A fully electrified home actually reduces overall system cost through 1- higher efficiency of electric appliances and heat pumps than their gas counterparts, and 2- a significantly reduced infrastructure cost to no longer having to maintain gas infrastructure, the totality of which (scouting, mining, transportation, last mile) is incredibly expensive. In fact, for new construction, it is often cheaper out the gate to go all electric and the efficiency savings in terms of lower electric+gas bills are significant and pure upside.
Moving on to electric retrofits, they are expensive but not crazy expensive. On the order of $2500-7500 per SFH to wire 220/30-50 amp circuits to the right places (HVAC, stove, water heater, clothes dryer, EV charger) and maybe upgrade the main panel - a far cry from redoing the entire wiring. It’s not an insane proposition to think we could retrofit all existing housing stock in a 15 year period if we wanted to take it seriously. We are going to need more electricians though.
Do you know what is actually really expensive? Billions or trillions of dollars in climate disaster losses and mitigation which we are seeing ramp up very quickly. If we continue burning fossil fuels even remotely like we are now, in 20 years time the losses we say today will look like peanuts in comparison.
Buildings make up a very significant amount of the CO2e emissions (depending on the location, often tied #1 with transportation) so doing nothing here is not really an option.
The efficiency increase for all electric appliances except for heat pumps is generally not worth the conversion cost. Gas infrastructure is already in place so the expense is irrelevant.
If what you were saying were true then economic forces would already have led to dominance of full electric without the need for government mandates to begin with.
That’s not really true. New high efficiency heat pump water heaters - as one example - often have a 1-2 year ROI, which is pretty dramatic. HVAC is actually often the most expensive from an ROI standpoint because of larger upfront costs.
Market forces will lead us down this path eventually but they are not instantaneous, and we don’t have much time to wait. Policy can help 1- accelerate, 2- bootstrap emerging markets (eg creating demand for more induction stoves turns that market from a niche to mainstream, with more competition, more choice, and reduced cost, all of which will serve to boost demand) and 3- finance infrastructure investments that may be beyond reach for many.
On gas infrastructure, yes it is in place but it still requires significant ongoing maintenance costs which would be eliminated if it was shut down.
Moving on to electric retrofits, they are expensive but not crazy expensive. On the order of $2500-7500 per SFH to wire 220/30-50 amp circuits to the right places (HVAC, stove, water heater, clothes dryer, EV charger) and maybe upgrade the main panel - a far cry from redoing the entire wiring. It’s not an insane proposition to think we could retrofit all existing housing stock in a 15 year period if we wanted to take it seriously. We are going to need more electricians though.
Do you know what is actually really expensive? Billions or trillions of dollars in climate disaster losses and mitigation which we are seeing ramp up very quickly. If we continue burning fossil fuels even remotely like we are now, in 20 years time the losses we say today will look like peanuts in comparison.
Buildings make up a very significant amount of the CO2e emissions (depending on the location, often tied #1 with transportation) so doing nothing here is not really an option.