Heat pumps are increasingly recognized as an effective solution for reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in heating and cooling systems. Various jurisdictions worldwide offer subsidies and incentives to encourage the adoption of heat pump technology, including the United States, which offers tax credits for energy-efficient home improvements, including heat pumps, through the Energy Improvement and Extension Act. Canada has implemented the Canada Greener Homes Grant that offers subsidies for home energy retrofits, including heat pumps. The European Union promotes heat pump adoption through various funding mechanisms and directives, including the Renewable Energy Directive. Germany and France provide grants for heat pump installations and financial assistance for energy renovations, including heat pumps. And Australia offers programs encouraging heat pump installations, particularly for households transitioning from gas heating.
U.S. subsidies vary significantly depending on the jurisdiction and specific program, but there is a federal tax credit of up to 26% for the installation cost for heat pumps. California rebates range from $1,000 to $6,000, depending on the type of heat pump and installation costs. Massachusetts rebates can be up to $2,750 for certain heat pump systems. Canada’s Greener Homes Grant offers up to CAD 5,000 for installing heat pumps, while provincial rebates range from CAD 1,000 to CAD 3,000 in British Columbia. German grants can cover up to 35% of installation costs for heat pumps, while France’s MaPrimeRénov program offers rebates that can reach up to €20,000, depending on household income and the type of installation. And in Australia grants vary by state but can range from AUD 1,000 to AUD 3,000 per installation.
These jurisdictions justify subsidies based on the environmental benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Heat pumps are more energy-efficient than traditional heating systems (like gas or oil furnaces), leading to lower carbon emissions.
Renewable electricity can power heat pumps, thereby supporting the transition to a cleaner energy grid. Heat pumps’ energy efficiency reduces power consumption and enhances energy security. Increased efficiency of heating and cooling systems can reduce dependence on fossil fuels.
Heat pumps use electricity to transfer heat rather than generate it, resulting in lower energy bills for consumers and reduced demand on the energy grid.
Investments in heat pump technology and installation create manufacturing, installation, and maintenance jobs. And public health is enhanced by reducing reliance on fossil fuel heating systems. Heat pumps can help improve indoor air quality and reduce pollutants associated with combustion.
Subsidies for heat pumps play a crucial role in climate and energy policy in many jurisdictions worldwide, but these lessons are siloed and aren’t translated into a holistic global picture.
The Earth is heating, and the oceans are rising. Civilization is approaching climate collapse, even though we have the knowledge and tools to prevent this from happening. It is time to unlock the vast, untapped, and life-saving potential of our planet’s oceans—not just as a source of energy, but as a planetary heat pump, a carbon drawdown accelerator, and a symbol of intergenerational stewardship.
Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) is a breakthrough, zero-emissions energy technology that harnesses the natural temperature difference between warm surface water and cold deep seawater to generate electricity continuously and without carbon emissions. However, OTEC is more than just an energy source; it is also a climate engine. It moves excess solar heat into the deep ocean, which will remain for centuries. It creates a long-term thermal buffer for the atmosphere. It powers civilization while allowing CO₂ levels to fall naturally. With advanced designs like those developed by physicist Melvin Prueitt, architect Dominic Michaelis, and this writer, OTEC systems can achieve thermal efficiencies of up to 7.6%, making them economically competitive with fossil fuels and scalable to meet global needs. And designs using carbon dioxide (CO₂) as the working fluid in a closed-loop system have favorable thermodynamic properties that allow for higher flow rates and reduced energy loss through long vertical columns. A 1000-meter gas column can gain approximately 5°C due to gravitational compression, enhancing thermal cycling and efficiency. Furthermore, CO₂ is non-toxic, non-flammable, and environmentally safe, and sourced from the atmosphere or oceans, enabling a closed-loop, zero-net-carbon system.
We have the science; the physics works, and the engineering is ready. We have urgency; climate tipping points are approaching. We have access to the ocean; 97% of Earth’s water is available, with no mining, no burning, and no waste. We have the economics; a gigawatt-scale OTEC plant, utilizing modern heat exchangers and deep-water condenser designs, costs approximately $2.6 billion—a fraction of annual fossil fuel spending and cheaper than large hydro dams.
Recognition of OTEC as a core planetary climate technology in UN climate frameworks, IPCC models, and COP negotiations would enable global funding commitments to build the first flagship 1 GW deep-water OTEC plant as a proof-of-concept planetary heat pump. A planetary scaling plan to deploy over 1,000 OTEC plants within 25 years would prioritize Small Island States and coastal nations in the Global South, and 1,000 plants annually, thereafter, replacing the oldest plants every 30 years. Open technology access would ensure that designs, efficiencies, and cost reductions are shared among all nations.
A shift in the narrative from “carbon reduction” to planetary heat management would ensure long-term energy security and ecological regeneration.
The oceans can power our civilization and stabilize the climate over decades and millennia. Coastal and island nations could become energy exporters, not victims.
As planetary stewards we would not be mere problem solvers.
OTEC is not just clean energy; it provides planetary cooling technology, a “reset button” on global warming, without geoengineering aerosols, and without needing to pull CO₂ out of the air directly.
Solar and wind don’t cool the planet; they just avoid more heating. OTEC generates baseload energy, moves heat to deep ocean buffer, which buys time for natural carbon sinks to remove greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, and is a value multiplier that should be priced into any serious climate model or economic forecast.
We stand at the edge of a precipice, but also at the dawn of a promising future. The ocean is ready, the technology exists, and the time is now.
The fundamental problem driving climate change is the increasing amount of heat trapped within the Earth’s system. Framing the challenge as “heat management” directly addresses this core issue, potentially making the goal of sustainable development clearer and more tangible for policymakers and the public.
Planetary heat management” encourages a more holistic and systemic view of the Earth’s climate system and the interconnectedness of different factors. This could lead to more integrated and effective solutions.
OTEC, especially when paired with deep ocean heat dumping, is the closest real-world system we have to a literal planetary heat pump. It is a thermodynamically elegant solution for cooling the planet by moving heat to the deep ocean, powering civilization with clean, renewable energy, and allowing CO₂ levels to drop naturally without requiring direct removal.
Heat diffused into the deep ocean with heat pipes returns slowly to the surface at a rate of ~4 meters per year, meaning it takes ~250 years to return, which creates a multi-century thermal buffer, effectively buying time and allowing each OTEC system to recycle its own waste heat for multiple generations per the following graphic.
Traditional OTEC designs bring cold water up to surface platforms, which requires large-diameter pipes, high energy cost, and less efficient heat exchange due to thermal losses during transport. The design offered by Prueitt and Michaelis flips this idea by placing the condensers at depth, where the cold water is already present. The heat exchangers are therefore directly adjacent to both the cold and warm water reservoirs, and the heat pipe provides faster and more efficient heat transfer, less pumping power, and less thermal loss. And Prueitt essentially turned gravity and ocean pressure into a free energy amplifier to enhance the thermodynamic cycle.
The existing capital cost narrative associated with OTEC is not only outdated, but actively misleading when modern scaling laws and the legitimate comparisons are applied. Scaled and optimized, the economics of OTEC flip from “high cost” to massive value per the following.
At $2.6 billion for 1 gigawatt of clean, continuous baseload energy with OTEC, this is 76% less than the $16 billion for British Columbia’s Site C hydro dam (~1.1 GW) and 43% of the cost of ~$6 trillion/year for the global oil (which delivers ~4.6 TW of power compared to the potential of ~31TW with OTEC)
Why the “High Capital Cost” Myth Persists:
- Most references cite older pilot-scale economics, not modern gigawatt-class cost models.
- Political momentum is biased toward solar/wind because they’re already “market-ready.”
- Lack of champions in climate finance or multilateral funding.
- Skepticism from energy incumbents (OTEC can disrupt energy geopolitics, not just emissions).
While various jurisdictions justify subsidies for heat pumps based on the environmental benefits of reduced greenhouse gas emissions, they are turning a blind eye to OTEC’s inflation-busting energy.
AMAZING!
#Emissions #Energy #CO2 #Sequestering #Heat #Pumps #Planet
