Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts determining whether this is immediately beneficial to the environmental impact of climate control or not.

Lower demand for fuel at each household, but increased demand for fuel at the power station; what net change in fuel cost does this create?

Heat pumps tout up to 300% efficiency, but that is only achieved in ideal weather conditions; how often is it operating well short of that?

There may be economies of scale using fuel for power generation at the power plant; how much more efficient is it? How do transmission losses factor into that?

There are plenty of talking points for or against. I don't think everyone should just go convert a perfectly functional system to electric, and for others, conversion may be financially irresponsible. If we're looking at this as a phase (get it?) in a larger plan to reduce dependence on fossil fuel for energy needs, then it seems like an eventually worthwhile change and not just passing the buck or kicking the can.

What we have been seeing are things happening in parallel. Efforts to reduce generation emissions while also increasing residential and commercial structure and systems efficiency.

In terms of that last mile efficiency, this is just the next evolution to previous efforts to increase efficiency in lighting. Remember when the vast majority of light bulbs used 60-100 watts? I even used to have a 300-watt halogen lamp! Now we are seeing 10-15 watts. That's huge! And looking at the efficiency of AC units for a 3ton unit, at 14 seer, it was like running 25 of those old light bulbs; a 25 seer unit would be like 14 of those old light bulbs, or maybe 100-150 modern led lights. We shifted energy demand away from lighting, and by moving away from combustion heat, shifting demand more to electric heat, but it is not an equal exchange. As generation becomes more efficient, we're actually looking at the end game of a major shift in energy sources and consumption. We are also doing our part adopting more EV and PHEV vehicles (a whole other can or worms). Let's not get pessimistic and take the wind out of the sails of people who want to switch from a furnace to a heat pump now! Things feel like they are moving in the right direction, slowly but surely.

I too refuse to make progress, until the perfect solution is presented.

No duh there's still more work to do. Nobody is saying this is the end, but a very good step forward.

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My state pairs it with other incentives like home energy efficiency upgrades and discounts on a whole class of energy upgrades. You get loans with preferential interest rates (like a couple % off the rate) if you let them do a home energy audit.

So like, I got heat pumps on a line of super cheap credit because I'm willing to let them help me plug holes in my sieve of a house. I get thousands of dollars in tax incentives back.

That same home energy audit is good for like a year? Maybe more? It also gets me major tax incentives on buying solar panels, which you can also get super cheap lines of credit. So whaddaya know, I'm doing that too.

Between the savings in heating and cooling costs, I don't think the whole rig will be free, but it'll be cheaper than keeping my existing heating cooling solution even without the leak seal I'm getting. From a real cost standpoint, provided electricity and oil don't become ludicrously cheap simultaneously suddenly, it's about what I would've paid to get old school central air alone and stay on grid power. Even if it does, I now have a system that lets me handle major power outages due to weather without being miserable. If it goes up, I'm better than break even.

'Murica or something! 🇺🇸