Remember, using resistance heaters with clean power is better than having a gas furnace, despite being an insanely wasteful use of electricity, and not everyone can use heat pumps.

In a (part-)nuclear grid, central heating can obviate this requirement.

For that matter, there is no good reason why we have to replace all current uses of fossil fuels with electricity: Heating requirements can be wholly obviated via appropriate architecture, even in Northern Finland in the winter; the need for transportation can be greatly abridged with improved city planning and settlement patterns; shipping can, for all non-perishable commodities, be powered by sail. The only major uses of fossil fuels I can think of off-hand are air travel (which will need to be replaced by trains and ships), industrial heat sources like furnaces and electricity generation for existing electricity demand.

This will kill the suburbs and radically alter the rural areas, of course. But our way of life is negotiable - the laws of physics are not.

- Jake

If you only spend 20 minutes of the rest of your life on economics, go spend them here.