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Five findings from an extremely thorough study by the National Renewable Energy Lab.
Some Americans install heat pumps because they care about climate change. But most people aren’t going to make the switch until it makes sense economically. Pinpointing where and for whom heat pumps are a good investment is surprisingly tricky because U.S. housing is so diverse, with a wide range of building sizes and ages, situated in different local climates with different utility rates.
But for the first time, researchers at the National Renewable Energy Lab have sorted through much of this complexity to get deeper to the truth about the costs, benefits, and challenges of deploying heat pumps in the U.S.
Ultimately, they found that heat pumps are a cost-effective choice in roughly 65 million U.S. homes, or about 60% of the country — and that’s before taking into account available subsidies. But there are substantial economic barriers to widespread adoption.
It’s hard to overstate how detailed the study is. The authors started with a model of 550,000 statistically representative households — basically housing archetypes that typify different combinations of building size, age, occupancy level, local climate, heating usage patterns, and existing heating systems. Each one represents about 242 real-world households. Then the authors looked at how switching to a heat pump would affect greenhouse gas emissions and energy bills across all of these different homes in a wide range of scenarios. They considered heat pumps with lower and higher efficiency ratings, and whether or not the building owner pursued insulation upgrades. They looked at different scenarios for how quickly the grid would decarbonize, how sensitive the results were to energy prices, and how subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act affect the economics.
The paper has many interesting findings beyond the top-line result. Here are five things that stood out.
Eric Wilson, a senior research engineer at NREL and the study’s lead author, told me one of his motivations was to try to settle the question of whether heat pumps reduce emissions.
“I see a lot of people saying, well, the grid is still dirty in this state, and maybe it makes sense to wait five years to put in a heat pump because it could increase emissions,” he said.
But he found that in each of the 48 contiguous U.S. states, switching to a heat pump reduces emissions today, even if that heat pump is one of the cheaper, less-efficient models. Heat pumps are just so much more efficient than other options that they still reduce emissions despite today’s relatively dirty grid.
On average, each home could cut between 2.5 to 4.4 tons of carbon over the approximately 16 years the equipment lasts, meaning widespread adoption could result in a 5% to 9% drop in national economy-wide emissions. The effect is much more pronounced in some states, like those in the Northeast, where a lot of homes currently use fossil fuels for heating. A household in Maine that installs a high efficiency model, combined with completing insulation upgrades, would reduce emissions by an average of 11 tons per year — or about the equivalent of taking two cars off the road for a year.
The study breaks down the costs of switching to a heat pump in a few different ways.
First, there’s the up-front costs of upgrading to a heat pump, which are relatively high. A lower-rated, less efficient heat pump system may be a cheaper option than a new furnace or boiler for about 43% of households. But a higher-performing heat pump is almost always more expensive, costing an extra $8,000 to $13,000 before government subsidies (more on them later). That alone might keep heat pumps out of reach for many households.
Next, there's the potential for bill savings — which is significant. Using state average electricity and gas rates in the winter of 2021 to 2022, the study found that 86% of households can save money on their utility bills by switching to a medium-efficiency heat pump, and a whopping 95% of households will see their bills go down if they install the highest efficiency system.
So in theory, if homeowners do have the extra cash to put down, there’s a chance they could make up for high up-front costs in bill savings over time. But how good a chance?
Putting this all together, the authors looked at what percentage of households that upgraded to heat pumps would see a positive cash flow, calculated as the “net present value,” from the initial investment. Here, the results were less rosy. In many cases, high up-front costs cancel out potential savings. For example, despite the near-certain bill savings from buying one of the most efficient heat pump models, only 21% of households would see an overall economic benefit from the switch.
Still, more than half of all homes would see a positive cash flow by switching to a cheaper, minimum-efficiency heat pump.
Distribution of energy bill savings, upgrade costs, and unsubsidized net present value, relative to a reference equipment replacement scenario, using energy prices from winter 2021 to 2022 Courtesy NREL / Wilson et al., Heat pumps for all? Distributions of the costs and benefits of residential air-source heat pumps in the United States, Joule (2024), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2024.01.022
These findings underscore the importance of bringing down the cost of more efficient heat pump models, which are out of reach for many Americans but can provide significant energy bill savings. The authors suggest that policymakers can help by deploying incentives more strategically and pursuing research on “lower-cost, higher performance, and easier to install equipment.” There also may be opportunities for bulk purchasing and aggregating installations across an apartment building or neighborhood.
When it comes to bill savings, the study found that those who have systems that run on propane, fuel oil, or electric resistance heaters will pretty much always lower their bills by switching to a heat pump, no matter how efficient it is. But those who use natural gas are far more likely to lower their bills if they can afford to switch to one of the pricier, better-performing heat pumps — which cuts into the value proposition.
The following maps show the percentage of homes in each state that would see a positive cash flow from switching to a heat pump, looking at those switching from natural gas, electric resistance, or fuel oil and propane, illustrating how the value proposition is most challenging for those using natural gas.
Percentage of homes that currently have air conditioning that will see a positive cash flow from switching to a heat pump from natural gas, electricity, and fuel oil and propane. Courtesy NREL / Wilson et al. 2024
The authors also note that fixed charges on natural gas bills can play a significant role in the economics of switching to a heat pump. Most natural gas utilities charge customers a fixed amount each month, regardless of how much gas they use. If a homeowner switches to heat pumps but continues using gas for cooking, they’ll still have to pay the full fee, which can be as high as $34 a month, whereas homes that fully electrify can avoid these fees.
The results I described in the previous two sections include homes both with and without existing air conditioning systems of some kind. (With the exception of the maps, which only consider homes that have air conditioning already.)
But since heat pumps provide both heating and cooling, the economics are actually quite different for those households who already have air conditioners versus those who don't. If a household already has A/C, heat pumps appear more favorable, because a family would be able to replace two systems — an air conditioner and a furnace — with just one. If there is no pre-existing air conditioner, the heat pump will not only have higher up-front costs, but it’s more likely to increase energy bills, since the family might start using the heat pump for cooling in addition to heating.
Here are the same maps included in the previous section, but looking just at homes that do not have air conditioning.
Percentage of homes that do not have air conditioning that will see a positive cash flow from switching to a heat pump. The first column is homes that currently use natural gas, the second column is those that us electricity, and the third is those that use fuel oil and propane. Courtesy NREL / Wilson et al. 2024
There are basically zero cases where a house with natural gas heating, and no A/C, will save by switching to a heat pump. However, that result doesn’t take into account the benefits of getting air conditioning for the first time.
“They didn't include the new value that someone has, especially in a warming world and a world with more heat waves, of now having an air conditioner in your home,” Kevin Kircher, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University, told me. “So if you add that in, I think the economics look better.”
None of the results in the previous sections take into account the various subsidies that states and the federal government offer for heat pumps. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act included a $2,000 tax credit for heat pumps and an additional $11,500 in rebates for low- and moderate-income households. Both will increase the percentage of households for whom the investment will pencil out.
The study also doesn’t take into account the potential for homes to use smart controls that optimize their systems, or the opportunity for households to participate in demand response programs which will pay them to turn down their thermostats by a few degrees when the grid is taxed. Kircher, the Purdue professor, recently published a study of a real-world house in a cold climate where smart controls reduced heating energy costs by 23-34%.
Finally, one big takeaway from the study was that the results are very sensitive to the price ratio between natural gas rates and electricity rates, and there are reasons to believe that may become more favorable. For example, as more renewable energy is deployed, electricity could become more affordable. Meanwhile, if the U.S. increases exports of liquified natural gas, the cost of domestic natural gas could go up. The study cites a 2022 survey of oil and gas executives which found that 69% expect ‘‘the age of inexpensive U.S. natural gas to end by year-end 2025.”
“Big modeling like this entails a lot of assumptions about the future that are really hard to pin down with any real precision,” said Kircher. “But I think there's cause for optimism there.”
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On the IEA’s latest report, flooding in LA, and Bill Gates’ bad news
Current conditions: Severe thunderstorms tomorrow could spawn tornadoes in Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama • A massive wildfire on a biodiverse island in the Indian Ocean has been burning for nearly a month, threatening wildlife • Tropical Cyclone Zelia has made landfall in Western Australia with winds up to 180mph.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has learned. Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide,” Brigham writes. “But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.”
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap’s Jael Holzman. Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“This letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind,” Holzman writes. “Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president's executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine. If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.”
Heavy downpours triggered flooding and debris flows across Los Angeles County yesterday. A portion of the Pacific Coast Highway, one of the most iconic roadways in America, is closed indefinitely due to mudslides near Malibu, an area devastated in last month’s fires. Duke’s Malibu, a famous oceanfront restaurant along the PCH, was inundated. The worst of the rain has passed now and many flood alerts have been canceled, but the cleanup has just begun.
Rain flows down a street outside a burned home.Mario Tama/Getty Images
Global electricity use is set to rise by 4% annually through 2027, “the equivalent of adding an amount greater than Japan’s annual electricity consumption every year,” according to the International Energy Agency’s new Electricity 2025 report. Here are some key points:
IEA
JPMorgan Chase clients have apparently been demanding more guidance about the climate crisis. As a result, the bank launched a new climate report authored by its global head of climate advisory, Sarah Kapnick, an atmospheric and oceanic scientist who was previously chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report seeks to build what Kapnick is calling “climate intuition” – the ability to use science to assess and make strategic investment decisions about the shifting climate. “Success in the New Climate Era hinges on our ability to integrate climate considerations into daily decision-making,” Kapnick writes. “Those who adapt will lead, while others risk falling behind.” Here’s a snippet from the report, to give you a sense of the tone and takeaways:
“Adhering to temperatures below 1.5C will require emissions reductions. Depending on your definition of 1.5C, they may require historic annual reductions and potentially carbon removal. Conversely, if you have a technical or financial view that carbon dioxide removal will not scale, you should assume there is a difficult path to 1.5C (i.e. emissions reductions to zero depending on your definition in 6, 15, or 30+ years). If that is the case, you need to plan for the physical manifestations of climate change and social responses that will ensue if your investment horizons are longer.”
Greenhouse gas leaks from supermarket refrigerators are estimated to create as much pollution each year as burning more than 30 million tons of coal.
Grantees told Heatmap they were informed that Bill Gates’ climate funding organization would not renew its support.
Bill Gates’ climate tech advocacy organization has told its partners that it will slash its grantmaking budget this year, dealing a blow to climate-focused policy and advocacy groups that relied on the Microsoft founder, Heatmap has learned.
Breakthrough Energy, the umbrella organization for Gates’ various climate-focused programs, alerted many nonprofit grantees earlier this month that it would not be renewing its support for them. This pullback will not affect Breakthrough’s $3.5 billion climate-focused venture capital arm, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, which funds an extensive portfolio of climate tech companies. Breakthrough’s fellowship program, which provides early-stage climate tech leaders with funding and assistance, will also remain intact, a spokesperson confirmed. They would not comment on whether this change will lead to layoffs at Breakthrough Energy.
“Bill Gates and Breakthrough Energy remain as committed as ever to using our voice and resources to advocate for the energy innovations needed to address climate change,” the Breakthrough spokesperson told me in a written statement. “We continue to believe that innovation in energy is essential for achieving global climate goals and securing a prosperous, sustainable world for future generations.”
Gates founded Breakthrough Energy in 2015 to help develop and deploy technologies that would help the world reach net-zero emissions by 2050. The organization made more than $96 million in grants in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.
Among its beneficiaries was the Breakthrough Institute, a California-based think tank that promotes technological solutions to climate change. (Despite having a similar name, it is not affiliatedwith Breakthrough Energy.) Last week, a representative from Breakthrough Energy told the institute’s executive director, Ted Nordhaus, that its funding would not be renewed. The Breakthrough Institute had previously received a two-year grant of about $1.2 million per year, which wrapped up this month.
“What we were told is that they are ceasing all of their climate grantmaking — zeroed out immediately after the USAID shutdown because Bill wants to refocus all of his grantmaking efforts on global health,” Nordhaus told me on Monday, referring to the Trump administration’s efforts to defund the United States Agency for International Development. “But it’s very clear that this wasn’t brought on solely by USAID. I had heard from several people that there was a big reassessment going on for a couple of months.”
The Breakthrough spokesperson disputed this characterization, and denied that cutbacks were due to the USAID shutdown or a shift in funding from climate to global health initiatives. The spokesperson also told me that some grantmaking budget remains, though they would not reveal how much.
As for Breakthrough Institute, the funding cut will primarily impact its agricultural program, which received about 90% of its budget from Breakthrough Energy. Nordhaus is trying to figure out how to keep that program afloat, while the institute’s other three areas of policy focus — energy and climate, nuclear innovation, and energy and development — remain largely unaffected.
Multiple other organizations confirmed to Heatmap that they also will not receive future grants from Breakthrough Energy. A representative for the American Center for Life Cycle Assessment, a trade organization for sustainability professionals, told me that Breakthrough had recently informed the group that it would not renew a $400,000 grant, which is set to wrap up this May. (ACLCA’s spokesperson also noted that the grant had not come with any indication that it would be renewed.) Another former grantee told me that while their organization is currently wrapping up a grant with Breakthrough and does not have anything in the works with them for this year, they expected that future funding would be impacted, though they did not explain why.
Breakthrough Energy made up a relatively small share — perhaps 1% — of climate philanthropy worldwide. Foundations and individuals around the world gave a total of $9 billion to $15 billion to climate causes in 2023, according to an analysis from the Climateworks Foundation.
But what has made Breakthrough Energy distinctive is its support for policy and advocacy groups that promote a wide range of technological solutions, including nuclear energy and direct air capture, to fight climate change.
“Their presence will be missed,” said the CEO of another climate nonprofit who was notified by Breakthrough that its funding would not be renewed. Breakthrough Energy “was one of the few funders supporting pragmatic research and advocacy work that pushed at neglected areas such as the need for zero-carbon firm power and accelerated energy innovation,” they added.
"Even if it’s a drop in the bucket, it still makes a difference,” another former grantee with a particularly large budget told me. This organization recently sent Breakthrough an inquiry about partnering up again and is waiting to hear back. “But for small organizations, it’s make it or break it.”
Speculation abounds as to the rationale behind Breakthrough’s funding cuts. “I have heard that one of the reasons that Bill decided to stop funding climate was that he concluded that there was so much money in climate that his money really wasn’t that important,” Nordhaus told me. But that is not true when it comes to agriculture, he said, which comprises about 12% of global emissions. ”There’s very little money for advocating for agriculture innovation to address the climate impacts of the ag sector,” Nordhaus told me.
Gates, who privately donated to a nonprofit affiliated with the Harris campaign in 2024 but did not endorse the Democrat, dined with Trump and Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, for more than three hours at Mar-a-Lago around New Year’s Day, he told Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Emma Tucker. He said that Trump was interested in the possibility of eradicating polio or developing an HIV vaccine. “I felt like he was energized and looking forward to helping to drive innovation,” he told her, days before the inauguration.
Since then, Trump’s war on USAID has frozen funding to a polio eradication program and shut down the phase 1 clinical trial of an HIV vaccine in South Africa, Kenya, and Uganda.
The Trump administration is now being lobbied to nix offshore wind projects already under construction.
Anti-wind activists have joined with well-connected figures in conservative legal and energy circles to privately lobby the Trump administration to undo permitting decisions by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, according to documents obtained by Heatmap.
Representatives of conservative think tanks and legal nonprofits — including the Caesar Rodney Institute, the Heartland Institute and Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, or CFACT — sent a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum dated February 11 requesting that the Trump administration “immediately revoke” letters from NOAA to 11 offshore wind projects authorizing “incidental takes,” a term of regulatory art referencing accidental and permissible deaths under federal endangered species and mammal protection laws. The letter lays out a number of perceived issues with how those approvals have historically been issued for offshore wind companies and claims the government has improperly analyzed the cumulative effects of adding offshore wind to the ocean’s existing industrialization. NOAA oversees marine species protection.
The letter also requested “an immediate cession of construction” at four offshore wind projects with federal approvals that have begun construction: Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners’ Vineyard Wind 1, and Ørsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects.
“It is with a sense of real urgency we write you today,” the letter states, referencing Trump’s executive order targeting the offshore wind industry to ask that he go further. “[E]leven projects have already received approvals with four of those under construction. Leasing and permitting will be reviewed for these approved projects but may take time.”
I obtained the letter from Paul Kamenar, a longtime attorney in conservative legal circles currently with the D.C.-based National Legal and Policy Center, who told me the letter had been sent to the department this week. Kamenar is one of multiple attorneys involved in a lawsuit filed last year by Heartland and CFACT challenging permits for Dominion’s Coastal Virginia project over alleged potential impacts to the endangered North Atlantic right whale. We reported earlier this week that the government signaled in proceedings for that case it will review approvals for Coastal Virginia, the first indication that previous permits issued for offshore wind could be vulnerable to the Trump effect.
Kamenar described the request to Burgum as “a coalition letter,” and told me that “the new secretary there is sympathetic” to their complaints about offshore wind permits. “We’re hoping that this letter will basically reverse the letter[s] of authorizations, or have the agency go back,” Kamenar said, adding a message for Dominion and other developers implicated by the letter: “Just because the company has the approval doesn’t mean it’s all systems go.”
The Interior Department does not directly oversee NOAA – that’s the Commerce Department. But it does control the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, which ultimately regulates all offshore wind development and issues final approvals.
Interior did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
Some signees of the document are part of a constellation of influential figures in the anti-renewables movement whose voices have been magnified in the new administration.
One of the letter’s two lead signatories is David Stevenson, director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy at the Caesar Rodney Institute, an organization involved in legal battles against offshore wind projects under development in the Mid-Atlantic. The Institute says on its website it is a member of the State Policy Network, a broad constellation of think tanks, legal advocacy groups, and nonprofits.
Multiple activists who signed onto the letter work with the Save Right Whales Coalition, a network of local organizations and activists. Coalition members have appeared with Republican lawmakers at field hearings and rallies over the past few years attacking offshore wind. They became especially influential in GOP politics after being featured in a film by outspoken renewables critic and famous liberal-turned-conservative Michael Shellenberger, who is himself involved in the Coalition. His film, Thrown to the Wind, blew up in right-wing media circles because it claimed to correlate whale deaths with offshore wind development.
When asked if the Coalition was formally involved in this request of the administration, Lisa Linowes, a co-founder of the Coalition, replied in an email: “The Coalition was not a signer of the request.”
One cosigner sure to turn heads: John Droz, a pioneer in the anti-wind activist movement who for years has given talks and offered roadmaps on how best to stop renewables projects.
The letter also includes an endorsement from Mandy Davis, who was involved with the draft anti-wind executive order we told you was sent to the Trump transition team before inauguration. CFACT also co-signed that draft order when it was transmitted to the transition team, according to correspondence reviewed by Heatmap.
Most of the signatories to the letter list their locations. Many of the individuals unrelated to bigger organizations list their locations as in Delaware or Maryland. Only a few signatories on the letter have locations in other states dealing with offshore wind projects.
On its face, this letter represents a new stage of Trump’s war on offshore wind.
Yes, he has frozen leasing, along with most permitting activity and even public meetings related to pending projects. But the president’s executive order targeting offshore wind opened the door to rescinding leases and previous permits. Doing so would produce new, costly legal battles for developers and for publicly-regulated utilities, ratepayers. Over the past few weeks, offshore wind developers with projects that got their permits under Biden have sought to reassure investors that at least they’ll be fine.
If this new request is heeded, that calm will subside.
Beyond that, reversing these authorizations could represent a scandal for scientific integrity at NOAA – or at least NOAA’s Fisheries division, the National Marine Fisheries Service. Heeding the letter’s requests would mean revisiting the findings of career scientists for what developers may argue are purely political reasons, or at minimum arbitrary ones.
This wouldn’t be the first time something like this has happened under Trump. In 2020, I used public records to prove that plans by career NOAA Fisheries employees to protect endangered whales from oil and gas exploration in the Atlantic were watered down after a political review. At the time, Democratic Representative Jared Huffman — now the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee — told me that my reporting was evidence of potential scientific integrity issues at NOAA and represented “blatant scientific and environmental malpractice at the highest order.”
It’s worth emphasizing how much this mattered, not just for science but literally in court, as the decision to allow more seismic testing for oil under Trump was challenged at the time on the grounds that it was made arbitrarily.
Peter Corkeron, a former NOAA scientist with expertise researching the North Atlantic right whale, reviewed the letter to Burgum and told me in an email that essentially, the anti-offshore wind movement is exploiting similar arguments made by conservationists about issues with the federal government’s protection of the species to target this sector. The federal regulator has for many years faced the ire of conservation activists, who’ve said it does not go far enough to protect endangered species from more longstanding threats like fishing and vessel strikes.
If NOAA were to bow to this request, Corkeron wrote, he would interpret that as the agency’s failure to fully protect the species in good faith instead becoming “suborned by the hydrocarbon exploitation industry as a way of eliminating a competing form of energy production that should, in time, prove more beneficial for whales than what we’re currently doing.”
“The point on cumulative impacts is, on face value, fair,” he said. “The problem is its lack of context. Cumulative impacts on North Atlantic right whales from offshore wind are possible. However, in the context of the cumulative impacts of the shipping (vessel strike kills, noise pollution), and fishing (death, maiming, failure to breed) industries, they’ll be insignificant. Because NOAA has never clearly set out to address ways to offset other impacts while developing the offshore wind industry, these additive impacts place a burden on this new industry in ways that existing, and more damaging, industries don’t have to address.”
CFACT responded to a request for comment by sending me a press release with the letter attached that was not publicly available, and did not respond to the climate criticisms by press time. David Stevenson of the Caesar Rodney Institute sent me a statement criticizing offshore wind energy and questioning its ability to “lower global emissions.”
“The goal is to pause construction until everything is reviewed,” Stevenson said. When asked if there was an outcome where a review led to projects being built, he said no, calling offshore wind an “environmental wrecking ball.”
Well, we’ll soon find out what the real wrecking ball is.