this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2024
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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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New York’s First Electric Skyscraper Promises Luxury With Lower Emissions | An apartment tower in downtown Brooklyn has ditched fossil fuel heating and appliances (www.bloomberg.com)
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Most electric heat pump hot water heaters have a slow-mode which uses the heat pump, and fills a large tank with hot water, and a fast-mode which uses a resistive heater when the tank runs out. I don't see why this situation is particularly different for larger buildings, except that they need a larger tank and an electrical supply which can deliver the needed wattage.

Cheapo landlord could of course install an undersized unit, as they can with any other key system.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Big buildings like this usually use a central boiler. I'd be shocked if they weren't.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

It still amounts to "I'm heating up a big tank of water and supplying it to people on an as-needed basis." The article makes it clear that they're using several to supply the whole building:

Electric water boilers | These provide hot water for the building and are typically more energy efficient than gas boilers, which are common in New York City.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Fair enough. I guess there could be a time when they need resistive to augment that but I'd think with sufficient boiler capacity you could do only heat pump.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

You definitely can do only heat pump, but adding resistive backup is cheap if you're already putting in new wiring anyways. So people do.