Nine states are teaming up to accelerate adoption of this climate-friendly device.

Death is coming for the old-school gas furnace—and its killer is the humble heat pump. They’re already outselling gas furnaces in the US, and now a coalition of states has signed an agreement to supercharge the gas-to-electric transition by making it as cheap and easy as possible for their residents to switch.

Nine states have signed a memorandum of understanding that says that heat pumps should make up at least 65 percent of residential heating, air conditioning, and water-heating shipments by 2030. (“Shipments” here means systems manufactured, a proxy for how many are actually sold.) By 2040, these states—California, Colorado, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, and Rhode Island—are aiming for 90 percent of those shipments to be heat pumps.

“It’s a really strong signal from states that they’re committed to accelerating this transition to zero-emissions residential buildings,” says Emily Levin, senior policy adviser at the Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management (NESCAUM), an association of air-quality agencies that facilitated the agreement. The states will collaborate, for instance, in pursuing federal funding, developing standards for the rollout of heat pumps, and laying out an overarching plan “with priority actions to support widespread electrification of residential buildings.”

  • Guest_User@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Heat pumps can be more than 100% energy efficient so you could be net negative to what you are doing now. Also genuinely curious that carbon neutral point. Wouldn’t net carbon output be a bigger issue? Like you could burn half the Amazon rainforest to heat your home and claim you were carbon neutral right? But really, you do you!

    • spyd3r@sh.itjust.works
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      9 months ago

      Burning wood releases CO2 -> trees use CO2 to grow and make wood -> Burning wood releases CO2 -> trees use CO2 to grow and make wood -> repeat ad-nauseam