-----Original Message----- From: Horace Heffner > The heat pump is run by electricity. Right now electric energy costs about 3 times as much as gas, so a 30 percent energy improvement is not much economically speaking.
Yes and no. If gas were not a limited resource, in effect controlled by an oligarchy, then what you say would be true. But the supply and demand situation can make the "cost" (whether partly artificial or not) very different with only a tiny drop in demand. In the age of Peak Oil, the closer that demand and supply come together, the more exponential the price curve gyrations can become, as we have witnessed first-hand in recent months. Ergo in this kind of "false free market", brought on by peak conditions intersecting with greed, using electricity instead of natural gas could result in consistent net savings to the consumer over time. Look at last year. Natural gas was almost three times higher in price than now on the spot market, over $12/mcf vs ~4 - YET - get this: demand has fallen only 3% - huge difference in those variables that indicates the way things will be in the future. This situation could more than make up for the 3x cost of electric if we encourage a switch away from gas. The grid company profits are regulated as a public utility, unlike the petroleum cartel. That is to say, the supercritical heat pump results in 30% less total gas consumption, but the net cost to the consumer can be lowered in a much different way due to the supply and demand considerations. A tiny drop in demand results in a massive drop in price, which was artificially high due to suppliers in a near-oligarchy being able to hold back production, as we approached peak conditions. This was the unsaid part of the BIG LIE about natural gas, the one that T-Bone Pickens has been promoting to try to get things back to the way they were. What a disgusting con-artist that guy is, and always has been. > I think heat pumps are best implemented as a hybrid thermal well and solar system. That is true, but in general - and in a world where cartels and oligarchies are permitted, when allowed to operate unimpeded as has been the case, I think the US consumer is better-off to chose electricity over gas - since this gives the public utility the opportunity to use its greater buying power to get the best price on whatever fuel or method gives the lowest cost electricity. It probably would help the situation if we also make executive salaries in the public utilites dependent on finding the lowest price for the consumer. Jones
