By Isaiah Ritzmann
Published March 2022
We have the power to stop war and help solve the climate emergency if we act now. Bill McKibben argues that installing millions of heat pumps in European homes ahead of next winter will dramatically reduce reliance on Russian natural gas, cutting off a key source of Vladmir Putin’s power. Currently oil and gas make up 60% of Russia’s export earnings, and 40% of Europe’s natural gas comes from Russia. Such a project would not only help slow the Russian war machine, but would contribute meaningfully to lowering carbon emissions and addressing the climate emergency. It’s a win-win situation. It finds ways to meet tangible human needs in a way that solves seemingly intractable geopolitical problems, now and in the future.
In his viral, late-February piece “Heat Pumps for Peace and Freedom,” McKibben recommends that the Biden administration invokes the Defense Production Act to get American manufacturers to produce electric heat pumps en masse, ship them to Europe, and have them installed – all in a relatively short-period of time. Both Trump and Biden have used the Act recently, to ramp up production of ventilators and protective equipment to combat COVID-19. Such a large-scale production effort has precedent in both Canada and the United States. During the Second World War, with Europe under occupation, our governments took the lead in dramatically expanding production at a scope and speed that frankly seems unbelievable today. With Ukraine under siege, and a changing climate looming on the horizon, a mobilization on this scale seems once again desirable and feasible. Why not manufacture tens of millions of heat pumps in the United States (and maybe Canada?) and send them to Europe in the next 6-9 months? The White House is reportedly seriously considering McKibben’s plan.
Heat pumps are a device for heating and cooling homes: one-part furnace, one-part air conditioner. Powered by electricity, they take heat from the air and transfer it – taking heat from the outside-in during the winter, and from the inside-out during the summer. By replacing furnaces they reduce reliance on natural gas, which is both a polluting fossil fuel and a non-renewable resource. While much electricity generation worldwide currently comes from coal, the transition to renewables such as solar and wind promise to be a sustainable means to heating and cooling our homes into the future. Furthermore, combined with retrofits such as better insulation and energy-efficient windows, technologies like heat pumps have a promise of drastically reducing overall energy consumption. With all of these changes, energy use for heating and cooling our homes could be cut by 50 percent. Cutting emissions and energy consumption is an ecological win-win. Creating good, green jobs, providing energy security, and reducing the power of petro-dictatorships (like Russia and Saudi Arabia) make this an economic and social win-win as well.
Such a large-scale mobilization is also needed in Canada. By 2023 we are expected to have over 14.6 million homes across the country, and currently only 700,000 of those have heat pumps (or about 5% of all homes). The challenge is heat pumps are currently more expensive. Efficiency Nova Scotia estimates that the price of a new heat pump system would cost close to $14,000, in comparison to a baseboard heating system which would cost just over $2,000. With these economic realities it is paramount that governments set strong targets, regulate new housing development, and provide accessible funding (in subsidy and low-interest loans) for those who need it. The federal government’s Greener Homes Grant – which offers rebates on a variety of home retrofits, including heat pumps – is a good place to start. But more is needed. We need a bolder vision. Why not mandate that by 2030, for example, 50% of homes in Canada use heat pumps or equivalent technologies and provide the production and funding capacity to meet this goal? This may seem like a massive undertaking. And it is. But it is what the times, and what living in a climate emergency, require. And with a win-win-win technology like heat pumps – which can create jobs, disempower petro-Dictators, and help us live sustainably – what’s not to love?
