Everyone using a heat pump also reduces gas demand which lowers the gas price.
So basically a heat pump is not only good for yourself but also for everyone else, even if you don’t look at the climate.
That will of course switch when there is such a small number of households using gas that the grid will be a lot more expensive for those. But by the time we are at that point we can probably afford to gift them some heat pumps too.
Grid costs are already something like 20%. So the lower gas prices, due to lower demand will be matched by higher grid costs. That is as long as the gas stays cheap and there are no other issues with the LNG supply or so.
All it took was an orangutan to start a war for the conservatives and liberals to suddenly like heat pumps.
That’s the reason why I love the current situation. Only elevated prices and unpredictable volatility can switch the world off of fossil fuels IMO, because there’s way too many powerful people profiting off of it for it to be a natural transition. The situation has so very clearly spiralled out of control that the orange cunt can’t contain it, naturally, him being borderline retarded, he won’t be able to get out of this mess on his own. And as long as the price is as high as it is, demand destruction will take care of fossil fuels. That’s why I’d like for it to stay that way, such that demand destruction will be maximised. Fuck fossil fuels, objectively superior technology has been available for a long time. It’s time to end this nonsense.
Not just that, but Iran and Ukraine are also attacking fossil fuel infrastructure directly.
The other part is that really low prices are also good, because they lower investments into fossil fuels and the bribing budget of the fossil fuel industry. There is a decent chance we get those again as well, when the wars end. The organge cunt seems to have allowed Venezuela to enter the market as well.
I love the current situation
Privileged. Think about the millions of Russians, Ukrainians, Iranians etc. dying for a pointless global conflict.
And about the billions of tons of CO2 and forever chemicals released by warfare.
tbf the Ukrainians don’t have much choice in the matter.
As opposed to the Iranians who were also attacked?
as opposed to the Russians, didn’t realise you wanted me to list them all. As you hadn’t mentioned the orange pedo, I wasnt going to bother bringing him up, everything he does is from a command from his russian midget controller anyway, so really irans’ being attacked by russia so putler can get the decrepit shit baby to blame ukraine for the fucking diesel prices & use up his stocks of missiles do they cant go to defending Kyiv from the carpet bombing of their civilians.
There’s not much good to come off the situation of the US, but this is the rare silver lining.
Quick! Someone comment how those don’t work in places where very few people live anyway!
Scandinavian countries have had heat pumps since forever
Cold rated heat pumps work up to -30 these days too.
Denmark has separately cut electricity taxes specifically for heat pump households
That is an interesting take for countries that still have high electricity taxes due to generation using fossil fuels. The long-term effect of shifting use to electricity should offset the short-term increase in usage.
In moderate climates it is more efficient to burn gas to produce electricity then use that to run a heat pump, than it is to burn gas directly.
Gas power plants are about 35-60% efficient depending on whether they’re a cheap inefficient peaker or Rankine, or a pricey CCGT plant.
Heat pumps have a COP of 2.5x to >5 depending on outdoor temperature and series.
Good gas furnaces/boilers and the grid are both upwards of 90% efficient.
So a 40% efficient gas plant driving a COP 3 heat pump produces 1.2x the heat that you get from burning the gas directly. That’s close to worst case and you can also run your grid on other fuels.
Also, you need to burn gas only when there is no wind blowing in the winter. Which does not happen that often around the North Sea. Adding modern batteries, gas might be needed 2% or 3% of the time. Which means 97% of CO2 eliminated cheaply, and fast.
Though, adding wave power to complement wind would be nice, since the sea surface then provides free energy storage and energy transport to the shores, and waves in North Sea winter get easily 6 meters high.
They even had to invent some crazy engineering to access wind power plants in typical winter weather - see “Ampelmann Gangway” at YouTube…
That’s some cool engineering
Heat pumps also have the benefit they can run on solar power.
There are plenty of days when it’s still sunny, but not very warm, and my heat pump runs “for free” most of the day.
But, but… the economy.
The point is to remove gas dependencies one at a time, so the impending forced transition is as painless as possible.
Electricity can relatively easy be generated almost infinitely. We will run out of gas sooner or later.
Denmark produces 60% of its electricity with wind power.
