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The problem with "electric heaters" is that electricity for ANYTHING can NEVER be better that 50% efficient and often is worse. Natural gas heating can EASILY
by xyzzy21 5y ago
The problem with "electric heaters" is that electricity for ANYTHING can NEVER be better that 50% efficient and often is worse. Natural gas heating can EASILY attain 70%-80% efficiency in heating.
Green Energy is generally contrary to the laws of physics in this sense. It's one step forward and three-to-five steps backward.
- Tagbert 5y agoElectric heat pumps can be over 100% efficient as they are using ambient heat to warm the house.
- MetricExpansion 5y agoThis is a really bad take. Heat pumps can have coefficients of performance (joules of cooling provided over joules of energy consumed) between 2.5-5 (going down as outside temperatures drop). In most situations, it’s more efficient to burn the gas for electricity and then put it into a heat pump than to burn it directly for heating. In the very coldest situations, where the heat pump less effective, then you may use the resistive heating to augment it. And “green” tech is about changing power generation sources so that, even if you have some more inefficiency, it’s not polluting the planet or running down finite resources as much.
- brtkdotse 5y agoMust… resist… “well actually” this person about heat pumps…
- ComradePhil 5y agoHeat pumps are either impractical or very expensive and time consuming to install in apartment buildings, which is where most of the European population lives, so there's that.
- brtkdotse 5y agoAt least in Sweden I’m seeing more and more appartment building with a big honking air-to-water units outside of them.
- radu_floricica 5y agoI'm not even touching heat pumps. But I do have to say that "loss of efficiency" in a supermajority of case is by... heat. Pretty much all the electricity that enters your house leaves it as heat. Heaters at 50%? I guess, if you use a long wave radio as an electric heater. Otherwise it's just 99.99%. And if you mean electricity _generation_ is 50%, well, say so. That's a completely different topic, and electricity generation method are varied enough to make any single number meaningless. How do you calculate efficiency of hydro?
- ElectricalUnion 5y ago> The problem with "electric heaters" is that electricity for ANYTHING can NEVER be better that 50% efficient and often is worse. Electric heaters are 100% efficient in transforming joules to heat. The powerplant/transmission lines are the issue in this case.
- IAmEveryone 5y agoYes, but when the electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels, that process is only 40% or so efficient, whereas using the heat directly is lossless.