human actions, global climate change, global human solutions
POSTED BY: 1kiki
UPDATED: Sunday, September 6, 2026 19:38
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Waaaay back when, when I was taking physics in high school and we were talking about the efficiency of refrigerators and thermodynamics, I asked whether you could heat
a house using a refrigerator in reverse. My teacher looked startled for a moment and then told me that they were called "heat pumps" and added that they generally only worked in climates that didn't get very cold in winter.
, Like the Mid-Atlantic seaboard.
I have nothing against the idea. But if you're trying to be "environmentally friendly", my point was that generating electricity is only 60% efficient at best, and out of all of the BTUs that you burned up to generate the electricity, you may be able to deliver to the customer only about 50% of that energy. So even if you get twice as much heat out of the heat pump as you put in, in terms of electricity, at best you're at the same efficiency as if you burned the gas directly in your furnace.
Thinking further... furnaces themselves aren't 100% efficient either. Some to most of the heat they generate goes up the chimney, depending on how efficient their heat exchanger is. Modern furnaces are SO efficient at extracting heat from combustion gas that they can't even be vented at the roof but out the side of the house bc the exhaust isn't hot/ bouyant enough to make it all the way up a normal chimney!
But even so, I think the best modern furnaces are only 75% efficient. So heat pumps may have an edge on energy saving.
What would be really cool tho (so to speak) would be a heat pump that is powered by nat gas. They have ACs that are powered by a small natgas flame, why not heat pumps?
Hmmm.... needs more thought!
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Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE someone poor - William Blake
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https://www.google.com/search?q=this+old+house+heat+pump
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Waaaay back when, when I was taking physics in high school and we were talking about the efficiency of refrigerators and thermodynamics, I asked whether you could heat
a house using a refrigerator in reverse. My teacher looked startled for a moment and then told me that they were called "heat pumps" and added that they generally only worked in climates that didn't get very cold in winter.
, Like the Mid-Atlantic seaboard.
Yeah... That's why I made the joke about the swamp cooler above. If you didn't know, swamp coolers have been an online scam now for about 5 years... I think the most recognizable brand name would be Arctic Cool, if memory serves. Online videos have been all over social media sites for years claiming that this $50 or $100 unit will cool off your room in minutes and out perform traditional A/C units. All it is is a fan with a membrane that wicks up water from a resevior that you need to manually fill. Unless you live in Arizona, adding humidity to the air to cool yourself is not going to work.
Quote:
I have nothing against the idea. But if you're trying to be "environmentally friendly", my point was that generating electricity is only 60% efficient at best, and out of all of the BTUs that you burned up to generate the electricity, you may be able to deliver to the customer only about 50% of that energy. So even if you get twice as much heat out of the heat pump as you put in, in terms of electricity, at best you're at the same efficiency as if you burned the gas directly in your furnace.
Thinking further... furnaces themselves aren't 100% efficient either. Some to most of the heat they generate goes up the chimney, depending on how efficient their heat exchanger is. Modern furnaces are SO efficient at extracting heat from combustion gas that they can't even be vented at the roof but out the side of the house bc the exhaust isn't hot/ bouyant enough to make it all the way up a normal chimney!
But even so, I think the best modern furnaces are only 75% efficient. So heat pumps may have an edge on energy saving.
What would be really cool tho (so to speak) would be a heat pump that is powered by nat gas. They have ACs that are powered by a small natgas flame, why not heat pumps?
Hmmm.... needs more thought!
No reason that companies shouldn't be investigating the possibilities.
They're going to have to do something about making sure that these things will actually work in cold temperatures first though if they're even going to be safe enough to rely on exclusively.
These things actually are on my list of stuff to install in my house... But only to lessen the burden on the gas furnace. I can't imagine not having a gas furnace in my house where I'm located.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Scientists say it’s ‘fatally foolish’ to not study catastrophic climate outcomes
Inside Climate News reports | August 1, 2022
As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, some climate scientists say it’s time to start paying more attention to the most extreme, worst-case outcomes, including the potential for widespread extinctions, mass climate migration and the disintegration of social and political systems.
“Facing a future of accelerating climate change while blind to worst-case scenarios is naive risk management at best and fatally foolish at worst,” an international team of researchers wrote this week in a Perspective piece in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
More than half of all cumulative carbon dioxide emissions have occurred since international climate negotiations started in 1990.
More at https://insideclimatenews.org/news/01082022/scientists-study-catastrop
hic-climate-outcomes/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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If only someone had tipped us off to climate change sooner, we could've done something.
AUGUST 14, 1912.
Science Notes and News.
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COAL CONSUMPTION AFFECTING CLIMATE.
The furnaces of the world are now burning about 2,000,000,000 tons of coal a year. When this is burned, uniting with oxygen, it adds about 7,000,000,000 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere yearly. This tends to make the air a more effective blanket for the earth and to raise its temperature. The effect may be considerable in a few centuries. (Only took one century.)
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/08/13/fact-check-ye
s-1912-article-linked-burning-coal-climate-change/8124455002/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Posts falsely claim 95% of energy for charging electric cars comes from coal
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/07/30/fact-check-po
sts-makes-false-claim-gm-electric-cars/5428075001/
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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Your coal burning car is worse for the environment than my 25 year old gas burning car.
We can't even keep up with the energy needs of the people right now. What do you think is going to happen when a bunch more of you idiots buy them?
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
Your coal burning car is worse for the environment than my 25 year old gas burning car.
We can't even keep up with the energy needs of the people right now. What do you think is going to happen when a bunch more of you idiots buy them?
And it ain't just California...
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-record-heat-wa
ve-again-with-no-blackouts-2022-07-13/
That's right in your back yard.
I can't wait to hear the stories about how your coal burning car caused the blackouts that killed little Timmy's grandma next summer.
Sorry Grandma. The Democrats ruined everything in the 2020s.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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Quote:Did you read this part? "The emergency notice came after ERCOT began paying suppliers an average of $5,000 per megawatt hour to keep generators running. That price is the highest the grid operator pays." -- https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-record-heat-wa
Originally posted by 6IXSTRINGJACK:
I can't wait to hear the stories about how your coal burning car caused the blackouts that killed little Timmy's grandma next summer.
Sorry Grandma. The Democrats ruined everything in the 2020s.
ve-again-with-no-blackouts-2022-07-13/
The price of electricity is 10 cents per kilowatt-hour. That is $100 per megawatt hour, but the generating companies are being paid $5,000 per megawatt hour and they are cheating, gouging, and raping customers, which is perfectly legal. It was, once upon a time, illegal when Democrats controlled Texas.
I forgot that 700 people died the last time the Texas power grid failed. It failed because (and this is where Republicans obfuscate the cause) Republican officials allowed Texas utilities to be run for the highest profits [remember that $5,000 per megawatt hour?] not for reliability.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis
The Joss Whedon script for Serenity, where Wash lives, is Serenity-190pages.pdf at https://www.mediafire.com/two
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I already heard you whining about it with that little cunt you call a mouth.
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Falsus in unum, falsus in omnibus
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