Energy Matters

  Energy Decisions: Cash-Back Carbon Pricing? Finding ways to solve the climate crisis facing humanity is quite vexing, chiefly due to complexity.  The crisis involves physics, chemistry, ecology, biology, history, sociology,  economics, - pretty much everything, especially human behavior. The physics and chemistry and history are clear:  Since the industrial revolution, humanity has succeeded in stuffing the atmosphere with too many greenhouse gases, trapping more heat than it can contain to maintain the equilibrium necessary for life on earth.  There is no longer any credible refutation of this fact; this part is simple. The complexity enters the scene with the humans who need to decide what to do.  Some refuse to  believe it.  Others refuse to do anything until every detail of the climate’s ecological trajectory is described with certainty, which is not possible. Still others take it seriously but refuse to take action because they perceive any remedy as too painful.  The result is

  Heat Pumps Revisited Although we have written about heat pumps before, back in the spring, Winter Is Coming, and we figure that heating systems are on many people’s minds as they consider their optimum strategies for staying warm over the next 6 months!  Also, as the climate crisis becomes more visible, many are trying to reduce their household carbon emissions in practical ways. With the rebates currently available in Maine for high efficiency air source heat pumps, these systems will pay for themselves in savings within 3 to 5 years, and can reduce your heating system’s greenhouse gas emissions by 75%. Heat pumps are a bit difficult to fathom if you are not an engineer or physicist.  People tend to think ground source heat pumps tap into geothermal energy (like hot springs), and they tend to think that air source heat pumps only work if it isn’t very cold out.   In fact, ground source heat pumps (confusingly often referred to as geothermal) take heat from water running through pipe