Oh Canada (well Ontario)

Hilly

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/ontario-climate-change-plan-natural-gas-electricity-1.3584739

It'll be interesting to see where this ends up.

jumper

Ontario voters elected and re-elected whackos. Somebody will pay down the road. Provincial government debt is $100,000 per family.

Hilly

Well they hydro electric excess that they need to push to market.

kcopp

They actually have a thing as a Climate Change Minister??? What A crock.

Jamie Hall

It's nice to know, at least, that the dear ol' USA does not have a monopoly on slightly flaky politicians...

Paul48

@kcopp

Yes........He just held a press conference, and stated that most of Canada had warmed in the last couple months.....lol

njtommy

Why don't they just push dual fuel. Heatpump then switch to NG. I really don't know if geothermal is the way to go anymore. With these new heatpumps that hit the market.

SWEI

To be fair, once the same VRF technology is fully implemented in water to water heat pumps they will once again leap ahead in efficiency.

kcopp

They can throw all the money they want at the problem and it will not make a difference....
All it will do is lower the standard of living....
I highly encourage saving energy and NOT being wasteful.
I hate waste.

ChrisJ

I don't know.

Having a majority of your homes run completely on hydro electric sounds like a good thing to me. Especially if it can be done affordably.


Certainly makes more sense than running heat pumps with electric generated by coal or oil.

jumper

Ontario ran out of hydro electric a half century ago. Today much of its electricity comes from atomic power. To replace gas heat requires not only more nukes but also way more distribution. How can that be accomplished when its people elect and re-elect whackos?

DanHolohan

Update:

http://www.torontosun.com/2016/05/19/government-denies-plan-to-phase-out-natural-gas

nicholas bonham-carter

It seems like the day of the wackos all over the world!--NBC

Steve Thompson (Taco)

The funny thing (at least to me) is the perception that electric heat (or electric water heaters) are for the most part 100% efficient. What's is missed is the line loses due to wire resistance between the source of the electricity and where it's used. Wet, radiant heating (and cooling) is still the most efficient system in my opinion. Too bad DOE (and others) don't regulate systems, only components of systems.

SWEI

The story I tell clients goes something like this:

An electric resistance electric element is nearly 100% efficient at converting electricity to heat. The power company creates the overwhelming majority of that electricity by burning either coal or natural gas. On average, they burn natural gas in their most efficient gas turbine plants and convert 50% of the energy in that gas to electricity. They lose another 7% in distribution, so roughly 46% of the energy contained in the gas actually goes to heating your building.

A properly sized, installed, and commissioned mod/con boiler will convert twice as many of those BTUs into usable heat. You get increased comfort while spending less money and a 50% reduction in the amount of carbon and other pollutants you put in the atmosphere. Coal and gas peaking plants are even worse.

Please sign here...

Jamie Hall

I've been muttering (and sometimes yelling) about this sort of thing for years -- the absolute necessity of considering the full life or energy cycle when evaluating environmental impacts from different systems -- such as heating. Or electric cars. Or rail freight vs. superhighways. Or...

But... nobody's listening. Except maybe Wallies!

Solid_Fuel_Man

This is where the....cough....heat pump market looks good. If you burn NG or coal to make power and 46% of that energy makes it to your house. Then you have a 300% efficient heat pump you are further ahead than burning NG or coal directly in your house. That's the argument is get.

Not at all saying I agree or endorse this line of thinking, but on paper it makes sense.

Taylor

njtommy

I really like heat pumps. Especially the newest ones with inverters. They do really well in cold weather do to using liquid/ medium temp injection back into the compressor. They are a challenge to work at times with the control boards and sensors ( and your out side in the cold doing so), but like we always say if it's installed correctly theirs less of a chance of failures especially with the EXVs.

Mark Eatherton

As with any hydronic question, GSHP efficiency depends... If it happens to get its electricity from Hydro electric, then yes, it can be nearly 300% efficient, except the line losses. If it's from a fossil fuel burning generator, then yeah, not so efficient, but still more than 100% efficient in any case.

I ilke telling my brother that his Tesla is running on dead dinosaurs... Get's his ire up every time.

Now, wouldn't it be a great world if all we had was hydro electric power? Then we'd only be at the whims of droughts... And what do we do when the water runs out... Throw another dinosaur on the fire, of course!

ME

Gordy

The sun is quite reliable. If there is a solar drought we have bigger things to worry about. Now if we could only convert it to electricity with higher efficiency PV panels 21% just doesn't cut it, and the degrading efficiency shoots longevity.

Steve Thompson (Taco)

Or "electric glass" that radiates heat. Mark, what do you think?

Jamie Hall

I wouldn't mind hydro so much, Mark, except around here "hydro" means Quebec, and their environmental and human rights record with regard to building dams is pretty bad.

hot_rod

The hydro dams along the Colorado have always been controversial.

Power, like water flows towards money. Does the Colorado even flow into Mexico anymore?

jumper

Ontario has many nukes but many Ontarians are not completely happy with those either.

Mark Eatherton

Steve Thompson (Taco) said:

Or "electric glass" that radiates heat. Mark, what do you think?

I think that is a CAPITAL idea Steve. And that product in and of itself will reduce energy consumption by around 40% according to two independent studies...

ME

SWEI

Mark Eatherton said:

wouldn't it be a great world if all we had was hydro electric power?

But I really do love salmon and trout...

ChrisJ

SWEI said:

Mark Eatherton said:

wouldn't it be a great world if all we had was hydro electric power?

But I really do love salmon and trout...

But do you love electricity more?

Gordy

ChrisJ said:

SWEI said:

Mark Eatherton said:

wouldn't it be a great world if all we had was hydro electric power?

But I really do love salmon and trout...

But do you love electricity more?

I can grill....

ChrisJ

Gordy said:

ChrisJ said:

SWEI said:

Mark Eatherton said:

wouldn't it be a great world if all we had was hydro electric power?

But I really do love salmon and trout...

But do you love electricity more?

I can grill....

So can I, and I do.
But grilling doesn't light a house. It doesn't run your refrigerator (SERVEL doesn't count....) and it doesn't run air conditioning or a computer.