One weird trick to decarbonize your home
Episode description
Heat pumps are the hot new thing in climate tech right now. The fastest way we can slash emissions out of the economy is to electrify as much as possible. And the fastest way to electrify is to deploy heat pumps.
If we want to decarbonize our homes quickly, we need to start replacing existing HVAC systems. A good place to start: installing heat pumps instead of conventional central air conditioners.
Turns out, the cost of making a two-way heat pump instead of an air conditioning unit is only a few hundred dollars per unit. What if the government incentivized manufacturers to make the switch?
Every minute, 12 central air conditioning units are installed or swapped out at homes across America. That's 18,000 per week. Turning those one-way AC units into two-way heat pumps could help electrify millions of homes every year. A new federal bill could be the answer.
Guests:
- Nate “the house whisperer” Adams, CEO of HVAC 2.0.
- Alexander Gard-Murray, a Political Economist at Brown University's Climate Solutions Lab.
The Carbon Copy is a co-production of Post Script Media and Canary Media.
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