cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/8503579
seize the means of production
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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Why not just use electric stove/heater/whatever? That way you're using something that's both cleaner, safer, and make more sense to nationalise if it haven't.
electricity is comically expensive compared to gas for heating, I understand that some places don't consistently get to -40 every winter, but many places do.
Fwiw, heat pumps are not comically expensive in operation. They also work in the north of Sweden, so I'm sure that any issues with low temperature operations have been hammered out by now.
I understand that installation can be prohibitively expensive in some markets still though, but this is a problem that can hopefully be addressed.
Sweden has some of the cheapest electricity in all of Europe thanks to all that hydro.
This year my final electric bill was ~ 25 c/kWh. Gas was ~ 8c/kWh (both after distribution costs, and funnily enough for electricity I pay amongst other things a fee to subsidize other people's solar panels' negative impact on the grid).
Not "comically expensive" but to be cost-effective a heat pump must average a COP of at least 3.1 (which is possible in most climates with a decent enough HP), so it's not yet a "jump on it first chance you get" kinda deal because it will take many years to recoup the initial investment. And people remember last year's winter where the electric costs were more than doubled; gas prices tend to fluctuate much less. This makes heat pumps even more of a very long term investment for people who can afford very large surprises in their power bill... Or who have excess PV generation capacity in the winter (that requires a very large house).
Gas is on the way out but all the political sabotage of electricity prices in Europe (nuclear phaseout, asinine financial regulations and fake competition with useless middlemen, misfiring PV legislation meaning PV owners are being subsidized by everyone else, etc.) means it will take a very long time before HP costs drop enough for people flock to replace their existing gas heater with a heat pump.