4 ms·

Even if they could somehow magically install gigawatts of solar power, all those furnaces in people's homes still run on natural gas.

by JustLurking2022 4y ago

midoridensha 4y ago
That's the fundamental problem: heating in Europe generally requires gas, because that's how the infrastructure was designed. They should be pushing for conversions to electric heat pumps, to avoid this kind of thing in the future: electric can run on any power source, whether it's fossil fuel or solar or nuclear.
- axelthegerman 4y ago
  Heat pumps are not efficient at all for large temperature deltas. Electric is general bad for heating (efficiency wise) unless we literally manage to generate tons of it for very cheap (e.g. fusion).
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Big chunks of Europe don't get cold enough for the delta to be unacceptable. A 20K delta (so e.g. you want it to be 20° C inside, but the outside air temperature is 0° C) is still well inside the range where the heat pump has > 100% efficiency. When it's really cold, which even in Northern Europe is only a few days per year, air source heat pumps would be < 100% efficient and you'd step to resistive heating, but it's weird to optimise for a worst case scenario. And ground source heat pumps are a thing, unlike the air the ground has a relatively stable temperature we can leverage to stabilise home temperatures.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    Ground-source heat pumps fix that problem I believe. Of course, drilling a hole is extra work and expense. For multi-unit housing, it should be a lot more economical since you could drill one hole for coolant circulation and share that among all the units.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- debesyla 4y ago
  And some countries already are. For example, in Lithuania there are subsidies (~40% of installation price) for replacing gas, wood or coal furnaces with heat pumps. (Also subsidies for installing solar panels and batteries too.) It's just that... Theres so many households and only so few manufacturing/importing/installing capabilities. And the subsidies aren't limitless too :-)

Even if they could somehow magically install gigawatts of solar power, all those furnaces in people's homes still run on natural gas.

midoridensha 4y ago

That's the fundamental problem: heating in Europe generally requires gas, because that's how the infrastructure was designed. They should be pushing for conversions to electric heat pumps, to avoid this kind of thing in the future: electric can run on any power source, whether it's fossil fuel or solar or nuclear.

axelthegerman 4y ago
Heat pumps are not efficient at all for large temperature deltas. Electric is general bad for heating (efficiency wise) unless we literally manage to generate tons of it for very cheap (e.g. fusion).
- tialaramex 4y ago
  Big chunks of Europe don't get cold enough for the delta to be unacceptable. A 20K delta (so e.g. you want it to be 20° C inside, but the outside air temperature is 0° C) is still well inside the range where the heat pump has > 100% efficiency. When it's really cold, which even in Northern Europe is only a few days per year, air source heat pumps would be < 100% efficient and you'd step to resistive heating, but it's weird to optimise for a worst case scenario. And ground source heat pumps are a thing, unlike the air the ground has a relatively stable temperature we can leverage to stabilise home temperatures.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  Ground-source heat pumps fix that problem I believe. Of course, drilling a hole is extra work and expense. For multi-unit housing, it should be a lot more economical since you could drill one hole for coolant circulation and share that among all the units.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
debesyla 4y ago
And some countries already are. For example, in Lithuania there are subsidies (~40% of installation price) for replacing gas, wood or coal furnaces with heat pumps. (Also subsidies for installing solar panels and batteries too.) It's just that... Theres so many households and only so few manufacturing/importing/installing capabilities. And the subsidies aren't limitless too :-)