3 ms·

Only if you have electric radiators. If you heat your home in any other way, you're wasting some energy, since electric energy is the least efficient to use for

Only if you have electric radiators. If you heat your home in any other way, you're wasting some energy, since electric energy is the least efficient to use for simple heating.

jrockway 17y ago
Indeed. It is amazing how much heat-per-watt of electricity you can get from a heat pump. Much better to use your electricity to power that than it is to use a bunch of old servers as your primary heat source. (Yes, I know someone who did this...)
akamaka 17y ago
Well, not entirely true, depending on what you're optimizing for. If it's cost, you need to see if gas bill savings + price difference of appliance < electric bill savings. If you're optimizing for CO2 emissions, and live in France, with many nuclear plants, maybe using less electricity doesn't do much. (I have ground source heating in my home, btw, and it's great for both!)
- fhars 17y ago
  But in France the problem is that they built their houses according to the maxim "we have abundant cheap nuclear energy" to use marginal insulation and electric heaters, so these days they have to buy electricity produced in Germany's dirtiest coal power plants during winter... Here is a (German, sorry) text from last winter: http://www.sol.de/titelseite/topnews/Strom-EDF-Frankreich-Koelte-Winter-Heizung-freiren-ueberlastet-Stromnetze-in-Frankreich-wegen-Kaelte-ueberlastet;art26205,2840399 http://www.sol.de/titelseite/topnews/Strom-EDF-Frankreich-Ko... This winter may become even more problematic, since about a quarter of their nuclear power plants are down for maintenance. http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/11/frances_notsonuclear_winter.html http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/11/france... http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssUtilitiesElectric/idUSLU26856720091030 http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssUtilitiesElectric/idUSLU2...

Only if you have electric radiators. If you heat your home in any other way, you're wasting some energy, since electric energy is the least efficient to use for simple heating.

jrockway 17y ago

Indeed. It is amazing how much heat-per-watt of electricity you can get from a heat pump. Much better to use your electricity to power that than it is to use a bunch of old servers as your primary heat source. (Yes, I know someone who did this...)

akamaka 17y ago

Well, not entirely true, depending on what you're optimizing for. If it's cost, you need to see if gas bill savings + price difference of appliance < electric bill savings. If you're optimizing for CO2 emissions, and live in France, with many nuclear plants, maybe using less electricity doesn't do much. (I have ground source heating in my home, btw, and it's great for both!)

fhars 17y ago
But in France the problem is that they built their houses according to the maxim "we have abundant cheap nuclear energy" to use marginal insulation and electric heaters, so these days they have to buy electricity produced in Germany's dirtiest coal power plants during winter... Here is a (German, sorry) text from last winter: http://www.sol.de/titelseite/topnews/Strom-EDF-Frankreich-Koelte-Winter-Heizung-freiren-ueberlastet-Stromnetze-in-Frankreich-wegen-Kaelte-ueberlastet;art26205,2840399 http://www.sol.de/titelseite/topnews/Strom-EDF-Frankreich-Ko... This winter may become even more problematic, since about a quarter of their nuclear power plants are down for maintenance. http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/11/frances_notsonuclear_winter.html http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/2009/11/france... http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssUtilitiesElectric/idUSLU26856720091030 http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssUtilitiesElectric/idUSLU2...