Mastodawn

@taco sticking with oil heat will also get people killed, just further down the road. Let's fix the fuckin grid and use systems that are literally 2-5 times more efficient, and not ask our kids to fuckin swim.

@oldmanhero are you paying for it?

Because the people using oil can’t afford to.

People saying “just fix the grid” like that isn’t a multi-decade project is something I’m getting very tired of seeing.

Which one of PEI or NS rivers are we damming? 🤔

@taco let's stop damming rivers in an age when solar and wind are cheaper on every metric by almost an order of magnitude. Overbuild 5x and still save 50%.

@oldmanhero you can build all the panels and wind turbines you want, but without scale storage it’s useless.

We aren’t there yet.

And try running your home on solar in the winter anywhere north of Quebec City. Better keep that wood stove.

@taco You're wrong about that, friend. Overbuilding capacity can absolutely provide base load. You don't even need that high an overbuild factor, according to some studies. The lowest I've seen is 60% overbuild, which is a fuckin rounding error on yet another goddamned hydro megaproject.

@taco also, folks currently have a LOT of tools to move off of oil onto something much cheaper to run. You can't have it both ways here. If you just want to be grumpy about electrification, at least be honest about it. But switching to heat pumps for our primary heat meant we save, overall, about $2000 a year. And that's on a loan program. Low income folks have access to large grants.

@oldmanhero thanks for outing yourself as someone who has no fucking clue what they’re talking about.

Saves me a lot of time.

@oldmanhero this is one of the most head-up-the-ass takes I’ve seen on this. It’s almost impressive.

“Oh the poor should just build their own power supply for their new heating systems, there’s a rebate!”

Does anyone take you seriously? Ever?

@taco Say it with me:
If you save someone $2000 a year with a program that pays for their heat pump (which the low income program does do outright) and then charge them $1000 a year for a bit to offset the other costs, you just saved them $1000 a year.

All the ad hominem in the world isn't going to make you right on this one.

John Francis Jan 11, 2024

@taco heat-pump systems are not huge users of electricity, usually on a 20A or 15A circuit.

A more realistic threat to grids is 80A EV chargers.

Both are going to happen.

Provincial regulators just need to change some regulations to prevent utilities from charging infrastructure like transformer upgrades to any residential property that's requesting a normal 200A or 300A service. The upgrade costs have to go into the system as a whole.

@johnefrancis you aren’t paying attention.

The power grids are telling us, very clearly, that the supply isn’t there. We will have shortfalls in bad weather without installing a bunch of heat pumps, which, again: aren’t sufficient for Canadian northern winters.

John Francis Jan 11, 2024

@taco the idea is to move forward, fix the grid. Not to pretend that distribution and supply can't be fixed and work backwards to a false conclusion that homes need to continue heating with oil.

So much fossil fuel industry+govt disinformation is based on working backwards to those false conclusions that invariably keep the fossil fuel industry alive.

Grid capacity and supply grows all the time, and it's always managed to meet demand.

Look at the mental gymnastics of CCS!

@johnefrancis and what does any of that, whatsoever, have to do with the current state of the grid?

We can’t fix heating until we have the supply, which again: isn’t there currently.

Take a look at the Atlantic grid. Tell me exactly where it can be grown quickly at scale, without distribution challenges.

The simple fact is that if we did it now the grid would fail, and there is no natural gas distribution to back stop.

@johnefrancis If you want to be one of Guinea pigs that freezes to death in -40 120+kmh winds because the grid failed, that’s on you.

But don’t expect others to.