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It pays for itself in dollars but what about the carbon emissions?
by TaylorAlexander 4y ago
It pays for itself in dollars but what about the carbon emissions?
- enraged_camel 4y agoIf you live in Siberia you presumably want the planet to warm up more. ;)
- sobkas 4y ago> If you live in Siberia you presumably want the planet to warm up more. ;) No you don't, when permafrost melts it causes ground to move. It is really bad for everything build on or in it. Something like houses sinking and falling apart. In some cases it cause big holes in the ground and they got even bigger over time.
- voidfunc 4y agoDo you really think anyone in Siberia, one if the poorest places in the world, cares about carbon emissions?
- sobkas 4y ago> Do you really think anyone in Siberia, one if the poorest places in the world, cares about carbon emissions? Unfortunately they care. For now only poor face real consequences of climate change. They are to poor to mitigate its effects.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dsizzle 4y agoIt seems Siberia is one of the places where living conditions might actually improve https://eos.org/articles/climate-change-could-make-siberia-an-attractive-place-to-live https://eos.org/articles/climate-change-could-make-siberia-a... (the "big bog" scenario does cast doubt on that -- e.g. existing structures may collapse).
- sobkas 4y agoThere are sinkholes appearing due to permafrost melting and ice keeps ground solid, otherwise there would be mud(and sinkholes) all over the place.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoMy point is that when we as outsiders look at this practice and evaluate its merits, we should care about the carbon emissions even if the people there don’t.
- ClumsyPilot 4y agoThe problem is almost noone there can afford a heatpump
- _0w8t 4y agoFor a guy in Siberia various climate models show that the global warming will improve life. Winters will be much milder, agriculture will be less risky.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- TMWNN 4y agoMy understanding is that this isn't true, because Siberia's muskeg soil isn't very suitable for growing things, whether frozen or not. (Same with northern Canada. Muskeg and mosquitos are why northern Ontario has never been settled.)
- gwbas1c 4y agoI'd assume that they were going to use carbon-generating fuel, and that someone somewhere would already run a mining rig. IE: It's murky. If they were going to heat using an electric space heater, it's a wash. If they were going to heat using natural gas, but the electricity comes from nuclear, it's lower carbon. If they were going to heat using natural gas, and the emissions are higher. BUT, if they were going to run the mining rig anyway, and they've merely turned off the gas heat, the emissions are overall lower.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoThey could heat with an electric heat pump with can be 2.5x more efficient than an electric heater.
- l33t2328 4y agoWhich is really interesting because electric space heaters are 100% efficient.
- InitialLastName 4y agoYes, heat pumps use 1 watt to apply 2.5 watts of heat to a room (by using the outdoor ambient air as an energy source).
- gwbas1c 4y ago(Apologies if you already know this.) Heat pumps work by moving heat, they usually move more heat than input energy. Basically, a refrigerator is a heat pump. The input energy runs the heat pump, which it uses to move heat out of the refrigerator. Typically, for every watt of electricity, more than a watt of electricity is moved out of the refrigerator. They work by compressing gasses into fluids, and then letting the fluid expand back into a gas. Basically, when a fluid evaporates, it absorbs heat as potential energy. The energy can be harvested by compressing the gas at a high enough pressure that it condenses into a fluid. Do this in a loop, and you can move heat. No laws of physics violated!
- lazide 4y agoA lot of places that do electric resistive heat have cheap electrical sources - often hydro or nuclear.