Category: Analysis

Anything that I have tested empirically, or explain with detailed calculations, or just generally bother to get all the facts straight.

Post #2098: If they ever get serious about cutting the Federal deficit …

 

It’s not as if cutting Federal spending is some brand-new idea.  It’s not as if nobody has noticed the Federal budget deficit before.

But if the current regime were serious about the budget deficit …

There are already plenty of well-thought-out options. To the point where if you expect some sort of miracle to occur, and huge sums suddenly to appear, you’re not quite sane.  Or if you think any fix is easy, ditto.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Executive Office of Management and the Budget (OMB), the Government Accountability Office (GAO), and (I think) the Congressional Research Service (CRS) all have created extensive lists of options for reducing the Federal deficit.  Not to mention all the various private-sector entities that have been chiming in on this for years.

Even the most superficial study shows why those remain options, and have not been implemented.

A quick and obvious lesson from CBO’s budget options list.

The CBO web page on this issue (https://www.cbo.gov/budget-options) lists so many options that they give you a search function, with limits.

Let’s say you’re in a mood to think big, and you’re only interested in items with at least half-a-trillion-dollars in deficit reduction (over a ten-year budget window).   No problem.  Above, you see the first dozen such half-trillion-dollar items on the CBO list.

Bear in mind that the CBO-listed dollar amounts are for a ten-year budget window.  So, with the deficit currently running around $2T a year, you’d be need for a total of $20T in savings, off this list, to claim to come close to balancing the budget.

Lesson 1:  You’d have to do all of the above, and then some, to come close to balancing the budget.

Lesson 2:  Notice how many lines say “waste, fraud, and abuse”.  None of them.  Instead, essentially every item consists of either raising taxes, or shifting costs to the states, businesses, or citizens.

And the rest …

You can find similar types of “savings” lists from GAO. 

As if this writing, the OMB website appears to have been wiped and replace with pro-MAGA pap.  It’s now a great source for pretty pictures of the President and First Lady.  It no longer appears to offer any information whatsoever to the public.

 

Conclusion

None of this is news to anyone who has ever given this 10 minutes’ worth of research.  Surely, the MAGAts who’ve taken over the Federal government know this.  And therefore anyone can infer that, whatever they’re hoping to accomplish with “DOGE” chaos, addressing the budget deficit isn’t one of them.

It’s just icing on the cake that these folks now have unfettered access to every Federal tax return.  What could possibly go wrong with that?

The Federal government used to have rules.  For reasons.

Now, apparently, whatever you can grab, its yours.  Just make up a plausible-sounding reason, and you’re good to go.

Post #2093: Explaining Trump trade policy. This one secret changes everything!

 

The Wall Street Journal characterized the Trump tariffs on Canada and Mexico this way:

That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?

In this post, I’m going to explain what the WSJ and more-or-less all other professional economists are getting wrong about this issue.

This one trick insight changes everything.

The WSJ editorial page may have been a bit blunter than some.  But it’s a fair reflection of informed opinion on this topic.  It’s almost no exaggeration to say that everyone with any professional interest in economics, international trade, or foreign affairs has been baffled by the reasoning behind the Trump tariff proposals.

But maybe, just maybe, these tariffs are not as irrational as they have been made out to be. 

I believe that all the professionals in international trade misunderstand the simple policy logic that drives us inevitably to these tariffs.

I claim that the fundamental error that professional pundits are making is in thinking that these tariff have anything whatsoever to do with U.S. international trade policy.

The inescapable logic of the Trump tariffs.

Viewed as trade policy, these tariffs are every bit as dumb as the WSJ said.  But viewed from a different perspective, they make absolutely perfect sense.  And that’s because these tariffs aren’t Federal trade policy, they are Federal income tax policy.

Huh?

The income tax cuts from the first Trump administration are set to expire.  Depending on who’s doing the estimate, those tax cuts cost the Treasury $300B to $400B a year.  Ish.

To get them extended, without increasing the deficit, you need to find at least $300B a year to make up the loss.

And, to increase the difficulty factor, you’re a Republican, so raising a tax on anything is out of the question.

What’s the easy, no-effort way to achieve that goal of finding $300B a year, without increasing Federal tax revenues?

First, you must adamantly insist that tariffs are not taxes, and that Americans don’t pay for import tariffs.  No matter how stupid everyone who knows anything about anything says that assertion is.  You must insist that tariffs are not taxes, because you, as a modern Republican, are not allowed to raise taxes.

Next, you sort your trade partners, from high to low, in terms of dollar value of imports.  Pick a good round number like 25%.  And go down the list until 25% of the value of imports exceeds $300B.

Even though, again, anyone who knows anything about trade policy will tell you that makes no sense.  I mean, you haven’t even focused on the countries where we have the biggest trade deficit.  You haven’t (say) accounted for strategic materials, or domestic industries that depend on imported parts, or your own vulnerability to retaliatory tariffs.

Instead, you’ve sorted our trading partners by descending order of value of imports (only).

That’s literally as deep as the thinking goes.  Because that’s as deep as it needs to go, to achieve the goal.  Which, recall, is domestic income tax policy, not international trade.  And that’s because the value of imports (less reduction in demand, when the tariffs are imposed) is what determines your revenue.

Now see how far down the list you need to go, before you get your $300B a year.

Answer:  Canada, Mexico, and China.

And suddenly, the entire two-part “policy” snaps into focus.

These tariffs have nothing to do with trade policy, America’s position in the world, or anything else that a reasonable person might consider.

Instead, look at what this policy consists of:

 Part 1:  You must keep insisting that tariffs are not taxes, because you are not allowed to use the t-word, as a Republican.  This part of the policy is required, because the goal is to raise Federal revenues significantly without saying the t-word (taxes).  So everybody has to agree that tariffs are not taxes, and that Americans do not pay their cost.  Even though everybody who knows anything about international trade will tell you that’s incorrect.

Part 2:  Target countries not in terms of our trade deficit with them, or other practical considerations like impact on U.S. industry, but solely in terms of the value of what we import from them.  And that, too, makes sense, because import volume is what determines your tariff revenue, less the reduction in demand that will occur once prices rise in response to the tariff).

Why is it now 25% each for Mexico and Canada, and 10% for China? My guess is, that’s because that’s when they hit the required projection of tariff revenues that they need. Why are we now talking about tariffs on everything, from all countries, characterized now as “reciprocal tariffs”? Best guess, the revenue target has changed, or the estimated revenues from the existing tariffs have changed.

Conclusion

Sometimes it’s difficult for really bright people to understand how not-so-bright people think.  Or for those with expert knowledge to understand the rank amateur.

If the Trump tariffs appear divorced from any rational thinking about international trade, that’s because they are.

But from the Trump administration standpoint, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature.  That doesn’t mean that they were done at random, or that they were otherwise harmless.  Merely that trade policy was not the point.

Instead, import tariffs are simply a) a potentially large source of revenue that b) you can claim is not a tax.  From that perspective, this two-part policy makes perfectly good logic.  If not much sense.

It’s only a bit of a poetic justice that you get to keep your tax cuts largely favoring the wealthy, by substituting tariffs whose burden falls disproportionately on the poor (for the simple reason that the rich have a high rate of savings.) 

Thus, the secret to understanding the logic of the Trump tariffs is that trade policy is just an innocent bystander.   If what you really care about is extending tax cuts, then, eh, if your solution messes up North American manufacturing for the next decade or so, so be it.  

Republicans have agreed to hold hands, close their eyes, and claim that import tariffs are not taxes on Americans.  And ignore how badly this screws up big chunks of U.S. manufacturing, starting with automobiles.

And, ka-ching, there’s the free $300B in revenue you need to extend the existing tax cuts.

Which is what really matters.

Wonky addendum:

Note, by the way, that if this goes through — if those tariffs are counted as revenue, against the Treasury’s losses from the tax cuts, then …

… well, back in the day, when rules still existed in the Federal government, then those tariffs would be permanent.  Or, at least, as permanent as the tax cuts that they funded.

(This, from PAYGO, originally developed around 1990, and, as of 2019, fully in force in both the House and the Senate.  Any legislation passed by the Congress had to be paid for by a combination of tax increases and spending cuts, unless an exception is made, by a supermajority vote.  Here’s a rather complicated explanation from Wikipedia.)

I’m not sure how this would work, under PAYGO, as the tariffs are not based on legislation.  But I would bet that there’s a way for Republicans to claim the money, as they extend the Trump tax cuts.

So, to be clear, this is once again completely unlike normal tariff policy.  If these are put into place, and Republicans (at least mentally) count the revenue against the losses from the tax cuts, then these tariffs must be, for all intents and purposes, permanent.

Luckily (?), there appear to be no rules whatsoever governing the Federal government now.  So we don’t have to worry about these becoming permanent.

Post #2072: R, the second task.

 

This is my second post on learning the R computer language.  That, after a lifetime of using the SAS language to manipulate and analyze date files.

I’m learning R piecemeal, one task at a time.  My first task was to show the upward trend in the annual minimum temperature recorded for my location (Post #1970).  Today’s task is to make a pretty picture.  I want a choropleth (heat-map) showing income level by Census Block Group, for Fairfax County, VA.

I succeeded (below).

But it was not quite the thrill I thought it would be.

The bottom line

If you came here on the off chance that you, too, wanted to use R to produce a Census Block Group choropleth of income in Fairfax County, VA, then assuming you have installed R and RStudio and (see below) assuming you aren’t running Windows 7 or earlier, it’s as easy as:

install.packages("tidycensus")
library(tidycensus)


Your_Name_Here <- get_acs(
geography = "block group", 
variables = "B19013_001",
state = "VA", 
county = "059",
year = 2020,
geometry = TRUE
)


plot(Your_Name_Here["estimate"])

Kind of anti-climactic, really.  For something that I thought was hard to do.  Or, possibly, it actually is hard to do, but somebody’s already done all the hard work.

I more-or-less stumbled across this example on-line.   It worked.  That’s pretty much end-of-story.

By way of explanation:

The install and library commands make the Tidycensus package available to your R session.  (If required, R will automatically download and install the package from CRAN (the Google Play Store of the R world.  If you’ve already installed it and it’s up to date, R just moves on to the next command.)  Library is what makes the tidycensus package available to your R program (script).

Tidycensus defines the “get_acs” command.  That reaches out and obtains your specified file from the Census Bureau.  (That’s via an API, and, optionally, you can get your very own API key from Census and list that in the program.)  In particular, this is asking for data from the American Community Survey, but you could ask for data from the decennial census.)

The important part is that this Census file brings its “geometry” with it.  That is, each line of the file — each geographic unit — in this case, each Census Block Group — comes with the detailed line-segment-by-line-segment description of its boundaries.  That description sits in a great big long variable-length text field at the end of the record.  (Including the geometry with the file increases the file size by a couple of orders of magnitude, which probably explains why it’s optional.)

(This job  also brings a bit of data, but you have to study the arcana of Census files to know that B19013 is median household income.   I think -001 signifies entire population.  Plus, that hardly matters.  You can merge your own CBG-level data values to this file and use those to make a CBG-level heat map.) 

Once you have the Census file, with the Census geometry on it, you can easily find something in R that will plot it as a map.  I think a lot of that happens natively in R because Tidycensus will create your Census file as an R “shapefile” (“sf” data frame), when you keep the geometry.  Because it’s that type of file, R then knows that you want to use it to draw a picture, and … apparently R handles the rest through some reasonable defaults, in its native plot command.

Or something.

I’m not quite sure.

Plus, there appear to be many R packages that will help you make prettier plots.  So if the simple plot command doesn’t do it for you, I’m sure there’s something that will.

This last bit pretty much sums up my take in R, so far, after a lifetime of programming in SAS.

And yet, it took me two days.

To produce and run that four-line program above.

My biggest mistake, as it turns out, was learning R on my trusty Windows 7 laptop.  That worked fine, it just required finding and installing outdated copies of R and RStudio.  (R is the language, RStudio is the interface you use to write and run programs (scripts) in R.)

But this didn’t work at all for this task.  I tried several R packages that promised to produce choropleths, only to face disappointment coupled with cryptic error messages.

Eventually it dawned on me that some of what R was trying to do, as a matter of routine, in 2024, was perhaps non-existent when Windows 7 was launched in 2009.

So that led to a big while-you’re-at-it, installing the latest version of R and RStudio on my glacially-slow Windows 10 laptop.  On that machine, everything R ran just hunky-dory.  If very slowly.

All R-related incompatibilities ceased.  The desired choropleth emerged.

Living the R lifestyle.

Below are the biggest things I’ve noticed in programming in R, compared to SAS.

To make sense of this, translate the R term “packages” as add-ons, or plug-ins, or extensions, or whatever rings a bell.  They are things that add functionality to a base piece of software.

First, there’s a whole sub-market catering to the SAS-to-R switchers.  Everything from excellent cheat sheets for R equivalents of common SAS tasks, to at least one R package (“procs”) that lets R mimic a few handy SAS procedures (freq, means, print, and some others).

Second, there are more than 5,000 R packages on CRAN.  The Comprehensive R Archive Network is like the Google Play Store of the R world.  It’s where all the interesting optional software is kept.  There’s some organization to all of that, but I’m not quite sure how much.  There’s an index, of sorts, but I haven’t used it yet.

Third, some chunk of that package-intensive computing just makes up for base R being not very useful.  A whole lot of example programs assume you’ve attached the “tidyverse” package, plausibly because a lot of the basic commands in tidyverse are routinely useful things that base R lacks.

Fourth, the whole “package” thing has no (or little) top-down organization.  Near as I can tell, nothing prevents different package writes from defining the same command or same operator differently.   As a SAS guy, that strikes me as a major quality control problem just waiting to happen.  But the upshot is that the list of packages used (via attach and library statements) is an integral part of a well-documented program.

Five, now all restaurants are Taco Bell files are spreadsheets.  By that I mean that R can only work on files that will fit into computer memory (RAM).  Whereas SAS can work on files of essentially unlimited size, but that’s by working disk-to-disk or tape-to-tape.  That has some odd spillovers to programming style, where R seems to favor making many-little-changes (like formulas in spreadsheet columns), where SAS favored one-long-data-step, where a complex series of calculations was carried out in one “pass” of an underlying data file.

Six, R names are case-sensitive.  As a SAS programmer, I sure wish they weren’t.  E.g. Var and var are two different names, of two different variables.  I’m stuck with having to respect that.  For at least the next reason.

Seven, R does a dandy job of reading data out of spreadsheets.  By far the easiest way to import data into R is .csv or spreadsheet.  In both cases, the variable names “come with”, so you inherit the data and the names that the data creators used.

Eight, slang, or short and long-form grammar for commands.  I’ve already come across two forms of the merge function, one of which kind of spells-it-all-out, one of which is abbreviated.

Nine, R can only merge two files at once, natively.  I think that’s right.  The original (non-slang) form of the merge statement makes that clear with “x =, y= ” terminology, which pretty clearly on accommodates two files.

Conclusion

I don’t think I’m ever going to be a big fan of R.

But, R will do.  It’s good enough for doing all kinds of “serious” data set manipulations (e.g., match-merging files based on some common identifier or identifiers).

And it’s kind of like a lottery.  If somebody has already written a package that’s just spot-on for something you’re trying to do, then all you need is a few magic words, and voila.

Post 2071: AI review of Vienna Town Council 12/16/2024 Work Session, Part I.

 

Below is NotebookLM’s report on the first 43+ minutes of last night’s Town Council Work Session.  Town posted the video promptly.

The audio of that meeting is all that NoteboolLM knows about this particular issue.  I think.

PSSST:  Then how did it get the architect’s name spelled correctly?  OK, so the AI knows a little more than it’s letting on.  The only thing I fed it, for this session, was the 43 minutes of audio.

One is never quite sure whether an AI is pulling one’s leg or not.  But, this was free, and I think I know more, after reading this, than I did before.

 

NotebookLM analysis of Vienna Town Council Work Session 12/16/2024, first portion, regarding a proposed pool/gym facility at “The Annex”.

This audio recording documents a December 2024 Vienna town council work session focused on preparing for a January 2025 session concerning a potential aquatic and fitness center. Council members submitted questions for consultants and staff regarding projected costs, revenue models, and community needs. A vote was taken to determine which questions would be prioritized for the upcoming session. Concerns were raised about funding mechanisms and the impact on local businesses and residents, including the possibility of a referendum. The session concluded with a decision to proceed with the investigation, despite some dissent.

 

NOTE that the text below is also AI-generated, but seems to have come in a form that won’t let me edit it.  (So I can’t turn the text to a different color to set it apart as AI output.)

 

Briefing Document: Town Council Work Session 12-16-2024

Subject: Aquatic and Fitness Center Annex Proposal – Information Gathering and Decision-Making Process

Date: December 16, 2024

Attendees:

  • Town Council Members: Roy, Sandra Allen, Howard, Ray, Chuck, Jessica Raminsky (represented by Mayor)
  • Mayor
  • Town Manager
  • Director of Parks and Recreation, Leslie Herman

Purpose: To identify key questions and information requirements for the Town Council to consider before making a decision on the proposed Aquatic and Fitness Center Annex on January 27th, 2025.

Background:

The Town Council is considering a proposal for an Aquatic and Fitness Center Annex. This proposal includes a significant capital investment and ongoing operating costs. A consultant, Kimmel Bogrett, has provided initial analysis, and Town Staff has conducted independent research.

Key Themes and Concerns:

  • Financial Viability and Revenue Generation: Council members expressed significant concern about the financial sustainability of the project. They requested detailed analysis of projected operating costs, potential revenue streams, and the likelihood of achieving projected membership numbers. Several members requested comparisons with similar facilities in other jurisdictions, including Fairfax County rec centers and the Herndon Community Center.

Council Member Roy: “Is it one in five [households] and for them [Kimmel Bogrett] to explain that… I want names of localities so we can call them up and find out how things are going.”

Council Member Chuck: “My questions… really relate to how much revenues can we expect to um generate from this facility to offset the pretty substantial operating costs.”

  • Membership Projections and Market Analysis: Doubts were raised about the consultant’s membership projections, particularly in light of competition from nearby Fairfax County facilities. Council members requested further analysis of the market area, considering factors like proximity, household income, and participation rates.

Council Member Chuck: “The estimates provided by the consultants is that… the annex would um attract around 2,000 memberships… the county has 16,660 countywide for nine facilities… So the consultants analysis basically posit It’s a slightly higher membership rate even though the facility is only one-third roughly one-third the size of the average county facility.”

  • Funding Options and Public Input: Council Member Allen strongly advocated for exploring alternative funding options beyond tax increases and for holding a public referendum on the project. This suggestion did not receive majority support from the Council.

Council Member Sandra Allen: “I have an issue with the funding… I want to make sure our residents have the decision the ultimate decision… and I want to put this in a referendum.”

  • Operational Considerations: Questions were raised about the potential impact of expanding the proposed pool from four to six lanes, the feasibility and profitability of various programs and services, and the potential demand for pool rentals.

Mayor: “So, we’ve talked about there’s a lot of ways to raise revenue… What is that balance? And what are the different types of um ways to raise revenue?”

Action Items and Next Steps:

  1. Compile Consolidated List of Questions: Town staff will compile a comprehensive list of questions raised by council members, ensuring clarity and avoiding redundancies.
  2. Submit Questions to Consultant and Staff: The consolidated question list will be submitted to Kimmel Bogrett and Town Staff by December 17, 2024.
  3. Deadline for Responses: Kimmel Bogrett and Town Staff will provide written responses to all questions by January 8th or 9th, 2025.
  4. Optional Two-on-Two Meetings: Between January 9th and January 20th, individual council members can schedule meetings with Kimmel Bogrett and Town Staff to clarify responses and seek further explanation.
  5. Work Session Presentation and Discussion: Kimmel Bogrett and Town Staff will present their findings and address council member questions at the Town Council Work Session on January 21st, 2025.
  6. Town Council Decision: The Town Council will make a final decision on the Aquatic and Fitness Center Annex proposal on January 27th, 2025.

Conclusion:

The Town Council is committed to a thorough and transparent decision-making process for the Aquatic and Fitness Center Annex proposal. Gathering detailed information on financial viability, market demand, and operational considerations is crucial to ensure a fiscally responsible and community-oriented outcome.

Post #2036: Replacing my heat pumps III: The tax angles.

 

Winter approaches. 

But no pressure, as I slowly work through the tax angles on this HVAC equipment replacement decision.  And bring somebody in for another quote for new equipment. And maybe, eventually, get everything working again.

If nothing else, this whole episode shows me that it’s good to have multiple heating systems in your home.

Even with one heat pump dead, we have some heat.

And that is way better than no heat. Continue reading Post #2036: Replacing my heat pumps III: The tax angles.

Post #2033: A rare double-attaboy today.

 

I wrote the following two comments (to other comments) on Jennifer Rubin’s opinion piece in today’s Washington Post.

In a first, two people thanked me for my comments.

Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket today.

So here’s something that’s topical, and near-zero marginal effort.  And so far, hasn’t managed to tick anybody off too much.

On the urban/rural Democrat/Republican divide.

Just think of the entire Republican platform as promising to return to the past. They want to pretend to live in a world where: Global warming doesn’t exist. American manufacturing dominates the (Post WWII) world. Women know their place. Non-whites, non-English-speakers are a small and quaint fraction of the population. Coal is king.

I’m sure you can fill in others.

And this jibes well with the core audience, which is rural America. Just look at the red-state blue-state map. Even within blue states, the rural areas are red.

And, at a guess, that’s because rural America has been going backwards, economically, for about the last half-century. In large part from the gutting of light industry in the U.S.

I don’t think anything could have stopped that. But if I were in their shoes, I think I’d listen to anybody who promised to turn back time. No matter how illogical and frankly racist that promise was.

So Trump exploits that. Remember how he was (e.g.) going to bring back American Coal, when talking to West Virginia miners? Even though every trend said that was nonsense.

Well, truth or fiction just doesn’t much matter if you’re poor, getting poorer, and see no way for your children to make a living where they grew up.

Not making excuses for it. I have yet to see any positive policy proposals from the Republican side for doing anything about … well, anything. Just trying to grasp the mindset.

In response to somebody who pointed to the massive increase in asylum-seekers allowed into the country …

Then, if America is still governed by the rule of law, change the law. But what we’ve seen this past year is that, at Trump’s order, the Republican party would have nothing to do with revising immigration law. Because this is too juicy an issue for Trump to use in his campaigning.

In 2022, about a quarter-million people requested asylum, of which Cuba was the most common country of origin. So, roughly speaking, with a population of about 330M, roughly 1 person in 1000 in the U.S. was a new 2022 asylum-seeker. That’s a lot, by historical standards, but hardly a crisis.

That ramped up so much in 2023 that Biden temporarily shut down asylum at the southern border, by executive action, this year. He can’t do that permanently. Not unless he’s a dictator.

But that, along with cooperation from Mexico, greatly reduced the number of people trying to immigrate at the southern border.

And what was the centerpiece of the immigration bill that Trump shot down? It was to expand the immigration courts, and so clear the asylum case backlog and get almost all of those people out of the country, as actual grants of asylum in any given year number in the low tens of thousands.

Instead of just exploiting the issue, it would be a breath of fresh air if Republicans would, like, you know, try to govern. Which starts with addressing a legal issue, by changing the law.

Post 2032: Replacing my heat pumps, part II: How efficient are my ground-source and mini-split heat pump options?

 

The key question for this post is about as simple as it gets: If I have two choices for heat pumps, which one will use less electricity?

In my case, one option is the replacement ground-source heat pump that has been recommended, at a base installed price of about $25K per heat pump.  The other option is to replace my dead ground-source heat pump with a modern air-source mini-split heat pump, at somewhere around half that cost (call it 60% after adjusting for likely difference in equipment life, in my particular case).

This is a stupidly hard question to answer well.  As I explain at length below.

But, after doing all the homework that I care to do, for my house and my climate (with mild winters and an efficient gas-fired secondary heating system), the answer is that either style of heat pump (air-source or ground-source) will use roughly the same amount of electricity.  Or near as I can tell, based on published data.

That’s not due to the underlying physics of the situation.  If it were only about the physics, ground-source would win hands-down.  Instead, that appears mainly due to faster technological improvement in air-source units over the past decade or so, compared to ground-source units.  This seems to have fully offset the “natural” advantage of ground-source.  In effect, my real-world choice is between air-source using the current generation of technology, and ground source using older technology.  (The model of ground-source heat pump I have been offered was first introduced in 2016.)  Or, at least, using a less-efficient design for the heat pump itself, disregarding which heat sink (air, ground) is used.  That’s what makes it a tie ballgame, as of now.

This leads me to conclude that replacing one of my dead heat pumps with (e.g.) a name-brand air-source mini-split system:

  • Is substantially cheaper, even accounting for likely shorter equipment life.
  • Incurs no significant loss of efficiency compared to my ground-source option.
  • As a bonus, bypasses my house’s barely-functional 1959-era ductwork.

Ground source systems still have some clear advantages.  All the equipment is indoors, and so likely lasts longer.  They work well even extremes of cold or hot weather.

But the fact is, there just ain’t that many of them, particularly in a relatively mild climate like Virginia.  Of the roughly 4 million annual residential heat pump installations per year (in 2022), maybe 50,000 (call it 2.5%) were ground-source units.  That has big implications for how rapidly the units reflect improved technology, and how much choice you have for who installs and services your unit.

Unless some unforeseen problem arises, I will replace one three-ton dead ground-source heat pump with a pair of 1.5-ton mini-split air-source heat pumps.

And I will not feel the least bit guilty about doing so.

I was going to give full and excruciating details but the overall accuracy of the conclusion does not warrant that.  Below, I sketch out enough to summarize how I arrived at the numbers above.

SEER, EER, HSPF, COP, and all that jazz.

The efficiency of a heat pump varies, based on the how big a temperature difference it is trying to pump against, and how close you are to the maximum capacity of the system.  The bigger the temperature difference, and the closer to maxed out, the less efficiently the heat pump runs.

This means that, despite what you read from many internet sources, you cannot simply convert one heat-pump efficiency measure to another with a simple conversion-of-units number.  Yes, you must do that first, because some of these measures mix BTU/Hs and watts, and others don’t.  But in addition, you also have to make some sort of adjustment for how stringent the test is.

It’s very much like EPA mileage.  The MPG the EPA gets depends on how the car is driven.  Typically, EPA city mileage is much worse than EPA highway mileage.  If you compare the city MPG of one car to the highway MPG of another, you’re making a mistake.  So it is, in spades, with SEER, EER, COP, and HSPF.

Now we get to the hard part:  Things are hazy.

If you Google SEER, say, you’ll see the same zero-details definition everywhere:  It’s the ratio of the cooling power produced (in BTU/H), to the electrical power supplied (in watts).  But as to, how, exactly, that’s measured, it’s hard to find any information at all.  E.g., is the energy used to run the water pumps included, what indoor and outdoor temperatures were used for the test, how were ducts, water pumps, etc. factored in, and so on.

  • The details of the tests are proprietary and reside behind an expensive paywall.
  • For the same measure, ground-source and air-source heat pumps use different methods.
  • Certain aspects of overall energy use — duct system back pressure, water pump electricity use, and resistance electrical heating for backup heat — are either ill-specified, or not stated as to impact.

Among the things that I’ve seen hints for, but no definitive answer, is how these tests treat the waste heat of the electric motors themselves.  I saw at least one credible-looking website showing that ground-source heat pumps add the value of this waste heat to their heating output, as if that heat would make it into your ductwork.  But air source heat pumps do not.  That’s consistent with where the compressor is located (inside for one, outside for the other).  But it boils down to an assumption that the waste heat of the compressor motor somehow warms the air in your ductwork, which clearly isn’t the case for the units in my basement now.  I have yet to find a clear answer on that, and it matters materially to the comparison.

So you need to take the table above with a grain of salt.  My interpretation is that if there is a difference in efficiency across the three units I looked at, it’s small.

Definitions

Each of these measures compares output heating or cooling power, to input electrical power used.

EER (energy efficiency ratio).  Cooling.  Measured at a steady 35C outdoor air temperature, 26C indoor air temperature, and 50% relative humidity (for the outdoor air?).  Heat/cool is measured in BTU/H, electricity is in watts.  I think the test calls for the unit to run full-blast when this is measured.

SEER (seasonal energy efficiency ratio).  Cooling.  Near as I can tell, this is set up to simulate the range of temperatures you would see in a “standard summer”, so to speak.  Heat/cooling power output is measured in BTU/H, electricity input is measured in watts.

COP (coefficient of performance):  Heating:  Generically, COP is simply watts of heat out, divided by watts of electricity used.  Heat pumps have different COP values depending on the temperature tested, and how hard they were running.  But the EPA-reported COP appears to be for one temperature, and I think its with the unit running full blast.  Heat/cooling power is measured in watts, electrical input power is measured in watts.

HSPF (heating seasonal performance factor).  Heating.  Like SEER, this tests the units over a range of temperatures designed to be a sort of “standard winter”.  I believe that, where the unit has a resistance-heating secondary heater, if that clicks on during the testing, the electricity used in secondary heating is counted toward the total.  Heating power is measured in BTU/H, electrical use in watts.

The -2 suffixed versions of these appear to include a more realistic measure of the back-pressure of typical home ducts.  Best I can tell, in the typical situation, you’d expect the (e.g.) SEER2 rating of an appliance to be 5% to 10% lower than the SEER rating.

Accounting for test stringency:  SEER to EER conversion, units-adjusted HSPF to COP conversion.  Here, I found some sketchy internet sources suggesting that where you have SEER and EER for the same unit, SEER is typically 85% of the EER value, due to the more stringent testing cycle.  So I used that to adjust these all to a common EER-style basis.

Conclusion so far

Again, take this table with a grain of salt. There’s a whole lot I don’t know about the details of how each test is applied to each type of machine.  And probably never will know, particularly for the details of testing ground source machines, where tests specifying outdoor air temperature are irrelevant.

That said, if you adjust for the difference in units-of-measurement (BTU/H versus watt), and assume that the tests that use a broad range of conditions (SEER, HSPF) tend to run about 85% of the equivalent tests that use a single set of conditions (EER, and COP as EPA reports it), then you get the comparison above.

Which, honestly, is just about what I came up with, back-of-the-envelope, when I first looked into this some years ago.  The super-high-SEER Japanese-made heat pumps that emerged a decade ago seemed to eclipse (my estimate of) my existing ground-source heat pump’s efficiency.  SEER 25? Maybe I mis-recall.  But I do recall being startled with how high the available SEER ratings got, for air-source units.

Bottom line, efficiency-wise it’s a tossup.  If I weight each units two numbers by local degree-day (3x heating a cooling), I get my estimated all-year efficiency values of 3.6, 3.5, and 4.0 for the three heat pumps examined, respectively.)

If your location experiences lot of time at extremely cold or hot temperatures, ground-source heat pumps still seem to offer some significant efficiency advantages over air-source.  And, for sure, because the equipment is all inside, ground-source is likely to last longer.

But in my case — with a relatively mild climate, efficient (gas-fired) backup heat, and so on — it’s six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Finally, this pretty strongly suggests that the current tax law is out-of-date.  The huge advantage given to ground-source heat pumps might have made sense in 2004.  It appears to make no sense in 2024.

Once upon a time, ground-source heat pumps were king.  But not any more.  And the law has yet to catch up with that.

Post 2031: Both of my heat pumps have died? This should be interesting.

 

 

My house is heated and cooled by two ground-source heat pumps, installed by the previous owner almost exactly 20 years ago.

Well, “was heated and cooled”.  One died last spring.  The other has one foot in the grave, with its most recent repair involving some burned wiring (never a good sign).  Both heat pumps need to be replaced. 

No-brainer, right? Just replace them.

Well …

The only firm in my area that specializes in ground-source heat pumps quoted me a price of $50,000 to replace my two three-ton (ground-source) heat pumps.  That’s for the basic model.  Bells, whistles, and line sets extra.  I’m guessing the final cost would end up around $60K.

 

At this point, the only thing I know for sure is that no matter what, this home repair is going to be about like buying a new car.  Or two.

Minus the fun.

Follow along for the next several posts, as I get a handle on what to do next.

Am I a heat-pump heretic?

I drive an EV.  Cripes, it’s a made-in-USA Chevy EV, for that matter.

I re-calculate my family’s carbon footprint every couple of years.

And I bought my house specifically because it had efficient ground-source heat pumps.

But the world continues to change.  And I’m not sure I’m going to be replacing those with new ground-source heat pumps.

And the fact that I would consider not doing that makes me something of a heretic.  But I’m still in the process of gathering my facts.

  1. Twenty years ago, ground-source was the undisputed king of heat pumps.
  2. In part, that’s because air source heat pumps of the time weren’t very good.
    1. They worked inefficiently when it was cold out.  To the point of essentially not working.  That caused use of “secondary heating”, meaning, typically expensive and inefficient resistance electric heating.  In winter, your fancy heat pump spent too much time operating as more-or-less a big dumb electric space heater.
    2. And they weren’t any great shakes, efficiency-wise, the rest of the time.
    3. Plus, they just kind of generally sucked.  Comfort-wise.  In the winter, they always seemed to blow air that was, upon careful measurement, slightly warmer than the existing room air.  Or, at least, that’s how I recall my Maryland apartment of the mid-1980s.
    4. Basically, they were air conditioners that, in this climate (Virginia), could also put out some heat, for some of the winter.
  3. My impression is that this changed about ten years ago.  At some point, cutting-edge air source heat pumps appeared to be — by my calculation — at least as efficient as my 2004-vintage ground source heat pumps.
  4. That’s because air-source technology improved rapidly, while the technology of ground-source units … lagged?
    1. Part of the improvement was in finding a way for air source heat pumps to function well even at low outdoor temperatures.
    2. That went hand-in-hand with greater efficiency of operation.  E.g., modern air-source units might now have variable-speed compressors, fans, and so on.
    3. But not much seems to have happened to ground source heat pumps.
    4. The slower rate of improvement in ground source heat pumps is a side-effect of the vastly lower volume of ground-source (about 0.5% of the home market) compared to air-source (the other 99.5%).
  5. As a result, ground-source heat pumps are no longer a slam-dunk winner, compared to traditional air-source heat pumps.

    1. As a matter of basic physics, they should be.
    2. But because they seem to be behind the curve in efficiency improvements, they aren’t.
    3. The upshot is kind of a temporary tie:  The rapid adoption of more efficient technology in the air-source sector has offset (or nearly offset) the inherent physics-based advantages of ground-source heat pumps.  For now.
  6. There is no point number 6.
  7. But the tax laws still grossly favor ground-source heat pumps over air-source.  And the subsidies are large.
    1. For ground source, the Feds pick up 30% of the installed cost, no limits.
    2. For air source, if it meets certain efficiency standards, the Feds pick up a maximum of $2000 (or 30% of the installed cost, whichever is less).
    3. And Virginia offers an incentive system for ground-source that is beyond weird, and must be described in a separate posting.  At first blush it appears ludicrously generous toward ground-source units.
    4. Separately, I’m not sure they were thinking about replacements of worn-out old systems when they wrote the law.  Effectively, what I’m doing is repairing my existing system, by replacing the worn-out heat pumps. But, legally, that’s treated identically to putting in a brand-new ground source heat pump system.
  8. So, something is not right here.
    1. Is the law outdated, and out-of-step with the current state of technology?
    2. Or is the law a closet buy-American plan, as these ground-source units seem to be U.S.-made?
    3. Or am I dead wrong about the near-equivalence of air-source versus ground-source efficiency in the modern world?
    4. Or, some thing even weirder — geothermal versus ground source discussion to be added at some point.
  9. Curveball:  My first floor would be ideal for a couple of “ductless mini-split” systems.  These are little air-source heat pumps, but instead of being designed to hook up to your ductwork, they simply blow air around like a room air conditioner.  You pass the refrigerant pipe and condensate drain through an exterior wall, between the inside air-distribution cabinet, to the outside compressor.
  10. So, why not replace one of the dead ground source heat pumps with two mini-split air source heat pumps, half the size.
    1. Near as I can tell, I’d pay only a modest or no efficiency penalty for doing that.
    2. And it looks like it would be quite a bit less expensive, even accounting for likely shorter equipment life of an air-source system.
    3. Plus, we’d possibly have a warm kitchen for the first time since we moved here, because we could bypass our near-useless 1959 first-floor ductwork.
    4. Plus, it’s lower risk — more like an appliance, and less like a fixture in the house.  If one of those dies, I can just toss it and more-or-less just plug in a new one.  Not quite as convenient as a fridge, but not hugely different.
  11. But … but … but … the very thought of replacing a ground-source heat pump with an air-source heat pump is … heresy.  Particularly given that the actual “ground” portion of the ground-source system — the mile of plastic “slinky” pipe buried in my back yard — still functions perfectly.

Conclusion

That’s as far as I can take it in this first post.  I need to pin down some facts to go any further.

I bought this house in large part because it had an efficient ground-source heat pump.

But the world has changed since I bought it.

The next post takes the two real-world heat pumps — one a ductless mini-split air source heat pump, one the ground-source heat pump for which I have been quoted an installed price — and tries to get an apples-to-apples comparison between them, in terms of efficiency.

That turns out to be stupidly hard to do.

That’ll be the next post:  SEER, SEER2, EER, EER2, COP, HSDF and all the rest of that alphabet soup.  And how on earth they measure that, for ground-source heat pumps.

Post #2027: Toilet paper and self-fulfilling prophecies

 

It says something deeply, deeply weird about the soul of America, that people are panic-buying toilet paper in response to the East and Gulf Coast port strike.

I had a few responses to this, in no particular order.

First, guess I’m glad I haven’t worked my way through my pandemic stockpile yet.

Second, maybe I had better pick up some toilet paper at the store today.  Just in case.

I fully realize that toilet paper doesn’t move through these ports.  Almost all toilet paper used in the U.S. is produced domestically, call it 93% (reference Yahoo).   The rest that is consumed in the U.S. is produced in Canada and Mexico, and isn’t shipped by ocean-going freighter.

And yet, it’s a fallacy to say that toilet paper should be unaffected by the port strike.  If enough people are stupid and irrational about it, and the target of their stupidity is toilet paper, then toilet paper is very much affected by it.

Oddly, if you substitute “Springfield, OH” for “toilet paper” in the last sentence, it still makes perfect sense.

Anyway, the consequence being that if you need to buy TP, you’ll be every bit as much out of luck, even though a shortage is purely a result of irrationality, as if there some actual disruption of the toilet paper supply chain.

Some consumer items will likely go out of stock from this strike.  Bananas being the poster child for that.  But who would have guessed that TP remains the canary-in-the-coal mine for American anxiety.

Source: Clipart-library.com