Climate change and fossil fuels: Heat Pumps Are Ultimate Climate Techno-Fix, But Not a Silver Bullet
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shown once and for all that we must get off fossil fuels—fast. Heat pumps are a big part of the solution to stopping burning them in our homes. Heat pumps will not stop the war in Ukraine.
These seemingly contradictory statements are both true. And they’re a microcosm of the much broader climate and clean technology debates playing out now from sector to sector and country to country.
Electric heat pumps are indeed a superior solution to heat one’s home. They are a key component in the drive to electrify everything. In fact, they are so efficient at converting power to heat that even if the power grid ran entirely on gas, heat pumps connected to it would use less than directly gas-powered furnaces do. But the clean energy transition must not stop with electrification. Decarbonizing the grid is a big piece of the equation. So is insulating homes to lower the need for heating and cooling in the first place.
Heat pumps are not the only solution, but they are pretty close to the universal techno-fix for the world’s home and commercial heating needs. The International Energy Agency estimates that they “could satisfy 90% of global heating needs with a lower carbon footprint than gas-fired condensing boilers.”
They are especially prominent in colder climates, embraced by Nordic countries where their emissions-reduction potential is particularly high. But there is a long way to go. Heat pumps now heat less than 10% of buildings globally. That gap promises massive market opportunities focused on deploying an existing technology at scale. Doing so would help cut carbon emissions as well as dependence on gas, Russian or otherwise.
Saying just that, in about as many words, is likely to
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