3 ms·

I clicked through to the text of the study and it says no such thing. It seems to be about real world COP versus temperatures. It bashes the strawman of resisti

I clicked through to the text of the study and it says no such thing. It seems to be about real world COP versus temperatures. It bashes the strawman of resistive heating a few times, and once even fallaciously compares heat pump nameplate efficiency to combustion nameplate efficiency. But there is absolutely no discussion of power plant efficiency that would be necessary to support the headline. I think the headline certainly can be true. And obviously heat pumps' ability to use electricity that hasn't been generated by fossil fuels is critical. But this article adds nothing to the discussion.

PaulHoule 3y ago
The article behind it (which is paywalled) does go into some detail of the problem of what temperature range various sorts of heat pumps work. The story I heard about 10 years ago was that air source heat pumps were good if you lived in Ohio or further South but not good if you were in upstate NY. Here we would need a geothermal heat pump which is a much harder install. The air source heat pumps have greatly improved and now even work in Alaska, and that’s the story of the linked article. Note in Upstate NY we have a major hydro system at Niagara falls, some nuclear plants, wind, etc. so we have a major low carbon component to our grid already.
- mindslight 3y ago
  I'm able to view the article by clicking the link [0] which goes to [1]. I don't know if this differs for you, or I could be missing something. As I acknowledged, the article is about COP versus temperature. I know don't enough about the state of the art to know whether the article is making a real contribution, or whether it's just some kind of marketing fluff dressed up in academic trappings. Much of the article is spent on repeating feel-good generalities, which is why I'm considering the latter. My main point is that the headline is completely unsupported by the original article. In order to compare heat pump efficiency to a gas boiler efficiency, you have to compare end to end gas->heat, like say a gas power plant powering a heat pump. Looking at the nameplate efficiencies of electricity->heat from a heat pump, and gas->heat of a boiler is fallacious, because electricity is a much more concentrated form of energy. I do believe these numbers have gotten pretty close, which is why such an article would be interesting, but this ain't it. [0] https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.08.005 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.08.005 [1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00351-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2542435123003513%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00351-3?_r...

PaulHoule 3y ago

The article behind it (which is paywalled) does go into some detail of the problem of what temperature range various sorts of heat pumps work. The story I heard about 10 years ago was that air source heat pumps were good if you lived in Ohio or further South but not good if you were in upstate NY. Here we would need a geothermal heat pump which is a much harder install. The air source heat pumps have greatly improved and now even work in Alaska, and that’s the story of the linked article. Note in Upstate NY we have a major hydro system at Niagara falls, some nuclear plants, wind, etc. so we have a major low carbon component to our grid already.

mindslight 3y ago
I'm able to view the article by clicking the link [0] which goes to [1]. I don't know if this differs for you, or I could be missing something. As I acknowledged, the article is about COP versus temperature. I know don't enough about the state of the art to know whether the article is making a real contribution, or whether it's just some kind of marketing fluff dressed up in academic trappings. Much of the article is spent on repeating feel-good generalities, which is why I'm considering the latter. My main point is that the headline is completely unsupported by the original article. In order to compare heat pump efficiency to a gas boiler efficiency, you have to compare end to end gas->heat, like say a gas power plant powering a heat pump. Looking at the nameplate efficiencies of electricity->heat from a heat pump, and gas->heat of a boiler is fallacious, because electricity is a much more concentrated form of energy. I do believe these numbers have gotten pretty close, which is why such an article would be interesting, but this ain't it. [0] https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.08.005 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.joule.2023.08.005 [1] https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00351-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2542435123003513%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(23)00351-3?_r...