General > General Technical Chat
What is the real story around heat pumps?
JohanH:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---Combined heat and power is feasible, if the government keeps their dirty hands away from our individual freedom, and allows us to connect to the gas grid.
...
So I'm going to be very clear about this: You have no right whatsoever to tell me, or anyone else, what I can or cannot have for my standard of living.
--- End quote ---
I'm flabbergasted that some on this forum can't understand that they are a part of the society like everybody else. As long as we are talking about Europe and democratic societies. The government, that's we, ourselves, whether we want it or not. With such a large population on earth, everyone should understand that they also must be a part of the society, if they want the have the freedoms that the society allows them (but perhaps they could move into an unpopulated area to get total "freedom"). The freedoms are not absolute rights, they are an agreement between us as individuals and the society as a whole. The limits to these freedoms have changed as long as societies have existed and evolved. It's understandable that not everyone want to adapt or change by the changing rules. But as engineers, I would expect some ability to change and adjust circumstances and not just blame the government for everything (it's the same as blaming yourself in the big picture). Why not be creative instead of raging over small things that nobody will care about after a few years? Of course, sometimes changes in society indeed benefits especially a larger population and smaller parts have less benefits, possibly even suffer over some injustice. But I would like to believe that especially people on this forum are creative individuals that are able to adapt, even be the front-runners for changing technology.
zilp:
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---
--- Quote from: zilp on February 21, 2024, 09:57:05 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 21, 2024, 08:34:10 pm ---It's nonsense because China, Russia and the USA are never going to adopt net zero.
--- End quote ---
Why not?
--- End quote ---
I'm not going to discuss net zero, propaganda and taxes. They're political and will just result in pages of arguing, with neither of us agreeing. I just don't support it. You clearly do. We'll just have to disagree and leave it at that.
--- End quote ---
That is simply a lie. You did discuss just that, as I quoted above. You just don't want to defend your position when challenged. If you didn't want to discuss it, you wouldn't have mentioned it in the first place.
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---All I say is, I will choose the most economical heating solution for me.
--- End quote ---
That is not all you said. "China, Russia and the USA are never going to adopt net zero" is not a different way of saying "I will choose the most economical heating solution for me". And you know that it isn't.
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---Just look at the value of gold over the last 100 years. There are peaks and troughs but there's a clear upward trend. Yes I might lose some money, so I certainly wouldn't put all of my money into gold.
--- End quote ---
Yeah, but that upward trend still is caused by what I explained above. But if you know not to put all your money into it, that's probably the most important thing.
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---On the other hand, I know if I replaced my gas boiler with an electric heat pump, it will lose money, so it would be a dumb investment for me. I'm not going to buy a system which will cost a lot of money and cost more to run. It would be like me trying to persuade you into investing in a new paper magazine publication. It will lose money.
--- End quote ---
It's just that you don't actually know that. Whether replacing a gas boiler with an electric heat pump now is a net profitable decision depends heavily on the development of energy supply costs and the purchase price and installation costs of heat pumps over the lifetime of that (hypothetical) heat pump. And as you don't know any of these to a particularly high degree of certainty, you also can't necessarily know whether installing a heat pump now would lose you money.
One thing that is pretty likely, though, for a variety of reasons, is that the price differential between gas and electricity will shrink, and possibly even invert, which at the very least means that betting on gas is not a particularly safe bet.
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---
--- Quote ---How did you get to that number?
--- End quote ---
Given:
The gas engine has an efficiency of 30%
The heat pump system a COP of 300%, i.e. for every 100W of mechanical power from the engine, I get 300W of heat.
Calculate the total COP of the heat pump, driven from the gas engine:
100W of power goes in:
The engine is 30% efficient, thus produces:
30W power to the shaft, which is delivered to the heat pump, which generates three times as much heat 30W*3 = 90W
70W of heat, which isn't wasted but goes into my home.
Total heat to my home 90 + 70 = 160W, hence a total COP of 160%
--- End quote ---
... which assumes that the exhaust will be at outdoor temperature (i.e., your heating water return is below outdoor temperature?) and at the same absolute humidity as outdoor air (which indeed would be likely with outdoor-temperature exhaust ... but not so much in reality)!?
Also, I don't know all that much about the power regulation of combustion engines, but I think that they at the very least have a relatively narrow band of rotational speed where they reach maximum efficiency, and I suspect that exhaust temperature is part of that equation and thus can not be varied continuously to match the water heat exchanger without sacrificing mechanical efficiency!?
Which is to say: It seems highly optimistic to me to assume that you could capture 100% of the waste heat for heating purposes.
--- Quote from: Zero999 on February 22, 2024, 09:24:50 pm ---I don't know what the actual cost of a gas powered heat pump is. Yes it would be more expensive, but typically the cost of the heat pump itself is only a small proportion of the total system. At least with a gas powered system, I know it would pay for itself, unlike an electric one. If I've changed my heating to be heat pump compatible and the market changes, I can always move to electric in the future.
--- End quote ---
Uh ... I mean, I am sorry, but ... that doesn't make a whole lot of sense!?
If you work from the assumption that the majority of the costs of switching to a heat pump are independent from the energy source used by the heat pump, then that implies that switching to a gas-driven heat pump would require the same investment as switching to an electrically driven heat pump. And probably at least a bit more, as you seem to agree. Which also presumably is considerably more than staying with your current system/replacing it with a new gas boiler (as otherwise an electric heat pump would be close to cost parity, based on operating costs alone)? And that difference is supposed to be paid for by a reduction in gas consumption of only 38% even based on your own highly optimistic efficiency calculation?!
I mean, I am not saying that it couldn't end up cheaper overall, but I think you are overstating the certainty a lot when you say that you know that it would pay for itself, given the uncertainty of energy supply costs, and the relatively small efficiency gain of a (small) gas-driven heat pump vs. just burning the gas for heat.
tszaboo:
--- Quote from: JohanH on February 23, 2024, 01:06:38 pm ---
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---Combined heat and power is feasible, if the government keeps their dirty hands away from our individual freedom, and allows us to connect to the gas grid.
...
So I'm going to be very clear about this: You have no right whatsoever to tell me, or anyone else, what I can or cannot have for my standard of living.
--- End quote ---
I'm flabbergasted that some on this forum can't understand that they are a part of the society like everybody else. As long as we are talking about Europe and democratic societies. The government, that's we, ourselves, whether we want it or not. With such a large population on earth, everyone should understand that they also must be a part of the society, if they want the have the freedoms that the society allows them (but perhaps they could move into an unpopulated area to get total "freedom"). The freedoms are not absolute rights, they are an agreement between us as individuals and the society as a whole. The limits to these freedoms have changed as long as societies have existed and evolved. It's understandable that not everyone want to adapt or change by the changing rules. But as engineers, I would expect some ability to change and adjust circumstances and not just blame the government for everything (it's the same as blaming yourself in the big picture). Why not be creative instead of raging over small things that nobody will care about after a few years? Of course, sometimes changes in society indeed benefits especially a larger population and smaller parts have less benefits, possibly even suffer over some injustice. But I would like to believe that especially people on this forum are creative individuals that are able to adapt, even be the front-runners for changing technology.
--- End quote ---
People care, when they have to declare personal bankruptcy if the boiler in their home stops working. They will first go to the insurance company, that will not cover the installation of a heatpump, because why would they. The government will set up a lousy way to finance it that will not cover anything of the cost.
You know what happened here after they made these policies? There was an election, and the far right Gert Wilders won.
--- Quote ---Wilders's main election message was one of anti-immigration, but he has also had a strong anti-climate action rhetoric, saying he does not want to waste billions on "pointless climate hobbies."
--- End quote ---
That's what happens. When you make clearly stupid policies that are expensive and don't have support, people fight back, and then you are in a worse shape than making good policies. There are two ways to fight climate change. The wrong way: tax fossil fuels ban cars and force people to do things, leftist policies. Or you can make the alternative cheaper.
Cheap renewable energy, and then people switch to that, and they'll be happy with it, and tell everyone how much money they save. Instead we push the leftist policies to the point that people just have enough and decide to do nothing or pollute even more out of spite.
zilp:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---Combined heat and power is feasible, if the government keeps their dirty hands away from our individual freedom, and allows us to connect to the gas grid.
--- End quote ---
Do you support my campaign for the government keeping its dirty hands away from my individual freedom to put cyanide into your food?
If not, why not?
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---So yes, maybe it's possible to resolve these with solar or nuclear or burning peat underground or whatever. I have zero control over that. Solar is great, because it's free as in beers. Any time I need to import energy is just more leverage on my life that I want as much reduced as possible. All the other solutions are just asking for more taxes, fees utility bills. It leads to energy poverty.
--- End quote ---
You do realize that this is so vague that noone has any idea what point you are trying to make, right?
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---We want to resolve this global warming situation without causing yet more damage to the standards of living.
--- End quote ---
Which doesn't answer the question as to whether that is possible.
It is an obvious truth that we don't want to reduce standard of living for aynone just for the sake of it.
But stating that doesn't do anything to determine whether it is actually possible within the constraints of physics and human mental capacity to resolve global warming without reducing the standards of living of anyone, let alone how to go about it, right?
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---I'm done with this part of the discussion. I have the right for this declared by the UN article 25.
"Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family"
--- End quote ---
Notice how it says "everyone"? Notice how it doesn't say "tszaboo has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, but fuck everyone else"? Also notice how it doesn't say anything about "a house"?
It's actually pretty wild what you apparently think this means. That you even think that this is in any way relevant to your circumstances at all. That you have so little historical and global political awareness that you don't understand that this is about addressing governments leaving people freezing to death in the streets instead of providing them with a little heated room that allows them to survive and to not experience existentially threatening any physically torturing circumstances. That you seriously seem to think that this could possibly mean that the government of your country would be expected to ensure that you are personally provided with 5 GJ of heat per year at discount prices because you have decided that that size of a home is what you need is just completely insane.
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---I'm sick and tired of people flying in private jets to meeting in Davos, trying to tell us that we have to lower our standards of living, and convincing millions of useful idiots of this. You should stop being a useful idiot.
--- End quote ---
Now, what relevance do the private jets or the place that these people are meeting have as to the correctness of what they are saying?!
Like, if you don't like these people flying in private jets to meet in Davos, ok, fine, I don't like that either. But how does that get us any closer to figuring out whether lowering our standard of living is required or not? Would these same people staying at home and saying the same thing change your mind? And if so ... how does that make any sense?!
How about you address the arguments people are making (of which those meeting at Davos really are a tiny minority and generally the least qualified anyway, so why are you concentrating on them?!) as to what (un)viable approaches to solving climate change are and why?
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---There are ways we can resolve global warming without "depopulation" or "great reset".
--- End quote ---
Well ... OK?! I mean, I don't even think that any significant number of people suggest that that wouldn't be the case, so ... what is your point?!
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 11:47:04 am ---So I'm going to be very clear about this: You have no right whatsoever to tell me, or anyone else, what I can or cannot have for my standard of living.
--- End quote ---
Well, I am sorry, but that is just obvious bullshit, and I can't believe you actually seriously mean this?!
I mean, unless you just mean that noone should have the authority to just arbitrarily force you to reduce your standard of living just because they said so, in which case, OK, I agree, but at the same time, exactly noone is suggesting anything of the sort, so, again, what is your point? Just stating the obvious?
I am getting the impression, though, that what you are actually advocating for is that other people should be forced to bear the damages that are caused by your behaviour, because you aren't willing to pay the full costs of your standard of living. And that obviously isn't a reasonable demand.
Now, if your argument is that you think that some number of people is already in a position where they have other people, including you, bear the costs of their own standard of living, like, maybe, (some of) the people at Davos, or that some such people are trying to get you to decrease your standard of living in order to allow them to maintain their own standard of living: May I suggest that you have a very close look at who would actually benefit from the policies that you are promoting?
Because, to put it very diplomatically: Those organizations that have historically put a lot of effort into lobbying and propaganda for fossil fuels do not exactly have a great track record when it comes to benefiting the general public. Which doesn't mean that there aren't people who have benefited greatly. Some of those you even would have a reasonable chance of meeting at Davos.
In particular, these propaganda campaigns tend to abuse the lacking understanding of economic mechanisms in the general public, instead appealing to commonly believed myths (or simplifications, if you want to be charitable) in order to make people support policies against their own self-interest. And some of that I feel can be seen in how you argued in this thread so far--and in particular in how you haven't engaged at all with my explanations as to why I think your suggestions as to how climate change could be addressed more easily and/or more cheaply don't really work out economically. My impression so far from the discussion with you is that you are primarily repeating talking points that you have heard somewhere that seemed convincing to you, as, when challenged, you just switch to a different argument, or you lash out with insults, rather than explaining your position to counter what I am saying. That certainly doesn't match what I would expect from someone who actually has a reasonably deep understanding of a topic.
zilp:
--- Quote from: tszaboo on February 23, 2024, 03:28:35 pm ---That's what happens. When you make clearly stupid policies that are expensive and don't have support, people fight back, and then you are in a worse shape than making good policies. There are two ways to fight climate change. The wrong way: tax fossil fuels ban cars and force people to do things, leftist policies. Or you can make the alternative cheaper.
Cheap renewable energy, and then people switch to that, and they'll be happy with it, and tell everyone how much money they save. Instead we push the leftist policies to the point that people just have enough and decide to do nothing or pollute even more out of spite.
--- End quote ---
Did you notice how you just skipped the important part of your argument?
You just say "Or you can make the alternative cheaper."
Well. Can you?
How?
And how isn't that dishonest irrelevant nonsense if you have no idea how?
So far, you might as well be saying "Or you can just make CO2 not act as a greenhouse gas". Unless you can support the claim that that is actually possible in the necessary time frame, your statement is equivalent to saying "if we didn't have the problem, we wouldn't have the problem". Yeah, duh? It's just that, in actual fact, we do have the problem, and mere hypotheticals about how we wouldn't have a problem if we didn't have a problem won't do anything to solve the problem that we do in fact have.
If you do know of a way to get sufficient cheap renewable energy (and available at the times that it is required, as you correctly noted before in this discussion) to make it an obvious immediate economical win for everyone to switch to CO2 free heating, then please tell us what that way is. But only if you are willing to seriously address the arguments as to why your suggested approach might not actually be as cheap as you think it is. Because we have heard more than enough people who are utterly convinced that their free energy machines work, but who only are that convinced because they never engaged with the explanations as to why they don't actually work. And that sort of argument doesn't get any better if it is based on confusion about economics instead of confusion about physics.
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