LETTER: Eliminating gas furnaces won’t do much about climate change

In an Oct. 15 letter to the Review-Journal, D.P. Neyhart suggests that we need to eliminate gas furnaces for the survival of “our great, great grandchildren.” Alas, it isn’t that simple.

In the United States, about 10 percent of CO2 production is from “thermal regulation” in homes, both heating and cooling; less than half of that is from gas furnaces, and about half is from electricity. Right now, the electricity for heating and cooling is overwhelmingly produced by fossil fuels.

So let’s focus on the less than 5 percent produced by gas furnaces. What will happen to our CO2 production if we suddenly replace those with electric furnaces? For decades to come, not much. Currently, only 3 percent of our energy production is stored, so we still fill the need for electricity by burning fossil fuels when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. Increasing the number of electric furnaces will increase the need to burn fossil fuels. And that’s just the United States; our CO2 production is overwhelmed by India and China.

If you believe the current climate models, if the United States to stop all CO2 production right now, it would make less than 0.1 degree Fahrenheit difference in the climate we left for our great, great grandchildren.

If you want to make a difference, require that buildings have more insulation and have roof colors appropriate to the local climate. (In Las Vegas, that would be white or another light tint). Urban heat islands are a downplayed but serious and far more immediate problem in our perception of climate change.