4 ms·

It's a bunch of stuff all coming together: Electric heating is still memetically coupled with resistive heating in Germany, which isn't very efficient (and can'

It's a bunch of stuff all coming together: Electric heating is still memetically coupled with resistive heating in Germany, which isn't very efficient (and can't beat subsidized fossils anyway). Post-war era houses in regions that don't usually see -10°C or less tend not to be airtight "because it's healthier" (because vapor can escape, avoiding mold). Heating engineers preferred to sell the stuff they know (and is somewhat easier to install) so they discouraged heat pumps. So everybody has been telling everybody in Germany that "electric heating" doesn't work, heat pumps are vaguely "electric heating" (different mode of operation, but for that you'd have to know how heat pumps work in the first place), and with all that you end up with some "wisdom of the crowd" that fuels false confidence.

TMWNN 3y ago
>Electric heating is still memetically coupled with resistive heating in Germany, which isn't very efficient Why is this? Isn't electric heating (in the space heater context) by definition 100% efficient, because all of the energy is translated into heat (with the light as a byproduct)?
- pgeorgi 3y ago
  In the small: Those space heaters Germans think about when talking electric heating tend to be night storage heaters. So they consume electricity at night (when the grid is free) to heat up, then radiate the heat until the next evening. That scheme was accompanied by cheaper electricity at night. Not very comfy, and slow to react, and the "cheaper electricity" bit supported the notion that it only works when "subsidized" (just the market at work, but it looks like that - unlike fossils whose subsidies were usually not as obvious for the regular citizen.) In the large: That idea is from a time when burning fossils at home (including coal) was the way to heat, and burning fossils to drive a (relatively inefficient, at least compared to today, and filters were an unknown luxury) generator was the way to create electricity. You likely got more heat at home out of a bucket of coal when burning it at home rather than burning it at the power plant (with some excess heat there), converting it to electricity (with some losses), transporting electricity home (with some losses) and then heat up the home with that, even with 100% efficiency at that last step. (These days I wouldn't be so sure: those power plants, even the fossil burning type, are fine tuned high-tech at a level you can't just put in ordinary homes, so they might actually extract more energy to use after all the losses along the chain than the fireplace at home that evicts a considerable percentage of the heat through the chimney)
  - Arnt 3y ago
    I personally knew all that and still am amazed at how confidently these people tell me it doesn't work. "Oh, you're from Norway? I understand (X) is very popular in Norway, but of course it doesn't work at all well there." The details of X doesn't matter, the statement is all duh anyway.

TMWNN 3y ago

>Electric heating is still memetically coupled with resistive heating in Germany, which isn't very efficient Why is this? Isn't electric heating (in the space heater context) by definition 100% efficient, because all of the energy is translated into heat (with the light as a byproduct)?

pgeorgi 3y ago
In the small: Those space heaters Germans think about when talking electric heating tend to be night storage heaters. So they consume electricity at night (when the grid is free) to heat up, then radiate the heat until the next evening. That scheme was accompanied by cheaper electricity at night. Not very comfy, and slow to react, and the "cheaper electricity" bit supported the notion that it only works when "subsidized" (just the market at work, but it looks like that - unlike fossils whose subsidies were usually not as obvious for the regular citizen.) In the large: That idea is from a time when burning fossils at home (including coal) was the way to heat, and burning fossils to drive a (relatively inefficient, at least compared to today, and filters were an unknown luxury) generator was the way to create electricity. You likely got more heat at home out of a bucket of coal when burning it at home rather than burning it at the power plant (with some excess heat there), converting it to electricity (with some losses), transporting electricity home (with some losses) and then heat up the home with that, even with 100% efficiency at that last step. (These days I wouldn't be so sure: those power plants, even the fossil burning type, are fine tuned high-tech at a level you can't just put in ordinary homes, so they might actually extract more energy to use after all the losses along the chain than the fireplace at home that evicts a considerable percentage of the heat through the chimney)
- Arnt 3y ago
  I personally knew all that and still am amazed at how confidently these people tell me it doesn't work. "Oh, you're from Norway? I understand (X) is very popular in Norway, but of course it doesn't work at all well there." The details of X doesn't matter, the statement is all duh anyway.