I’m not saying he was unaware of heat pumps, I’m saying he’s comparing apples to oranges simply because they use the same units.

Look at “3 - Cars” on page 29. He says the typical car uses 40 kWh/day. 40 kWh of what? Chemical energy in the gasoline.

The go to page 33 where he looks at how much energy onshore wind could produce per days in the UK. His number is 20 kWh/d. 20 kWh of what? electricity

He then compares those two numbers directly and uses that comparison as the basis of his arguments: “Britain’s onshore wind energy resource may be “huge,” but it’s evi- dently not as huge as our huge consumption.”

This is simply incorrect. A combustion engine converts less than half of the chemical energy in the gasoline into mechanical work that can move the car. The electric model converts >90% of it. So we don’t have to replace 40 kWh/day, we have to replace less than half of that since the electric process is more efficient.

This same issues, the primary energy fallacy, underpins large parts of the book.

Yes, I disagree with some of his takes but he was spot on regarding heat pumps:

> Let me spell this out. Heat pumps are superior in efficiency to condens- ing boilers, even if the heat pumps are powered by electricity from a power station burning natural gas. If you want to heat lots of buildings using natural gas, you could install condensing boilers, which are “90% ef- ficient,” or you could send the same gas to a new gas power station making electricity and install electricity-powered heat pumps in all the buildings; the second solution’s efficiency would be somewhere between 140% and 185%. It’s not necessary to dig big holes in the garden and install underfloor heating to get the benefits of heat pumps; the best air-source heat pumps (which require just a small external box, like an air-conditioner’s) can deliver hot water to normal radiators with a coefficient of performance above 3.

Which means that not including the conversion in the primary comparison is particularly egregious.