I got a campaign e-mail from the State Auditor, Rebecca Otto, discussing her home's new GHP and the cost of heating over the entire winter being less than $40 along with being emissions free.
I had a AHP/gas heat system installed last year because of a relatively low cost to a GHP system. I would have loved to do GHP, but the cost differential was over 4 times more than a standard non-heat pump system. Either I paid a 42% premium for 35% carbon emissions change (I pay for wind generated electricity) or 186% premium
to get to 0% carbon emissions.
Do we want to advocate emissions-free solutions that most can't possibly entertain in a 'decision point' scenario (most don't replace HVAC until its broke, for instance, and its generally not the best timing to break out a ton of debt) or solutions that can be entertained for relatively low cost. If a few people can do 100% change but many do much worse (less than 10%) when they could be getting closer to 35%.
A friend of mine asked why some of these suburb neighborhoods didn't invest in shared closed-loop systems instead of having each-to-their-own in the standard/ahp/ghp debate. I think its because of the general want for a home in the suburb to be independent of one another, we couldn't get everyone (or even half) of the people on the block to agree to it.
Anyhow, right now, you can decide to go to 100% windsource energy. You won't have to pay the fuel price adjustment anymore and the net cost has generally been low. ($10 or less on my usually-less-than 1000 kWh bill) This requires Xcel to purchase more windpower above-and-beyond regulatory requirements so it reduces overall emissions.
My cost for last heating season? No idea, I don't track by price, I track by Therms/kWh and BTUs. I know I used 210 less Therms from 8/07-5/08 vs the prior year, and 1109 more kWh over that time. That sounds bad, but after I calculated the BTUs of kWh and Therms, it was overall 19% less use of BTUs. If someone wasn't using windsource they'd have a much smaller loss in emissions, about a half a ton. It's a 2 step process, moving away from combustion and moving toward zero-emissions generation. Since I use windsource my change was 1.2 tons. Using windsource for all my energy takes a small-car's worth of emissions off the road for 6.1 tons.
I've got some caluclations here for those who want to see the data.
The point is -- lets advocate solutions that cash strapped Americans can implement immediately. Pay for relatively inexpensive offset solutions, make your home more efficient, drive less and take the bus, etc. Less smug, more change.
