this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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Where Heat Pumps Win — And Where They Lose | Five findings from an extremely thorough study by the US National Renewable Energy Lab. (heatmap.news)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (8 children)

When a tech is new and cool but still not evolved to practical.

My friend, there is nothing "new" about this technology. It has been around for ages. As a child I lived in a home with a heat pump, and that was in the late 80s. I'm gettin' pretty old here, and heat pumps are even older than me. Heat pumps are just air conditioners with one extra part: a reversing valve that allows the direction of flow to be switched so the hot side of the system can be inside in the winter and outside in the summer.

Heat pumps don't require further evolution to become practical, they're already practical. Beyond practical! It's a heating technology capable of efficiency greater than 100%. It's called a "heat pump" because the system doesn't create heat, it moves heat. From outside to inside in winter, and inside to outside in summer. Since a heat pump is not creating heat, instead moving energy that already exists, it's possible to get more energy out (in the form of heat) than the energy you put in (in the form of electricity). Generative heating technologies (natural gas or oil furnace, resistive electric heat) cannot match that as they will always be below 100% efficiency.

I live in Canada, I have a heat pump, and it is great. If you think heat pumps are bad, or not suited to northern climates, or not yet practical... I'm sorry, but you're misinformed.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 8 months ago (2 children)

So you have an integrated system that all the appliances I listed run on? Or you have an old fashioned forced air unit with its own condenser?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No, because that would be silly.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

you are the one saying you had it in your childhood home.

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