Low Carbon Liquid Fuels
Best Way to Decarbonize Home Heating
It was only five years ago when
Arthur Marin, Executive Director
of the Northeast States for
Coordinated Air Use Management
(NESCAUM) addressed the Oilheat
Manufacturers Association about
the States in the Northeast contemplating
policies that would demand
drastically reduced carbon emissions
from the heating sector. In the years
since, many policies have been put in
place that require homes to be on a
path to significant atmospheric carbon
emission reductions.
First among the strategies to eliminate
carbon is the removal of on-site
combustion for heating and replace it
with electric heat pumps. The thinking
behind this is that heat pumps
can eliminate carbon emissions
quickly and completely once the grid
is free of carbon-producing electric
generation. Much debate has ensued
on the efficacy of heat pumps in extremely
cold weather, the concerns
about the huge increased demand
on the grid and the feasibility and
speed achieving carbon-free electric
generation, as well as the economic
consequences of doing so.
The National Oilheat Research Alliance
(NORA) decided to let good
science show whether heat pumps
or low-carbon liquid biodiesel is a
better and faster reducer of carbon
emissions. Thus was born the Green
House Gas Calculator, a transparent
multi-variable calculator to examine
the conversion of existing oil-heated
homes to electric heat pumps versus
With carbon emissions
reduction a political and
environmental reality,
the most important question
becomes, “What is the
best way to do this?”
The liquid heating fuel industry
offers the advanced biofuel,
biodiesel as the best solution.
Figure 1: Connecticut use-case results demonstrating the advantages of reducing carbon emissions with biodiesel vs. heat pumps
4 ICM/November/December 2022