Oil industry up to mischief in Maine
Kirk Rensmeyer
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/02/07/maine-gas-industry-heat-pumps/
VAN BUREN, Maine — The video starts with a Maine radio show host dressed in a bright red jumpsuit walking through the snow to a stranger’s door and delighting her with an offer of free heating oil. “My name’s Blake, we’re from Maine Energy Facts and we want to fill up your oil — it’s on us!” he says at another stop, where a woman thanks him profusely as she cradles her baby.
Funded by a heating oil industry group, the “Fuel Your Love” promotional campaign has a feel-good touch, but it directs viewers to a website dispensing home heating advice that is peppered with overwhelmingly negative, and sometimes misleading, claims about electric-powered heat pumps, saying they “are simply not ideal for climates like ours.”
The message doesn’t seem to be working. Mainers are embracing heat pumps — boxy machines that function like reverse air conditioners, combining heating and cooling systems in a single unit. In a state where winter is long and chilling, and exorbitant oil and gas prices have motivated people to switch, crews have installed tens of thousands of heat pumps, prompting the fossil fuel industry to step up its efforts to beat back the trend.