In the world of climate action, heat pumps often get short shrift. Used to heat or cool homes and buildings, the appliances aren’t flashy like EVs, and have none of the imposing presence of a wind turbine. They won’t turn heads in the neighborhood like rooftop solar panels. Instead, the squat square boxes attached to an outside wall or roof are about as impressive-looking as an AC unit.
But as Europe faces off against Russia over Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the lowly, unloved heat pump has become a crucial tool in Europe’s all-hands-on-deck effort to cut its dependency on Russian gas. The logic is that a campaign to switch European homes to heat pumps would be more effective in the longer term than simply asking citizens to turn down their thermostats, and work faster than building more infrastructure to import natural gas from abroad, while also helping to speed the bloc’s progress on its climate goals.
If the E.U. doubled installations in the next year, it could reduce the annual need for Russian gas by 1.5 billion cubic meters (bcm), according to the E.U. commission. That’s only a small part of the 155bcm that the continent imported from Russia last year. But it’s also a milestone for environmentalists who have long supported those little heat systems that could—with heat pumps gone from being an afterthought of the energy transition to a key piece of green weaponry in a geopolitical struggle between Russia and the West.
Currently, the E.U. relies on Russia for more than 40% of its natural gas, essential for fueling gas boilers that heat homes. That dependence has propped up Russia’s economy for decades, and also serves as Putin’s geopolitical ace in the hole—if Russia turns off the gas taps going into next winter, heating shortages could roll across the continent.
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Source : time
