Replacing ACs with heat pumps: A backdoor way to decarbonize heating

Heat pumps are often touted as an efficient way to decarbonize home heating. But a new approach to driving their adoption is on the rise in the U.S. Over the past few months, federal energy-efficiency regulators and state and city building-code overseers have begun to promote policies aimed at encouraging people to replace their existing central air-conditioning systems with heat pumps. Although heat-pump sales already outpaced gas furnace sales last year, new research…


Why this NYC apartment complex will use a giant underground heat pump

  Construction is underway on the 1 Java Street project in Brooklyn, New York. (David Joshua Ford) BROOKLYN, New York — The 200-by-600-foot property skirting the shoreline in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood is, for the moment, an enormous mud pit. Excavators scoop up whole chunks of earth, making room for concrete piles sprouting rebar strands. All the while, four blue drilling rigs trawl the site on skid-tracked wheels, boring holes into the…


N.J. will now target 100% clean energy, require all-electric cars by 2035, Murphy says

Less than a week after Minnesota joined 10 other states in setting lofty zero-emissions goals, Gov. Phil Murphy announced Wednesday that New Jersey will get more ambitious than most — aiming for 100% clean energy by 2035 instead of 2050. New Jersey will also look to follow California’s lead and require new cars sold in the state be all-electric in 12 years. But how exactly the Garden State will get there and what the associated costs…