You Need a Heat Pump. Soon You’ll Have More American-Made Options

November 17, 2023

Heat pumps are so efficient, in fact, that even if they’re powered by fossil fuels, “it’s still a big upgrade,” Duncan Gibb, lead analyst for heating and buildings at REN21, which advocates for renewables, told WIRED last year. “There’s really nothing to lose by making buildings more efficient as quickly as possible and deploying heat pumps.”

They work for commercial buildings, too, in versions that are scaled up from residential designs. Combined, residential and commercial buildings accounted for 40 percent of US energy consumption in 2022.

But as more heat pumps roll off the assembly line, the nation will need workers to install them—and more broadly to retrofit the aging electrical grid that powers them. That’s going to require huge training programs. “The green transition is going to generate upwards of 25 million new jobs [in the US] in the next 15 years—this is just going to be a tremendous transformation of the US workforce,” Mark Paul, an environmental economist at Rutgers University, told WIRED earlier this year. “You can’t outsource the installation of heat pumps or solar panels on somebody’s roof to China or Bangladesh.”

Wired.com, November 17, 2023

Recent Posts

Loh and Noland Explore Public Charging Station Disparities

Equal charging for all: Are there income-based disparities in public charging stations? Abstract We compare charging station accessibility for different income groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. Using a microsimulation model, we estimate charging station...

Heldrich Center Releases New Work Trends Brief and Website

The Heldrich Center for Workforce Development is pleased to announce the availability of two new research products resulting from its long-running public opinion polling series, Work Trends. To better understand the public’s attitudes about work, employers, and the...

NJSPL Report: Analyzing the Use and Equity of ARPA Funds

Report Release: Analyzing the Use and Equity of ARPA Funds in NJ Local Governments and Beyond New Jersey State Policy Lab The American Rescue Plan Act’s Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (ARPA-SLFRF) represent a historic $350 billion investment to...

Dr. Grafova Presented Posters from the VSR Research

Dr. Irina Grafova recently returned from the AcademyHealth Research Meeting in Minneapolis, where she had the opportunity to present two posters from the Virtual Schwartz Rounds emotional support program for nurses, run by the New Jersey Nursing Emotional Well-being...

Heldrich Report: Analysis of NJ Life Sciences, Tech Sectors

The Heldrich Center, in conjunction with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA), is pleased to share a new workforce analysis of the life sciences and technology sectors in New Jersey, with a particular emphasis on the sectors’ intersection with...