So Justin #Trudeau, our "#unifying" prime minister who wants to "build #bridges, not sow #division", announced the suspension of the much-hated and regressive #carbon #tax on #heating #oil - but only in the Maritime provinces, because heating your #house shouldn't be expensive, and the #Maritimes are mostly oil-heated.
The west, which is mostly natural #gas-heated, or #propane-heated, which are also carbon taxed?
A big middle #finger to us.
"Oh why is western alienation a thing?" they wail.
I'm sure that the fact that the Maritimes fairly reliably #elects mostly #Liberal #members of #parliament, and the west has been rather pissed at the disdain Ottawa holds for us "flyover country" folks and so haven't sent many Liberal members to Ottawa, has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
@cazabon The goal of the carbon tax is to encourage people to switch to lower or zero carbon products and services. In the Maritimes, people are switching from oil and electric baseboards to heat pumps so rapidly (NB has the highest percentage of homes with heat pumps, and PE isn't far behind) that there are not enough installers to do them for three years. This relief will help those who want to switch but cannot yet do so.
Because the number of homes using oil and EBBs in NB were about 30% and 50%, and every EBB home that switches to a heat pump reduces load on the grid by 40%, and those switching from oil increase their load on the grid by 60% as much than if they switched to EBBs, our grid will be able to handle the load.
My understanding is that the prairie provinces have traditionally heated with fossil fuels and not EBBs so the grid doesn't have enough capacity to switch. Giving relief would simply let people slack off and they would not switch to lower or no carbon heating.
#Natural #gas is by far the most common #heating #fuel in the prairies, at least in cities of any size. If you're in a rural area, on a farm, a northern community, etc, you may have a #propane tank filled much like the oil tanks elsewhere. Propane costs a *lot* more than natural gas.
Electrical heat is far more expensive yet - because it generally means resistive heating. Affordable heat pumps that work efficiently in -40C don't exist yet.
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I have to say that your #response sounds pretty #dismissive. People here use gas because there's no other practical choice.
Your response sounds very much like "You guys like fossil fuels, you can go f*ck yourselves". Are you east of the Manitoba border, by chance?
@cazabon There are now prototypes of heat pumps that use CO2 as a refrigerant that can obtain a COP of up to 5.5 which should handle at least -35C since current heat pumps with a COP of 4 can handle -25C.
I know there are *#prototypes*, but I said there's no affordable, efficient pumps for a #prairie #climate *now*.
Hence, there being no practical alternative to natural gas heat in the prairies, *now*.
You also don't buy a heating system that handles 85% of the days you need heat. You buy one that can handle *all* of them, all #winter.
That means it needs to be able to handle -45C, more if you're further north.
No such thing *now*.
"Just use heat pumps!" is no help at all.
@cazabon Actually, that is what I did. My heat pump is 11 years old with a COP of only 3, and it can't handle below -15C and shuts off. In late January and early February we sometimes get down below -15C, sometimes -30C at night and usually a week of days that don't go above -15C. We still have our EBBs so they are set to kick in when the heat pump shuts off.
I spite of that, on a year-round basis the heat pump is still saving us 40% in heating costs overall, which saved enough electricity to pay for the purchase and installation of the heat pump after 10 years.
Some heat pumps have an electric heater built in for when the COP goes below 1.
I know people who use oil heat as a backup and they're saving more money than I am because now they only need to buy a fraction of the oil they used to.
So, no, it doesn't have to work 100% of the time to be worth investing in one, but do the math for your situation.
FWIW, modern gas furnaces don't have the drawbacks you mention, either.
Your climate sounds a lot #milder than the prairies get. Electric heating here would require resistive heating far more often, and it has to be on a central furnace, not per-room baseboards. It costs 4 or 5 times as much to heat a home that way here.
How exactly does a heat pump provide (equivalent) cooling at lower cost than an air conditioner? They are exactly the same technology.
@cazabon Being near the ocean means our seasonal temperatures are moderated. The ocean absorbs heat during the summer and releases it during the winter. It also means we experience higher humidity but heat pumps also remove humidity when operating in cooling mode, another plus.
The difference from air conditioners is that most are either on or off while heat pumps have different levels of operation, allowing less electricity to be used when the temperature is not high enough to require full power. The same is also true in heat mode relative to EBBs and oil furnaces which are either fully on or off.
C.
Tim Locke 🇨🇦♥🇺🇦🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️