So, I hear what you're saying, but you are making it sound like Robert is being intentionally obtuse in his usage of the terms.

Banish the thought!

I wish him luck navigating this troublesome trope (as it were).

"Or it may be better said that we are addicted to the "easy" nature of oil? or addicted to the lifestyle it currently provides?"

That suggests there's something wrong with "easy", or a "lifestyle" of inexpensive, abundant material posessions.

I would agree that we need to bite the bullet and invest in our future by replacing oil with energy sources that are more sustainable; reduce our impact on the planet; and move beyond trying to achieve happiness solely through posessions, but I'm troubled by the implication that there's something morally wrong with abundant energy and prosperity per se.

And thats what virtually everyone needs to develop...FLEXIBILITY. One is "addicted" when the only way to heat the home is an obselete oil furnace. Or the way over-powered petrol/diesel swilling vehicle. Or living in a exurb/suburb way away from your job/public trans.

My current fav gripe is the lack(in this market) of high-quality ULSDiesel. Ya cant have small, clean-running diesel engines without it. Without jumping thru a bunch of hoops. Many vehicles could easily be getting 30% better mileage.

And certainly most alternatives need to be pursued with gusto.

Chris - thanks for the tip. I'll see what I can dig up. Ha ha ha.

BTW, I just finished reading your book, Profit from the Peak, and I totally loved it. I'll be letting my peeps know about it as many are looking for a book on Peak Oil that isn't all doomsday and conjecture. You guys did an awesome job - I can't say enough good things about it, but I'll stop here.

Hi dr_dr,

Actually, their performance is better than what you may think. I live in Zone 4 (7,800 HDD) and in this climate the HSPF rating of the Fujitsu 9RLQ and larger 12RLQ are 11.0 and 10.55 respectively. Both models operate down to -15C (i.e., Hydro-Québec’s transfer point) and over the course of the winter would provide an average of 3.1+ kWh of heat for every kWh consumed.

A couple days ago, I made reference to Mitsubishi's new h2i line of Mr. Slim ductless heat pumps. These models supply 100 per cent of their rated heating capacity at -15C, 87 per cent at -20C and 75 per cent at -25C and can operate for more than four hours at these sub-freezing temperatures before executing a defrost cycle. The discharge air temperature at -25C is +38C. Their HSPF is 9.4, so the seasonal COP is 2.76 -- for a Hydro-Québec customer under the dual-energy rate structure, the operating costs of this particular heat pump are the equivalent of fuel oil priced at 13.8 cents a litre or 52 cents per gallon (82% AFUE).

I developed a spreadsheet model based on ten-years' worth of hourly temperature data to verify the theoretical performance of the Fujitsu 12RLQ and 15RLQ. My home is a 40-year old, 2,500 sq. ft. Cape Cod that has been extensively upgraded in terms of its thermal efficiency and I estimate my current space heating demand at 12,277 kWh per year (1,400 litres/370 U.S. gallons of fuel oil at 82% AFUE). If my numbers are correct, a 12RLQ can easily supply 80 per cent of my total annual needs and the seasonal COP in this case is an estimated 3.32.

The spreadsheet is over 58,000 rows in size, but you can view the summary data (and assumptions) in PDF format here: http://www.datafilehost.com/download-a8dfaf4c.html

Cheers,
Paul