Colorado’s Bet on a Renewable Future with Heat Pumps
Credit to: Unsplash
Colorado and other states in the Western United States have seen massive efforts in recent years to create renewable energy systems that efficiently distribute the energy they produce. The bottom line is that the energy systems that are available right now, like heat pumps, can change the landscape of how humans utilize renewable energy but must be subsidized by the government on a massive scale.
The Inflation Reduction Act does a lot of the subsidizing that is necessary to provide heat pumps for people. Colorado just passed a law last year that gives up to an $8,000 credit towards subsidizing the cost of a heat pump for low to medium-income households. The aim is to subsidize up to 100% of the project cost in Colorado, but not everyone will be able to install heat pumps from the get-go, according to Ms. Meera Fickling, who is the Senior Climate Policy Analyst at Western Resource Advocates.
Western Resource Advocates have been at the front lines of the push towards relying upon renewable sources like solar or wind energy rather than fossil fuels. The situation, according to Fickling, is a dire one. According to her, scientists have forecasted that many species on Earth, including humans, could face extinction if the globe is too warm by an additional four degrees Fahrenheit from where the temperature currently sits at. The warming of the Earth is the main reason that renewable ways of harvesting energy, like heat pumps, must be investigated more heavily by the top scientists and governments in the world. Change can only be truly felt if it is implemented by those who have less, not just those who can afford it when it is expensive.
The goal of subsidizing the cost of heating pumps in Colorado so that low to medium income households can afford them is a lofty proposition, but with the help of the Inflation Reduction Act and other subsidies there may just be hope in the future. However, we do not have much time to act because the climate has been changing drastically throughout the last few decades and will continue doing so as the heat increases into the future.
“Snowpack [in Colorado] is 10-20% less since prior to 1980...and continues reducing by another 60% in the next 30 years," said Fickling when asked about the impacts of a warming planet on Colorado's climate.
Our actions as humans have caused detrimental and irreversible effects on the environment, but we must mitigate what we can. That is where heat pumps come in. Subsidizing the cost of heat pumps to a low enough level where low-to-medium income households could afford them would allow Colorado's legislature to focus on other areas of climate change that do not involve the electrical grid like stopping logging operations and deforestation efforts in protected areas.
The impacts of climate change on Colorado are numerous: increased snowfall in the winter and an increase in wildfires in the summer and physical changes to the landscapes like dried rivers and streams. Widespread changes must be applied if we are to have any hope of mitigating climate changes grip on our electrical, hydrologic, and other systems we rely on for energy in Colorado and it must happen fast.
"Electricity is more expensive than natural gas on a BTU basis," according to Fickling. This poses more issues for widespread implementation of heating pumps and other new technologies available to the public. The cost of electricity would come down if we were able to subsidize heating pump technology as a country, but that seems too lofty a goal for the current moment.
Hopefully with time Colorado's legislature can figure out somewhere/somehow to find the subsidies money for heating pumps because without the environment functioning properly, we cannot hope to even begin thinking about other areas of the world that are in dire need of assistance.
Sources:
Interview, Meera Fickling. Western Resource Management
https://unsplash.com/s/photos/solar-energy
