this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2023
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That's the future for sure, although still not quite viable if it gets decently cold and gas is still cheaper.
we need to be electrifying buildings today while we continue to develop and decarbonize the electric grid. also on all but the coldest days a heatpump powered by a natural gas power plant is more fuel efficient than burning the gas locally. technology connections did a few vids on the subject:
https://youtu.be/7J52mDjZzto
https://youtu.be/43XKfuptnik
https://youtu.be/MFEHFsO-XSI
I agree with you that electric is the future and maintaining two separate utility infrastructures to every building that can do the same thing is sorta silly.
Technology Connections is always fun, but it seems you might have glossed over where he discusses the drawbacks that mean a heat pump isn't a one-size-fits-all solution. It's just much better than most people realize and the technology gets better each year.
Where I live it gets too cold for a heat pump to work very well for weeks at a time in the winter so supplemental electric heat is a must if fully switching off the gas (and that poor heat pump will be having to defrost the coils a lot). The issue with that is natural gas is still a good bit cheaper than electricity (we use gas for water heating, and sometimes dryers too because of this). It is viable for a good chunk of people in many other areas though so moving in that direction is still worthwhile where is does work.
I'm not sure what you mean about burning the gas locally being less efficient though? Home furnaces are commonly around 95% efficient these days. Is a natural gas power generation plant (with transmission losses on top) operating at a level even close to that?