|
A major obstacle in the transition to more renewable energy and less carbon emissions, is the inability and/or unwillingness by many people to count. Corporate claims of 'net zero' rarely provide the technical data which would validate those claims, and increase the perception of greenwashing. There is an easy answer. First, we assume the Rule of 3C has been followed to the extent possible. Then we start to count. Federal data show that the thermal applications of space heating, water heating & space cooling in 15.3 million households across Canada in 2022 consumed 327 billion kWh of secondary energy and emitted 34 billion kg of carbon as a result. This is 21,307 kWh per household (13 kWh per ft2) and 3,148 kg of carbon (2 kg per ft2). That average household consumes 5,095 kWh for lights & appliances (3.2 kWh per ft2) and emits 479 kg (0.3 per ft2) of carbon from non-thermal applications. Since this site is about counting, that means 81% of household energy consumption is for thermal applications, which emit 87% of the dwelling's annual carbon. If you include buildings in Canada's CI (commercial / institutional) sector, the annual consumption of secondary energy was 547 billion kWh in 2022 (21% of all energy in the country) and 71 billion kg of carbon (16% of the country's total emissions). One feasible option is to consider the widespread implementation of ground source heat pump (GSHP) technology, which produces thermal renewable energy from the earth on a fully dispatchable (no batteries required) basis.
If ALL residential & commercial buildings in Canada installed GSHP, they would produce that 547 billion kWh a year of renewable energy and reduce emissions by 71 billion kg of carbon. It would allow a PTC (Production Thermal Credit) to incent efficiency, the cost is much lower if installed during construction when workers are on site and before landscaping is done, and the technology offers many other benefits to the building owner, our economy and our environment.
Government data show that, for the average household, it would produce 21,307 kWh from its GSHP system and reduce annual carbon emissions by 3,148 kg. It would need 5,918 kWh (or much less) to operate its components which, when added to the 5,098 kWh needed for lights & appliances, means the household would produce 21,000 of renewable energy and consume 11,000 of conventional grid power
... and be verified as netzeroPLUS.
|