• apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      Care to elaborate? A space heater draws 1500 watts of electrical energy and converts it into 1500 watts of heat energy that is released into the room. That seems pretty efficient to me.

      • Nik282000@lemmy.ca
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        8 months ago

        A heat pump can take 1500 watts and use it to pump 3000-4500 watts of heat out of the ground loop and into your house.

        • apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca
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          8 months ago

          True but not everybody has access to a ground source heat pump or can even afford to have one installed, especially with short notice of an upcoming cold snap. I will advocate for heat pumps until I’m blue in the face but the current cost of entry is abhorrent

          • baconisaveg@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            especially with short notice of an upcoming cold snap

            I’ve unfortunately lived in 'berta for the past 3 years. Every winter there’s been a week in January where it’s been below -30. Two winters ago my furnace was screaming trying to keep up. The last thing this cold snap should be is a surprise to anyone who lives here.

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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            8 months ago

            space heaters

            The least efficient

            Care to elaborate?

            heat pump can use 1500 watts and use it to pump 3000-4500

            not everybody has access to a ground source heat pump

            You see where you changed the argument from “compare the efficiency of the two” to a discussion on ‘heat pump privilege’? You see where you moved the goalposts?

            Not cool. Stay on topic.

    • Max-P@lemmy.max-p.me
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      8 months ago

      Meanwhile Québec runs on 95% renewables, and we’ve not had grid load problems in decades. We have problems with trees taking out the power lines, but we’ve never been asked to turn it down despite most people having electric heaters.

      They’re always blaming renewables, but so far renewables is the one I’ve had the least amount of issues with, and by far the cheapest too. My energy bill is 5x the amount in the US and it’s barely freezing. It’s all fossil fuels, of course, the supposed cheap and reliable.

      Renewables are great except for the big oil companies.

      • CanadaPlus@futurology.today
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        8 months ago

        I mean, they would point out that you have a ton of hydro power potential that we don’t. I would counter that we were drawing from the battery storage plants we have during that period, which were themselves charged up by the solar plants (since there’s no reason to charge a battery off of a gas plant).

        How to cheaply store renewables is kind of a trillion-dollar question right now, but I’m sure it will be answered. At the very least, we’re good at drilling into things and could make some nice pumped air plants.