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> Were these studies, or "studies" that were effectively marketing for Russian supplied gas I guess your next comment will be that the Fraunhofer Institut has

> Were these studies, or "studies" that were effectively marketing for Russian supplied gas I guess your next comment will be that the Fraunhofer Institut has been infiltrated by Russians? https://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ibp/ibp-neu/de/dokumente/ibpmitteilungen/501-550/549.pdf https://www.ibp.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ibp/ibp-neu/de/dok... And here's a video with all the information on different studies, universities and companies involved. This is basically a guy helping german real estate companies to survive in the current environment. It's in German. Translate it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRe_Fu28CQs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRe_Fu28CQs

pastage 3y ago
I do not read German, but the literature is from 2008-2016 which does coincide with the peak of natural gas hysteria. Money might seem neutral but a big part of oil money has gone to lobbying, as was recently highlighted by Saudi oil fund leaks. With that said you need to say more, we have been using heat pumps for decades and it is a great thing. The Nordics has cheaper electricity though. My point is it all depends.
- starbugs 3y ago
  > big part of oil money has gone to lobbying That may be true (as it probably is for most big industries), but what does it have to do with what I have been saying? I have been talking about a comparison between two electric systems. The Fraunhofer paper just provides evidence that the COP of air heat pumps is much worse than advertised on average. If you are talking about the parent comment that said that they installed a gas system after looking into the heat pump: even there it is not clear if a heat pump system is better in terms of total emissions. It heavily depends on what kind of home you are equipping, because you also have to account for emissions caused by upgrading and maintaining insulation and other facilities, and for emissions caused by conventional power plants to supply the electricity for the pump (and the flow heater for hot water). The german energy mix, for instance, does still depend heavily on conventional plants in winter, even if the wind is blowing: https://www.smard.de/home/marktdaten?marketDataAttributes=%7B%22resolution%22:%22hour%22,%22from%22:1703804400000,%22to%22:1704754799999,%22moduleIds%22:%5B1004066,1001226,1001225,1004067,1004068,1001228,1001224,1001223,1004069,1004071,1004070,1001227%5D,%22selectedCategory%22:null,%22activeChart%22:true,%22style%22:%22color%22,%22categoriesModuleOrder%22:%7B%7D,%22region%22:%22DE%22%7D https://www.smard.de/home/marktdaten?marketDataAttributes=%7... and during summer your expensive heat pump will just sit idle. > we have been using heat pumps for decades and it is a great thing. Great for your finances, the environment or what exactly? > My point is it all depends. It does. So we better look into the details instead of making decisions based on who has been accused of lobbying most prominently. But most people are not interested in looking into the details. They just want to appear "good" based on what's currently being seen as "good". Marketing departments know that.
  - pastage 3y ago
    Thank you for your comments btw, they gave a good second perspective! From my experience doing everything you need for a heat pump to work is a great return on investment, and the carbon life cycle analysisis is beyond great. I think monetary costs are just taken for granted if you do not see burning fossil fuels as the only solution.
    - starbugs 3y ago
      Thank you for yours as well. It's an interesting discussion. As another commenter pointed out, it all depends on the electricity source regarding the carbon life cycle. I posted another comment with the best detailed analysis for my current environment I could come up with and it's clear to me that the result doesn't warrant a definitive positive outcome for the heat pump. With a low CO2 emission electricity source, I would agree that a heat pump system can make a lot of sense if your goal is to reduce emissions. > I think monetary costs are just taken for granted if you do not see burning fossil fuels as the only solution. That sounds like a rich people's perspective. What if you don't have the money? If it's really about transitioning the heating of all homes away from carbon emitting sources, then this will only work if the solution is cheap, because not everyone is wealthy enough to afford the transition. If you implement policies that force people to upgrade, as was done in Germany, you will only transfer even more wealth from poor people to rich people. And I would argue that this also reduces the overall wealth in the system substantially since energy is an input to any product or service. At some point that leads to serious social and political issues as can be seen in Germany right now. This puts the whole enterprise of transitioning at danger once people demand radical political change.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - pastage 3y ago
    Great for the environment here since the nineties, but as you say you have to take capacity planning into account. That the german grid is so sold on carbohydrates is a problem and a bias in the debate over the last decades. I say this as a neighbor who does not read much german. I think we are in agreement on the facts just discussing the issue from different viewpoints.
Ynottingten 3y ago
The first link doesn't say anything about co2 at all. It talks about some inefficiencies. This doesn't mean its a bad choice and there are not many alternatives anyway. Not everyone wants an infrared based heating system or a air basesd (which would also work with a heat pump, air to air). The second link is an interview were there is already a counter video. Rieck does not verify all sources and interviews a broad spectrum of people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZS9HzuQck8&ab_channel=Prof.Dr.ChristianRieck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZS9HzuQck8&ab_channel=Prof.... Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). And panic decisions: ITs very critical that you can consume energy and not just oil or gas because in 5-15 years, the co2 tax for gas and oil will be higher and you will still only be able to consume those. The bad decision is to do nothing or to renew your oil/gas burner. The good decision is heat pumps, infrared whatever you like and doesn't consume oil/gas or can be easily switched. Btw. investing now in germany in PV and a heat pump (for owners of houses) is with a high chance the longterm cheaper solution overall.
- dralley 3y ago
  >Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). The decision is a little more complicated than that. If your electricity comes from natural gas, then you have to account for inefficiency in production of electricity and losses during transmission. On the other hand, furnaces are not 100% efficient either, the cheap ones are 80% and the 95% efficient ones are more expensive, which narrows the gap. Modern heat pumps can easily maintain a high enough COP to match or beat a furnace, and if you live in an area that needs both heat and A/C at different parts of the year, a more efficient unit benefits you year-round as opposed to spending more on a furnace. And if your electricity isn't coming from fossil fuels... then it's a moot point to begin with. You can't run a furnace on wind.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- starbugs 3y ago
  > Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). Not really following. I think that's a central point of the discussion. Is that COP realistic? Even after re-watching the follow-up videos on that, I tend to say no. If we assume an energy mix of 30/70 wind/conventional during winter and conventional means lignite, hard coal, nat. gas. Taking the numbers from Quaschning (https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.ph...) let's say we have CO2 (equivalent) emissions of 700g/kWh for electricity generation on average (where nat. gas mean is 436g) incl. the upstream chain. 700x0.7 = 490g/kWh (wind subtracted). Now that has to compete against 200g/kWh for nat. gas burned in the furnace, disregarding any losses in both cases. 490/200 = 2.45 which would be the COP needed to break even. And that is without production and installation emissions with regard to the whole heat pump system, including a potentially common replacement of radiators/floor heating, installing a flow heater for hot water and so on. Also disregarding that the flow heater will have a COP of 1. Please correct me if there's an error in my calculation. It's just a back of the envelope thing and won't be accurate, but hopefully good enough to illustrate my point a bit. > the co2 tax for gas and oil will be higher and you will still only be able to consume those. As discussed in the reaction videos, I think it's not a fair point to compare the current costs to hypothetical future costs. Especially not if the german official sources state that the gas price will not substantially rise until 2035. But that's a point of discussion that's based on so many ifs that it's not really one I'd like to have at this point. We are basically at a point in this country where the government has to revert its policy on Diesel tax increases on the farmers. It's unclear to me if tax increases on nat. gas will be accepted by the population.

pastage 3y ago

I do not read German, but the literature is from 2008-2016 which does coincide with the peak of natural gas hysteria. Money might seem neutral but a big part of oil money has gone to lobbying, as was recently highlighted by Saudi oil fund leaks. With that said you need to say more, we have been using heat pumps for decades and it is a great thing. The Nordics has cheaper electricity though. My point is it all depends.

starbugs 3y ago
> big part of oil money has gone to lobbying That may be true (as it probably is for most big industries), but what does it have to do with what I have been saying? I have been talking about a comparison between two electric systems. The Fraunhofer paper just provides evidence that the COP of air heat pumps is much worse than advertised on average. If you are talking about the parent comment that said that they installed a gas system after looking into the heat pump: even there it is not clear if a heat pump system is better in terms of total emissions. It heavily depends on what kind of home you are equipping, because you also have to account for emissions caused by upgrading and maintaining insulation and other facilities, and for emissions caused by conventional power plants to supply the electricity for the pump (and the flow heater for hot water). The german energy mix, for instance, does still depend heavily on conventional plants in winter, even if the wind is blowing: https://www.smard.de/home/marktdaten?marketDataAttributes=%7B%22resolution%22:%22hour%22,%22from%22:1703804400000,%22to%22:1704754799999,%22moduleIds%22:%5B1004066,1001226,1001225,1004067,1004068,1001228,1001224,1001223,1004069,1004071,1004070,1001227%5D,%22selectedCategory%22:null,%22activeChart%22:true,%22style%22:%22color%22,%22categoriesModuleOrder%22:%7B%7D,%22region%22:%22DE%22%7D https://www.smard.de/home/marktdaten?marketDataAttributes=%7... and during summer your expensive heat pump will just sit idle. > we have been using heat pumps for decades and it is a great thing. Great for your finances, the environment or what exactly? > My point is it all depends. It does. So we better look into the details instead of making decisions based on who has been accused of lobbying most prominently. But most people are not interested in looking into the details. They just want to appear "good" based on what's currently being seen as "good". Marketing departments know that.
- pastage 3y ago
  Thank you for your comments btw, they gave a good second perspective! From my experience doing everything you need for a heat pump to work is a great return on investment, and the carbon life cycle analysisis is beyond great. I think monetary costs are just taken for granted if you do not see burning fossil fuels as the only solution.
  - starbugs 3y ago
    Thank you for yours as well. It's an interesting discussion. As another commenter pointed out, it all depends on the electricity source regarding the carbon life cycle. I posted another comment with the best detailed analysis for my current environment I could come up with and it's clear to me that the result doesn't warrant a definitive positive outcome for the heat pump. With a low CO2 emission electricity source, I would agree that a heat pump system can make a lot of sense if your goal is to reduce emissions. > I think monetary costs are just taken for granted if you do not see burning fossil fuels as the only solution. That sounds like a rich people's perspective. What if you don't have the money? If it's really about transitioning the heating of all homes away from carbon emitting sources, then this will only work if the solution is cheap, because not everyone is wealthy enough to afford the transition. If you implement policies that force people to upgrade, as was done in Germany, you will only transfer even more wealth from poor people to rich people. And I would argue that this also reduces the overall wealth in the system substantially since energy is an input to any product or service. At some point that leads to serious social and political issues as can be seen in Germany right now. This puts the whole enterprise of transitioning at danger once people demand radical political change.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pastage 3y ago
  Great for the environment here since the nineties, but as you say you have to take capacity planning into account. That the german grid is so sold on carbohydrates is a problem and a bias in the debate over the last decades. I say this as a neighbor who does not read much german. I think we are in agreement on the facts just discussing the issue from different viewpoints.

Ynottingten 3y ago

The first link doesn't say anything about co2 at all. It talks about some inefficiencies. This doesn't mean its a bad choice and there are not many alternatives anyway. Not everyone wants an infrared based heating system or a air basesd (which would also work with a heat pump, air to air). The second link is an interview were there is already a counter video. Rieck does not verify all sources and interviews a broad spectrum of people. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZS9HzuQck8&ab_channel=Prof.Dr.ChristianRieck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZS9HzuQck8&ab_channel=Prof.... Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). And panic decisions: ITs very critical that you can consume energy and not just oil or gas because in 5-15 years, the co2 tax for gas and oil will be higher and you will still only be able to consume those. The bad decision is to do nothing or to renew your oil/gas burner. The good decision is heat pumps, infrared whatever you like and doesn't consume oil/gas or can be easily switched. Btw. investing now in germany in PV and a heat pump (for owners of houses) is with a high chance the longterm cheaper solution overall.

dralley 3y ago
>Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). The decision is a little more complicated than that. If your electricity comes from natural gas, then you have to account for inefficiency in production of electricity and losses during transmission. On the other hand, furnaces are not 100% efficient either, the cheap ones are 80% and the 95% efficient ones are more expensive, which narrows the gap. Modern heat pumps can easily maintain a high enough COP to match or beat a furnace, and if you live in an area that needs both heat and A/C at different parts of the year, a more efficient unit benefits you year-round as opposed to spending more on a furnace. And if your electricity isn't coming from fossil fuels... then it's a moot point to begin with. You can't run a furnace on wind.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
starbugs 3y ago
> Also, just food for thought: If one unit of gas has one 1kWh energy, a heat pump can make 3-4kWh out of it (You are following right?). Not really following. I think that's a central point of the discussion. Is that COP realistic? Even after re-watching the follow-up videos on that, I tend to say no. If we assume an energy mix of 30/70 wind/conventional during winter and conventional means lignite, hard coal, nat. gas. Taking the numbers from Quaschning (https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.ph...) let's say we have CO2 (equivalent) emissions of 700g/kWh for electricity generation on average (where nat. gas mean is 436g) incl. the upstream chain. 700x0.7 = 490g/kWh (wind subtracted). Now that has to compete against 200g/kWh for nat. gas burned in the furnace, disregarding any losses in both cases. 490/200 = 2.45 which would be the COP needed to break even. And that is without production and installation emissions with regard to the whole heat pump system, including a potentially common replacement of radiators/floor heating, installing a flow heater for hot water and so on. Also disregarding that the flow heater will have a COP of 1. Please correct me if there's an error in my calculation. It's just a back of the envelope thing and won't be accurate, but hopefully good enough to illustrate my point a bit. > the co2 tax for gas and oil will be higher and you will still only be able to consume those. As discussed in the reaction videos, I think it's not a fair point to compare the current costs to hypothetical future costs. Especially not if the german official sources state that the gas price will not substantially rise until 2035. But that's a point of discussion that's based on so many ifs that it's not really one I'd like to have at this point. We are basically at a point in this country where the government has to revert its policy on Diesel tax increases on the farmers. It's unclear to me if tax increases on nat. gas will be accepted by the population.