>The government offers subsidies worth £7,500 to people replacing a gas boiler with an electric heat pump, but only if it produces solely heat. A system that can heat in winter and cool in summer receives nothing.
"Proving that gov't can make the cure far worse than the disease is a tough job, but somebody's gotta do it."
Perhaps a home than can maintain temperature passively does not require a heat pump, but any home that requires active conditioning of either heating or cooling will benefit.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/28/heat-pum...
Yes, at n=1, doing a boiler => heat pump replacement, in a cookie-cutter well-to-do house, will provide both cooling and reduced local carbon emissions.
But "well-to-do" is an important qualification, as your Guardian article notes. Because that expensive replacement work will likely be followed by higher utility bills in perpetuity.
Some well-to-do folks won't mind that. Others will. Less well-to-do folks will generally mind it more. Note that there are far more of the latter. And every one of them has the power to vote against the "heat-pump party".
There are other problems as you scale up - some noted in your cited article, some not. Britain isn't full of idle heat-pump factories and installation firms. You can subsidize - but the British Treasury is in iffy shape, and the pound sterling is no longer the world's reserve currency, to make that low-risk.
In theory (or your article), the right mix of competent policies and good judgement calls could make a British national heat-pump mostly-mandate work out well. But would a rational person, aware of the British government's very mixed track record over the past half-century or so, actually believe that they had the Right Stuff to do that?
But, in a nat'l-gov't-level org, even "stop sabotaging things" is an enormous ask.
(If you're unfamiliar, talk to a few folks who've retired from the civil service. Or have a few decades of experience with mere local gov't.)
_dain_•7mo ago