It's not hard to save energy

UBC climate-change researcher Hadi Dowlatabadi says he thinks it's possible to save massive amounts of energy and reduce Canada's greenhouse-gas emissions. And he suggests this can be done without having a huge impact on people's lifestyles.

"We just did a study on ground-source heat pumps on the average detached home," Dowlatabadi, a Canada Research Chair scholar, told the Georgia Straight in a recent interview. "We can reduce energy use in average detached homes by 60 percent. That's remarkable."

A ground-source heat pump enables homeowners to keep their homes warm with heat taken from below the Earth's surface. Energy is transferred through an "earth loop" that extends into the ground, so there is no generation of energy apart from the electricity used to power the pump. The up-front costs are higher, but Dowlatabadi said that these systems pay for themselves over time through lower energy costs.

"They pay back in 10 years or less, and if you have an apartment building that you're serving or a block, even less than that length of time," he said.

The recent study by Dowlatabadi and two colleagues–researcher Jana Hanova and Earth Source Energy Inc. vice president Lynn Mueller–relied on data on household-energy use compiled by Natural Resources Canada. The study noted that ground-source heat is virtually maintenance-free and has a 25-year life cycle, and that the ground-loop piping should last more than 50 years.

The study examined annual operating savings using ground-source heat pumps for a 140-square-metre home (1,500 square feet) now heated by either natural gas, electricity, or heating oil. In B.C., consumers who now use natural gas would save $800 per year, whereas those who rely on electricity would save $900 per year over a 20-year period by switching to heat pumps. These savings were calculated assuming a ground-source heat pump in the mid-range of efficiency and included borrowing costs. It assumed no increase in natural-gas or electricity prices. Larger homes would generate greater savings, the study reported.

The study also noted that in provinces in which ground-source heat pumps could be substituted for natural gas, there could be greenhouse-gas-emission reductions ranging from 3.9 tonnes in B.C. to five tonnes in Newfoundland. The greenhouse-gas savings would be much lower in Alberta and Saskatchewan–1.6 tonnes and 1.4 tonnes respectively–because the electricity used to power heat pumps often comes from burning coal, which produces its own greenhouse gases. However, switching from electrical heating to heat pumps would yield enormous greenhouse-gas savings in Alberta and Saskatchewan: 22.4 tonnes and 16.2 tonnes respectively.

Dowlatabadi said that the B.C. government is still providing radiant heat in lower-income housing. "Much of it is owned by the province or contracted by the province, and their energy bills are subsidized by the province," he said. "It makes no sense at all. We know that you can use ground-source heat pumps to provide heat at much less energy costs. In the long run, there is energy-cost savings."

He pointed to the Village of Whistler as an example of how society pours our energy resources down the drain. After tourists take hot showers in winter, the water goes into a wastewater treatment centre. Dowlatabadi said that the water is 22 degrees Celsius by the time it's flushed into the Cheakamus River.

Dowlatabadi noted that now there is a plan to capture that energy and pump it back to heat a new Olympic-athletes' village. "It makes a lot of sense for them to do that both in terms of energy savings and in protecting the Cheakamus River from heat pollution," he said. "That's a good example of the kind of waste that we can recover."

He contrasted that with most buildings, including the Vancouver International Airport terminals, which have separate systems for providing heat and for delivering air conditioning. Rather than recapturing heat from the air-conditioning or refrigeration systems or transferring cold air the other way, this is simply wasted. "How much energy conservation is there to tap?" Dowlatabadi said. "My answer is a huge amount."