Heat Pump Review

Last year I wrote about leaving Amazon and charting my next course. At the time, I cited three areas I was most concerned about and wanted to explore: climate, health, and politics.

I'm happy to report I've by far spent the most time learning and thinking about climate and specifically what folks like me, with a more consumer tech background, can do or build to accelerate the adoption of the most important technologies and behavior changes required to meet USA's aggressive climate goal of achieving net zero emissions by 2050.

There are a number of reasons why climate has captured my attention more than health and politics. Now that I've brushed the dust off this blog, I look forward to blogging a bit about this journey and my calculus. I also plan on blogging more in general but certainly more about climate broadly, as – now a year into my education – I now feel comfortable emerging from "learn-only" mode.

But first, I'm writing here to announce how I've been writing about climate more narrowly:

Introducing Heat Pump Review

One way I'm emerging out of “learn-only” mode is launching a project called Heat Pump Review. Heat Pump Review is one part blog (public today) and one part data resource (launching soon) about heat pump technology and heat pump appliances, and the pace of their adoption, with a focus on consumer-grade heat pump HVAC and water heater systems, but also coverage of some commercial and industrial applications.

Rather than sharing too much more here on this blog about why I've focused on heat pumps, I'd love for you to go read my first post on the site (written last month) and then browse around to see if any of the other articles interest you. I'm proud of a few of them, and even to the average reader new to the world of heat pumps I'd recommend:

1. A post outlining the financial and greenhouse gas accounting you can do to decide whether or not you should replace a new/newish conventional water heater early with a heat pump (TL;DR: by every metric you should).
2. An explainer / deep dive about HSPF2, or Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (the key performance metric for heating with a heat pump). 
3. And a 4000 word article about Building Codes, how they are made and some recent legal and proceedural battles that will set building codes back for years to come.

So, I hope you enjoy the writing over at Heat Pump Review; but if not, that's okay: I'll still be writing about everything else here (and I'd love for you to subscribe to get updates in your inbox, following the Subscribe button found anywhere on this page, or by clicking here).