this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.

As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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What Would Happen if Every American Got a Heat Pump (www.wired.com)
submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Archived copies of the article: archive.today ghostarchive.org web.archive.org

The paper the article is about is here and its press release

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

COP is the ratio of moved heat to electricity used. Modern air-to-air heat pumps can maintain a COP of 2.5 or more below 5 def F. The 2.5 COP is important because it's the efficiency cutoff where, above that, even using methane (natural gas) to generate electricity, send that electricity to the home, and use that electricity to power a heat pump, you will use less methane than you would if you burned it directly for heat in your home.

A COP greater than 1 will still be better than resistive heat, and many modern heat pumps can maintain a COP above 1 well below 0 deg F.

Now, wherever you live, methane could be subsidized for homeowners, so the direct costs to the homeowner don't pencil out directly at the 2.5 COP cutoff, but that's no longer a question about efficiency, but around local government not correctly pricing methane.

EDIT: there was a week in January where it stayed below -10 deg F where I live, and my heat pump kept my apartment at 70 deg F with no issues, and only needed to run 27% of the time.