I guess I repeatedly look at “free energy” which I guess all of it is, just the effort of harnessing it is the cost.
The other “cost” is the effects of methane in the atmosphere, and wondering what affect scientists believe that will have on our world.
Should I double or triple my energy and systems costs to avoid spillung a little more CO2 from natural gas burning into the atmosphere? When I know even that electricity I will be buying is CURRENTLY made primarily with fossil fuels? My gut says no. Investing in geothermal wells on my new property sounds perhaps worthwhile, at least maybe for the cooling of the condenser of the AC units, but I do wonder how much more efficient that will be than just using swimming pool water.
Thanks for this article. It leads me to believe there is some hope, but does it consider the melting permafrost methane issues?
Is it economists? Lefty activists? Musk and Gates? The voting public? Nope.
noahpinion.substack.com
While methane is a potent greenhouse gas, its lifetime in the atmosphere is a couple decades, versus the 500-1000 years for CO2. The CO2 we are emitting will be there and affecting the climate for many centuries, unless our descendants decide to scrub it out. The methane we release will heat the climate while we are alive, and not be a curse on the next 20 generations.
Most of the stuff I have seen about permafrost methane release has been sensationalistic and not IMO trustworthy. Whether the release process speeds up (or slows down) is hard to predict, and the methane released will not have time to accumulate (bc it breaks down).
As for electrification, the details are in the numbers. In my case, I bought a 2200 sq ft, 1960 house that burned 1100 gallons of fuel oil per season for heat (HW was on top of that). I retrofitted the house insulation to get that down to more reasonable 600 gallons of oil. I then put in a 4-ton (low-tech, single speed) ASHP and tore out the boiler. This drove my bill up about 10,000 kWh per year.
So, does the 10,000 kWh of electricity (made with fossil fuels) release less carbon than the 600 gallons of oil?
According to the EIA, in 2020, the US average number for CO2 per kWh is 0.85 lbsCO2/kWh.
www.eia.gov
Conversely, I know that burning 80 gallons of oil releases a ton of CO2.
So the 10,000 kWh = 8,500 lbs CO2 = 4.25 tons CO2/ year.
the 600 gals HHO = 7.5 tons CO2/year.
So electrification for me got a 44% reduction. About what you got from burning wood versus gas!
In practice, my HP is 14 years old, and not the most efficient. And my local power is likely greener bc we have a lot of nukes and gas in the mix compared to the US average. So I am probably doing better than a 50% reduction in CO2. And a newer HP (like an inverter model or a mini-split) would be even better again. When the current one dies.
Compared to the 1100 gallons I used when I moved in (= 13.8 tons/year), I bagged a close to 70% reduction in CO2 emissions.
You can crunch the numbers for your situation, but the fact is that insulation and electrification can really reduce CO2 emissions.
