Podcar developers and thinkers in Sweden are familiar with the work of Jan-Erik Nowacki, formerly with SwedeTrack and one of the co-founders of the GTS Foundation. But many do not know that Nowacki has long been working on heat pumps. Those who do often count him as a major force in the recent significant switch from oil-heating to heat pumps. In Sweden one millions houses out of 1.8 million are in some way heated by heat pumps. Around 400,000 collect heat from the ground (geothermal). The amount of heat taken from air and ground sources is the equivalent of three nuclear reactors! The Swedish heat pump market now runs without government subsidies.

When Nowacki began making the business case for geothermal and other heat pumps back in 1975, he was met with sharp rejections. “You’re an idiot,” was the blunt reaction of several officials, who also had problems pronouncing his name no-VAT-ski as imported from Poland by his father, who landed in Sweden during the traumas of World War II. With his keen scientific mind and calm manners of persuasion, he persisted. A major breakthrough came in 1980, when Vattenfall and ABB (then ASEA) decided to start building large heat pumps for Swedish cities. That gave credibility to their use for houses and villas – a market with an annual turnover of about a billion US dollars.

“Although podcars can run on electricity from any source,” believed Nowacki, “there is a special appeal to using sustainable energy like solar, wind, and tidal. In the US I see great potential for geo-thermal electricity to run PRT.” Many of the battles are the same for podcars and heat pumps: patience and neat presentation are logical terms that have the power to convince. Arguing that urban mobility by superior new technology is all the more powerful when paired with clean energy.