Breathe easy

Rewiring America has just released a big report that shows swapping out fossil fuel water heating, space heating and clothes drying for heat pump technology would create huge public health benefits. 

As our first explainer 'Electrification for Humans' showed, this is not only about reducing carbon emissions (although avoiding the worst of global heating is a pretty big benefit). There are a range of other positives on offer by electrifying everything, from massive household and national savings to greater self-sufficiency. 

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The report shows that moving to heat pumps would result in “3,400 fewer premature deaths, 1,300 fewer hospital admissions and ER visits, 220,000 fewer asthma attacks, and 670,000 fewer days of reduced activity or missed work for Americans each year. These improved health outcomes resulting from household electrification translate to about $40 billion in health benefits every year.”

In New Zealand, a study showed “the two human-made air pollutants of most concern, NO2 (mainly from vehicle emissions) and PM2.5 (mainly from combustion), were linked to an estimated 13,155 hospitalisations and an estimated 3,317 premature deaths in Aotearoa New Zealand in 2016."

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It pays to remember that burning things is not only inefficient, it's also pretty bad for our health.

Here to stay? 

The Rewiring America report focused on the impact of fossil fuels on outdoor air quality, but there's been plenty of work done on the dangers of burning fossil gas in a confined space. This also comes with some serious and unwanted health effects, as the Hot & Toxic campaign creatively illustrated. 

There has been plenty of talk about gas in New Zealand recently, with Genesis-owned Frank Energy telling customers to get gas from somewhere else and Vector raising concerns about the shrinking supply and cutting off suburban customers in a worst case scenario. The term gas death spiral is now in fairly wide circulation and gas networks around the world are already being swapped out and banned, like in Victoria.

So imagine our surprise when we noticed a LinkedIn post from Powerco recently saying gas was here to stay. 

At Rewiring Aotearoa we would suggest gas is obviously not here to stay - especially in our homes - because it leads to higher bills, lots of pollution and more asthma.

No one thinks gas is here to stay other than vested interests. It's a bit like a tobacco company saying "smoking is here to stay" and we believe gas customers will be worse off over time in a number of different ways. 

While Powerco said it was shifting its focus to biomethane, there is simply not enough of it available. It's also more expensive than normal fossil gas so there is no point when heat pumps are already the cheapest option. 

Some networks suggest hydrogen may flow through the pipes eventually, but you can't put hydrogen through the network without putting in new pipes because of the physics of hydrogen (it loves to leak, is invisible, odourless, and deadly).

Down to zero

We talked about the Octopus Energy’s Zero Bills open home a couple of weeks ago and COO Margaret Cooney joined Paddy Gower to talk about the exciting project. 

As she said: “We should aim for all new houses in New Zealand to have solar and battery in them, because it's the cheapest time to put these technologies into the home, and they are the cheapest option in terms of the lifetime energy costs for the home. So we hope to work with all property developers who are looking to build homes for New Zealand families, because we know New Zealand families don't like power bills, and this is one way to avoid them for five years.”

Genesis might refute that last bit as it appears it has managed to find the one person who seems to enjoy getting a power bill.

Poles apart

As we wrote recently in response to the release of the Second Emissions Reduction Plan, while the fast charging network is important, especially for longer trips and for those without off street parking, we need to focus on rolling out more convenient slow chargers through communities (supermarkets, beaches, parks, workplaces etc). 

These are much cheaper to build, and have minimal impact on electricity networks compared to fast chargers. There are often times we park our car for hours at a time, maybe for an appointment, to visit a friend or to enjoy a holiday activity. These are times when we don't need to charge fast, but it's convenient to charge slow. 

In Port Macquarie in Australia, they’re looking to put the lightposts to work and that's the kind of thing we need more of.

Love thy electric machine

Having God’s representative on Earth go electric is quite the endorsement for EVs and the Pope recently took possession of a new electric Mercedes with a range of almost 400km (and potentially free charging from the hand of Zeus himself).

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Homer Simpson is reportedly filing for copyright infringement. 

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