They are nothing new, back when I was in college in the 70's, one of our class projects wasw design of a geothermal heatpump system. I was indeed talking about the "usual" air system. I doubt that geothermals are even 1% of the actual in service installations, so I omitted them. Their capital cost is huge compared to a "normal" system. They don't work for every site either.
Glad you got your in.
-v.
In the cold climates in most of northern USA, heat is definately needed :) Air heat pumps don't cut it. Their efficiency falls way down in cold weather and on top of that frequent defrost cycles (where you are pumping heat from the house to the great outdoors) are required. Where available gas is fairly efficient. Unlike oil, gas furnace/boilers can reach efficiencies in excess of 95%. If you invest in high efficency heating, that can make quite a difference over the years in cold climates.
Actually nuclear power has proven to be one of the most expensive methods of generation, save for peaker plants. Even where electric choice options have come into place in the northeast, incumbent utilties still get cash from ratepayers ("stranded costs") to pay for their nuclear white elephants, whether that customer buys juice from that utility or not. In the 1960's the president of PECo (and many others) said that nuclear energy would be too cheap to meter. Today that utility, which spent billions and bilions and many more billions building a small fleet of nuke reactors, is always in a photo finish for the highest rates in the nation. And they want to stick their own security costs for their private property to the state government (national guard) on top of it. As if the Guard doesn't have enough to do. A neighboring utility which decided to go in another direction is much cheaper.
Now if you live in an area where the utility is subsidized/owned by the government and they run nuclear plants, then you may think differently, but that's only because Uncle Sam is paying the extra bills. Say thank you to the taxpayers.
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