.

That is the future people unless you vote for the Republic and the Constitution!

Reply to  Sunsettommy
November 27, 2023 12:04 pm

Is that the Constitution Trump wants suspend , and looked into to overturn the election results

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:09 pm

I think he wants them followed in each state not amended ad hoc by anyone in regard voting.

MarkW
Reply to  mkelly
November 27, 2023 1:43 pm

A number of states directly violated their own constitutions in there attempts to make sure Trump couldn’t win.

MarkW
Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:43 pm

Funny how insisting that the constitution be followed becomes trying to over turn the constitution. This hatred of Trump has caused so many minds to melt down.

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:55 pm

Trump got some dumbassed legal advice stating the VP could make those challenges. I’m sure he shopped around for lawyers to get the advice he wanted. But he didn’t think that through because VP Harris could then try the same thing if Trump wins in 2024.

Following bad legal advice is not illegal. Following bad legal advice when multiple lawyers agreed it was unconstitutional was just being stupidly stubborn and is also not illegal.

States cannot change election laws or election procedures because the state SOS or a court orders the changes. Lawfully, only the state legislature can make those changes. Nobody was willing to enforce that. Hundreds of thousands (perhaps) millions of votes were illegally accepted. In most case, those votes did represent the will of lawful voters. In many cases, there was known ballot harvesting and ballot stuffing. This should have never been allowed to happen. Once the votes were accepted, that was all she wrote.

Phil R
Reply to  Sunsettommy
November 27, 2023 3:41 pm

Coincidentally, I am currently reading a book about the KGB that was published in the early 1970’s, around the height of the cold war.The Feds are heading in the direction (if not already there) that the KGB was at over 50 years ago. Guess that long march through the institutions is finally complete.

November 27, 2023 10:22 am

How appropriate and telling for a Democrat presiden to use a law designed to help the country prioritize during a war to wreck the country.

Tom Halla
November 27, 2023 10:23 am

Biden et al are shaking their middle finger at the Supreme Court’s “major question” issue on substituting regulations for laws. As the Congress has made no actual law on banning natural gas, it is an overreach.

cgh
Reply to  Tom Halla
November 27, 2023 11:47 am

EPA has been substituting regulatory overreach for legislation for decades.

Reply to  cgh
November 27, 2023 12:06 pm

Thats how it was designed to work. Republicans were happy to change the regulations to suit their policys
Thats said there were some ‘out of scope’ EPA regulations that went too far

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 12:29 pm

Regulatory overreach is regulatory overreach. Period. No matter which party is in power.

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:11 pm

Got any specifics for this claim?

MarkW
Reply to  mkelly
November 27, 2023 1:46 pm

Trump bad. That’s all the justification he needs.

Tom Johnson
Reply to  mkelly
November 27, 2023 6:31 pm

The Clean Air Act which, formed the EPA, specifically regulates only oxides of nitrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide. No other gasses are listed. CO2 IS NOT included anywhere in the act.

MarkW
Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:45 pm

Rolling back Democrat over reach is now doing what the Democrats do.

Leftists really do get their panties in a wad whenever someone undoes their mischief.

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:59 pm

Regulatory overreach means the agency acted outside the scope of it’s mandate, or so cgh believes. Regulatory overreach is different from legal policy changes. See other posts regarding major questions doctrine.

William Howard
November 27, 2023 10:36 am

And when the electricity goes
Out for a week in the next ice storm as it did
In Texas in,21 – or when the blackouts start as the grid gets overloaded

Reply to  William Howard
November 27, 2023 12:30 pm

Well then, we can recharge the grid by sucking the EVs dry.

antigtiff
November 27, 2023 10:37 am

Joke Biden has that Midas touch…everything he touches is screwed up…the border…energy…budget….economy….foreign policy….but he seems to be taking in millions….

cgh
Reply to  antigtiff
November 27, 2023 11:48 am

It’s called the Inverse Midas Syndrome.Everything he touches turns to…

Reply to  cgh
November 27, 2023 12:07 pm

Victory !
tell us how Trumps snatches defeat from the jaws of victory

Dave Fair
Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 12:21 pm

TDS is strong in this one.

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 12:31 pm

No inflation, cheap abundant energy. My gawd! Never again!

MarkW
Reply to  More Soylent Green!
November 27, 2023 1:48 pm

Peace around the world. The horror of it.

Louis J Hooffstetter
Reply to  MarkW
November 28, 2023 8:30 am

But the mean tweets!
We can’t have that!

MarkW
Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:47 pm

You call what Biden has done to the country victory?
Do you really hate your fellow man that much?

antigtiff
Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 3:00 pm

Tell us how the criminal Biden clan stays out of prison. During one of the debates….Joke Biden said 51 former Intelligence people said the Hunter laptop was Russian misinformation….that lie was enough to give Biden a margin in several states needed to win. Trump is not perfect – no one is – it’s just Biden belongs in prison – not the White House.

smalliot
Reply to  antigtiff
November 28, 2023 7:10 am

And yet “President Trump Won The “In-Person” Vote In EVERY State In 2020″ and Brandon won the ‘mail in” vote….

Denis
November 27, 2023 10:43 am

Heat pumps are not all bad as most of the articles on this site might lead you to believe. They can work well but are expensive. My 1,600 ft2 house is heated and cooled by a ground source heat pump system installed in 2013. I had to use a heat pump of some kind because I have no gas service and oil is a smelly mess. The ground source system replaced an original air source heat pump that was noisy and expensive in winter because backup resistance heating was often required. In 2013, it cost $7,000 to install and pipe up three 200 ft-deep wells in my side yard. The yard space required for the wells is almost entirely limited by the space needed for the rather large well-drilling machinery and their operation. The wells themselves are roughly 15 feet apart and only extend over perhaps 200 ft2 of surface area. They and are completely underground (invisible) with grass above. It cost another $7,000 to buy the heat pump machinery and $7,000 to assemble all the parts – total, about $21,000. The heat pump machinery is located in the crawl space under my house and is utterly silent. The heat pump includes a backup resistance heater for really cold days but in 10 years, it has never come on. All I hear is the sound of the air mover (fan) when it is operating. There is no noise at all outside and no machinery or piping visible. It cost about $175 per month to heat and cool the house, more in the winter because the delta T is greater at that time, less in the summer. I pay about $0.08 for the electricity to run it plus another $0.04 for the delivery fee and tax charges for the electricity. My house is in southern Maryland so the climate is moderate with only rare hot (+90F) days and cold (<30F) days. All you need is the $$ and a lot large enough to drill the wells.

Trying to Play Nice
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 11:02 am

Heat pumps don’t work in much of the US because we don’t all have climates like southern Maryland.

MyUsername
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
November 27, 2023 11:12 am

They work in Norway and Sweden. Most of the US should be fine.

JamesB_684
Reply to  MyUsername
November 27, 2023 11:57 am

I have a heat pump, and a natural gas furnace. At < 36 F, the system switches to the furnace, because otherwise, the moisture in the air will freeze onto the heat pump elements. It has to chill the elements below the outside air temp in order for heat to flow into the house. If ice forms, the system has to use more electricity to melt the ice, which is just wasted energy.

Heat pumps are very inefficient once the outside temps go low. Gas heat avoids that at low temps, and because the fuel is consumed locally, there are no transmission line losses.

Reply to  JamesB_684
November 27, 2023 12:10 pm

Yes. I have two for our place. But coldest mornings of the year are only 5C. Thanks urban heat island effect

Dave Fair
Reply to  MyUsername
November 27, 2023 12:31 pm

With cheap Pacific Northwest Federal wholesale hydropower electricity I ran resistence electric heaters in my Spokane, WA home in the 1970s and I was “fine.” “Most of the US [sic]” is not Norway nor Sweden.

Reply to  MyUsername
November 27, 2023 1:28 pm

Are you willing to front everyone the $21000 to get one?

MarkW
Reply to  mkelly
November 27, 2023 1:51 pm

Just like Hillary declared that she can’t be held responsible for every underfunded company that was driven out of business by ObamaCare, MUN can’t be held responsible for every underfunded citizen who freezes to death because they can no longer afford heat.

Reply to  MyUsername
November 28, 2023 1:12 am

Maybe they do because it is soooo very cold there (crazy as it seems)
The coldness means that the air going through them is very dry so (air source) heat pumps don’t freeze up so much.
Norway and Sweden have (had) vast amounts of cheap hydro electricity and they used that for simple/basic resistance heating UNTIL, they discovered they could make vast amounts of money selling hydro to Denmark & Germany.

So then, they started to install heat pumps (which use less electric than resistance heating) and so allowing them to sell more electric to their (dear) neighbours and broadcasting to the world how virtuous they are for doing so.

Add to which: Norway and Sweden are inveterate liars when it comes to money grubbing and self interest
They still lie lie lie about Acid Rain, which was supposedly killing their forests and especially poisoning their rivers and lakes.

Wrong: British ‘acid rain’ was fertilising their forests.
Their rivers and lakes were being poisoned by they themselves draining the highly acidic water that exists in ancient peatbogs and wetlands and they were doing that so as to plant more forest.
Yet they said nothing and let the UK trash the output of their power stations, dig huge quarries in areas of beauty and create mountains of Gypsum that is now a toxic hazard. (It creates Hydrogen Sulphide if you ‘landfill’ it)

When anyone from Sweden or Norway comes up with glowing testimony for anything, don’t trust them as far as you could throw them.

Dave Andrews
Reply to  MyUsername
November 28, 2023 8:29 am

Much of the housing in Norway and Sweden is built to work with heat pumps and has high quality insulation, double glazing and space for ground source pumps.In the UK with some of the oldest housing stock in the world that is not the case.

It is somewhat ridiculous to say what works well somewhere can work well everywhere.

John Hultquist
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
November 27, 2023 12:43 pm

I use an air-source HP in central Washington State where winter temp can go below Zero F.
I also have a modern wood stove and grow and harvest my own wood.
All this isn’t rocket science, but it is more complex than the US administration and others think it is.
The nearest gas service is 6 miles away.

Gilbert K. Arnold
Reply to  Trying to Play Nice
November 27, 2023 2:33 pm

If you are talking about air source heat pumps you would be right. Ground Source Heat Pumps don’t give a fig as to what the outside air temperature is. At about 3-4m depth in the Continental US the ground temperature is about !0°C(50°F), that is the temperature the heat pump works with. Having said that, The system must be engineered and/or well thought out for best results.

Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 11:43 am

I live in rural central Missouri. I have a heat pump as their is no natural gas service available. I could get a propane tank and get a propane furnace instead. However, the heat pump works fine all year. I don’t have a ground loop system and it works extra hard when the temps get below 20 degrees F.

I agree that heat pumps work better than many people here claim.

Rud Istvan
Reply to  More Soylent Green!
November 27, 2023 11:56 am

We had the option to install an in ground heat pump adjacent to our septic field at our then under construction north Georgia mountain cabin. Seldom real hot in summer, and only infrequently seriously below freezing on winter nights. So environment was favorable.

But we ran the numbers and concluded a propane furnace plus standard AC was a better deal economically. That way we also got a propane stove, fireplace, and outdoor grill. 3 br/3 bath, so not small.

Reply to  Rud Istvan
November 27, 2023 12:16 pm

Yes. Thats how it should be , compare them side by side for your location and size of rooms

Reply to  Duker
November 27, 2023 1:33 pm

So the government shouldn’t force us to anything we deem unsuitable for us?

corev
Reply to  Duker
November 28, 2023 5:13 am

Duker, that’s what I did. I did not and still don’t have gas service, but access to propane was abundant. I still haven’t used a whole 400 Gal tank of propane for annual use in well over 20 years since the house was built. Just a reminder my whole house is fed by propane.

Giving_Cat
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 12:11 pm

> “I pay about $0.08 for the electricity to run it plus another $0.04 for the delivery fee and tax charges for the electricity.”

So you are saying the other 90% of the US isn’t in your position. You understand that 8¢ (+4¢) is a fantasy for most?

John Hultquist
Reply to  Giving_Cat
November 27, 2023 12:48 pm

I pay 10¢ per unit + $26 per month fee. The next county to the east of me is about half of that. Low E cost is why many server-farms have located there. See Quincy, WA.

corev
Reply to  John Hultquist
November 28, 2023 5:26 am

John,I have the same service/supplier as Denis and this was the highest rate for 2023: February 2023 $0.102815, although the current rate is November 2023 $0.078606. I am billed on an annual average basis, paid monthly. My monthly bill appears to be perturbed by the solar farm the service built/owns, and/or is still perturbed by the 2020 gas price increases.

Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 12:18 pm

A heat pump or, for that matter any form of energy to heat a home, can’t possibly be as efficient as electrical resistance heat. There are no moving parts, nothing goes up the chimney. The problem is the cost of electricity to the consumer. This is also the case with heat pumps, which are a simple development of the refrigeration cycle in reverse. What they do is move BTUs from the outside to the interior, just as a commercial walk-in freezer moves heat from inside the freezer to somewhere outside. Since the space surrounding an interior walk-in is generally at room temperature, let’s say 70F, and the desired freezer temp is maybe -5F, there will a 75F difference to be overcome. But walk-in freezers are of limited size, very well insulated and generally stocked with products that are already frozen.

A home is a different situation. While a temperature differential between interior and exterior temperatures in the US midwest might often reach 40F or considerably more the space to be heated is much larger, occupants come and go, ASHRAE standards require a certain number of air changes per hour, there are windows and doors, and normal stick construction results in a loss of heat through exterior wall studding, insufficient insulation and poor vapor barriers. A much greater movement of BTUs is needed requiring more expensive electrical consumption.

The heat pump technology was developed years ago in the orient where the demand was for air conditioning for most of the year and the occasional need for a small amount of heat at odd times. Infrastructure for electrical service existed but gas distribution wasn’t common. The heat pump did the job in those circumstances but as a primary source of heat it’s comparatively too expensive for the continental US.

In interior Alaska, for example, there are three available forms of energy, electricity produced by diesel generators, heating oil, and wood. Wood is expensive in that it requires the time and effort of people to cut it and transport it to where it will be used. Heating oil, transported from as far as the lower 48 is effective but also expensive. They are the two commonly used home heating options. No one uses electricity in any form, resistance or heat pump, for space heating.

Giving_Cat
Reply to  general custer
November 27, 2023 12:31 pm

> “A heat pump or, for that matter any form of energy to heat a home, can’t possibly be as efficient as electrical resistance heat.”

You are absolutely totally incorrect. Just plain wrong.

Reply to  Giving_Cat
November 27, 2023 12:40 pm

Really? Would you care to explain in detail?

Rud Istvan
Reply to  general custer
November 27, 2023 1:37 pm

Sure. The most thermally efficient electricity generation is CCGT at 61%. T&D losses run about 10%. So the ‘best’ electricity delivered to your very efficient resistance heaters is actually only 51% thermally efficient.
At my Wisconsin dairy farm, our newest propane furnace is 95% thermally efficient (electrical blower to remove the ‘cold’ exhaust via a pipe to outside).

JamesB_684
Reply to  general custer
November 27, 2023 2:28 pm

Moving thermal energy from one place (outside) to another place (inside), over very short distances, is more efficient than generating new thermal energy using electricity generated from much further away. Line losses in transmission lines and substations to a residential area is ~ 15%.

Reply to  JamesB_684
November 27, 2023 5:18 pm

A predictable response. I was waiting for it. Moving the thermal energy from outside to inside requires electricity generated from a distance with the same line losses in addition to the consumption of electricity by the compressor and fan motors that operate the heat pump, which isn’t the case with resistance heat.
A 2.5 ton home heat pump won’t heat an entire house in the northern half of the US but will draw about 20 amps in operation, all of which is used to operate the compressor and fans. There really isn’t anything free in this transaction.

Drake
Reply to  general custer
November 27, 2023 3:14 pm

Rather clueless, aren’t you.

Do a little research. Educate yourself before making such silly declarations.

Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 12:28 pm

‘I pay about $0.08 for the electricity to run it plus another $0.04 for the delivery fee and tax charges for the electricity.’

SMECO?  

Bob Rogers
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 1:12 pm

Our last house had an air source heat pump. Based on the ORNL calculator, it was cheaper to run than a propane furnace would have been, and it cost less to buy and install than an air conditioner plus a furnace would have been. It worked. Kept the house warm in the winter, and the heat strips never came on. Modern heat pumps work down to -13F/-25C.

I don’t think the whole thing cost more than $5000 installed, but it was part of a major renovation, so I might not remember correctly, and it was a long time ago, so I’m sure they’re more now.

corev
Reply to  Bob Rogers
November 28, 2023 5:41 am

Bob,I have already explained the hybrid house (electricity plus propane) that I have. Comparing the 2 monthly bills, propane wins hands down. Propane is ~1/3 of electricity. Propane runs cooking, water heater, dryer, and backup heat. Electricity runs lights, refrigerator/freezers (2), and AC/Heat Pump.

So I disagree with your conclusion with exception of factoring location.

MarkW
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 1:49 pm

You also need enough land to drill that well, and you can’t have many, if any neighbors also trying to suck from the same pool of water.

Phil R
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 3:56 pm

My wife and I moved into an older house about 30 years ago. the house originally had an oil burning furnace and hot water radiator heat. We were on a delivery plan so costs were spread throughout the year and varied from year to year, but we were consistently paying about $160 to $180-plus per month for most of those years. Part of the reason we kept it was because the house had never been connected to the gas line in the past.

A couple years ago we had the furnace removed and and an on demand gas hot water heater/boiler installed. The whole thing, including removing the old monster of a furnace and installing the new boiler cost around $10,000-11,000 (don’t remember exactly now), and the gas company installed the gas line and meter for free. during the off months (summer) my gas bill has been as low as around $30. even in the dead of winter with the heat on I haven’t had a bill as high as one month of fuel oil. Biden can k*ss my *ss if he thinks I’m giving up my gas boiler, hot water heater and stove.

Lee Riffee
Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 4:26 pm

Well, my grandmother had a saying about preferences – “Each to his own, said the old woman as she kissed the cow.” In other words, if you don’t mind being hit with cold air coming out of your registers when your “heat” comes on in winter, more power to you!
Luckily I’ve never had to live in a house with a heat pump, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time in some. And none of them have been comfortable on really cold days…. or even not so cold days.
I am one of those people who is always hot, and I keep my house at around 68 degrees in winter. But I’ve been chilly, if not downright cold, in heat pump “heated” homes where the thermostat was set to 70 and even as high as 76. And no, the vast majority of the homes were new or nearly so. Lack of insulation or poor insulation wasn’t the problem.
This isn’t to say heat pumps don’t work – OK, yes, they are able satisfy the thermostat, but not so much for the building’s inhabitants.
A motorcycle in good working order will get you from point A to point B. In other words – it does the job. But it surely wouldn’t be very pleasant in very cold or inclement weather!

Sorry – the only kind of heat I’ll ever have (unless I move a good bit further south – right now I live in central Maryland, about 15 miles from the PA border) will be the kind that will actually put out heat. As of now I’ve got baseboard oil fired heat, and I’ll beg to differ about odors from that kind of heat. You could walk into my house and never have a clue as to what kind of heat I have. You could walk into my basement and same story. A modern, well maintained oil fired system is clean and doesn’t smell. And I can set my thermostat lower because I don’t have cold air blowing around inside my house.

If I couldn’t avail myself of any sort of fossil fueled heat, I’d start burning wood again. My husband abhors it, because yes, it does smell of burning wood. But, like fossil fuels, it does produce actual heat.

Reply to  Lee Riffee
November 27, 2023 4:43 pm

If you can afford to choose the type of wood (and you can get enough of a supply) it can be a very pleasant smell.

Reply to  Denis
November 27, 2023 4:54 pm

I live in Virginia.
Since 1993, we have replaced our heat pumps three times.

Heat pumps have very short lives compared to furnaces.

Twice I was quoted $30,000 to $50,000 to drill holes for geothermal based heat pump.
That is before the cost and expense of running heat pumps themselves.
In both cases the companies decided that they did not want the work as I lived outside their area of operations.

The cost? The companies explained that they are usually hired by commercial businesses, not home owners, the price cited to me was from their commercial service departments and that the full price wouldn’t be known until they finished installation.
All of the companies said they far preferred to put the heat pump plumbing under artificial ponds for the ground based heat source.

Legally, I can not “assemble” a heat pump as the freon used is forbidden to people without proper certifications and licenses.
Nor will any company allow me to abuse CFC legalities, as that might harm their licenses or certification.

Then there are issues when ground based heat pump plumbing cools the ground down too far. Just because your winters have not been harsh does not mean that this winter will also be mild.

corev
Reply to  Denis
November 28, 2023 5:03 am

Denis, I too live in SoMD, and have an air source heat pump with propane backup. In fact my whole house is propane, heat, cooking, dryer, and water heater. My bill is somewhat higher than yours, but my house is much larger.
My question is this: did you notice the large electricity price rise after they installed the solar farm? My bill rose ~30%.

November 27, 2023 10:44 am

Xhou Bai-den emulating his mentor.

Dave Fair
Reply to  Shoki
November 27, 2023 12:34 pm

Did you mean The Big Guy 10% Dementia Joe “Biden Brand” Brandon aka Robert L. Peters aka Robert Ware aka JRB Ware?

November 27, 2023 12:35 pm

The climate paranoia is an abstract fad, just as the Enlightenment was an intellectual abstract fad in the 18th century. Most people didn’t and don’t worry about either then or now. The Enlightenment, the source of the ideas that have led to semi-comatose frauds like Joe Biden initialing the paperwork pushed in front of him by a bevy of incompetents, hasn’t been a matter of discussion in the US for over 150 years. When climate paranoia runs into frozen plumbing, a failed harvest, snow-drift closed freeways, frost-bitten oranges in Florida and energy bills that bankrupt normal Americans it will also be forgotten in a much shorter time.

Reply to  general custer
November 27, 2023 1:23 pm

Those other things were not enshrined in law and regulation posing as law. They can’t just fade away. Legislators and regulators who will actually eliminate them are about as common as leprechauns. They love anything that controls other people and won’t make such things go away under anything approaching conditions that don’t threaten the lives of themselves and their families. The US is still operating under a great burden of law and regulation only made possible by emergency declarations going back to FDR (and many occasions since then).

Bob
November 27, 2023 12:47 pm

Nice report. The government needs to get out of the business of telling people which appliance to buy. The government does not know better than we do. The department of energy should be dismantled immediately.

ResourceGuy
November 27, 2023 12:53 pm

After replacing appliances with “who could have known” electric units and destabilized grid pricing adjustments, they will follow-up with utility bill subsidies for all “deserving” voter groups.

story tip

Continued Rises in Extreme Heat and Implications for Health Disparities | KFF

November 27, 2023 1:31 pm

OT, but I have a long-case clock made by John Paul Jones’ Brother-in-Law in Dumfries.
I often wonder what it would be worth if it was put up for sale in USA.

Reply to  Oldseadog
November 27, 2023 4:47 pm

If you have a good provenance to go with it, probably quite a bit. If you don’t, the price drops alarmingly sharply.

MarkW
November 27, 2023 1:31 pm

It takes a total idiot, or a leftist, to believe that an act that was designed to help the military get the stuff it needs to fight a war, can be used to force American companies to build only the type of heaters that the government wants built.

Drake
Reply to  MarkW
November 27, 2023 3:19 pm

But think of all the donations the Democrats have “earned” from this little bit of crony capitalism!

Drake
Reply to  Drake
November 27, 2023 3:20 pm

Just in time for the 2024 election season!!

Phil R
Reply to  MarkW
November 27, 2023 4:11 pm

The two are not mutually exclusive.

November 27, 2023 3:31 pm

Here in the US, there should be a legislated “expiration date” on any “emergency” powers granted to the Executive Branch that allows “Executive Orders” or this “Wartime BS” that dates back to the ’50’s.
“Expiration date”, by that I mean any “emergency” must be renewed by Congress, say, every 3 years. There are very ,very, very few actual emergencies which require the Executive Branch to act before Congress has time to convene and vote.

Drake
Reply to  Gunga Din
November 27, 2023 3:44 pm

Any emergency should be reviewed and approved by BOTH houses of congress at least once a week.

You don’t need to imagine the damage that can be done in 3 years. Look what Brandon did in just 18 months using the China Virus “emergency”.

Reply to  Drake
November 27, 2023 4:14 pm

OK.
I can see the “Nuclear Football” not needing approval before “The Button” is pushed.
But not much else.
( I commented here way back before Trump was the nominee that we needed someone that would cancel by, EO all of Obama’s EOs and then declare that all of the “emergencies” that allowed EOs were over. Then start over with Congress continually needing to approve or reapprove future “emergencies”. If Congress has time to convene and vote then the Executive Branch has zero authority other than enforce existing Law.)

Mark
November 28, 2023 7:39 am

I really appreciate the energetic discussion. Scissor’s comment is a accurate summary. Sooner or later,an increasingly stressed electric will will fail and lots of people will die.
.
Case-In-Point: Please follow this “story tip” to see what was barely avoided
Robert Bryce: NOV 25, 2023 via substack

Bone-Chilling
Last Christmas, the U.S. narrowly averted an energy disaster that would have decimated New York City and killed thousands

Louis J Hooffstetter
November 28, 2023 8:28 am

“Whoever controls the food supply controls the people; whoever controls the energy controls whole continents; and whoever controls the money can control the world.”
Henry Kissinger (Slightly Paraphrased)

scottaction
November 29, 2023 10:24 am

Biden is too old and has no knowledge worth worrying about!

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