Can technology save the day? And if so, which technology?

Climate experts on a United Nations panel recently expressed concern about the state of climate science, saying the past decade saw the highest average yearly greenhouse-gas emissions from human activities ever recorded. Countries, they said, must make major, rapid shifts away from fossil fuels if they have any hope of meeting goals laid out in the 2015 Paris Climate Accords.

The Wall Street Journal recently asked energy academics and researchers which specific climate-technology breakthroughs they think have the potential to be most transformative. Some talked about technologies on the horizon; others focused on existing technologies that could be deployed to help get the world to zero emissions by 2050.

Here is what they said about the technologies that they believe have the most promise:

The Heat Under Our Feet

When it comes to renewables, most people think of wind and solar. But there is another renewable-energy technology used for heating and cooling that doesn’t always get the appreciation it deserves: ground-source heat pumps.

These systems, which draw heat out of the ground to heat buildings in winter and pump heat from buildings back into the ground to cool them in summer, are four to five times more efficient than fossil-fuel systems, and the energy isn’t intermittent like it is with wind and solar. Geothermal heat pumps can be configured into networks that connect buildings on a street, moving energy on demand or storing it when it isn’t needed.

Networked heat pumps aren’t new—they already are used on numerous college campuses—but recent breakthroughs could be transformative if the right policies are put in place.

In Massachusetts, HEET, a nonprofit seeking to reduce fossil-fuel emissions, is working with two of the state’s largest natural-gas utilities to install and test networked heat pumps in neighborhoods, in the hopes of scaling the technology. A three-year Eversource project will connect about 100 homes and businesses, starting this summer. Four National Grid pilots announced in February will explore implementation in different types of neighborhoods. Changing the regulatory structure to allow gas utilities to sell thermal energy is now on the agenda at the Massachusetts Legislature.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/climate-change-technologies-that-could-make-a-difference-11650656071