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Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

willbrownsberger.com

1–10 of 95 posts

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#4
post #2

It's good to see a politician actually doing their own analysis rather than just following every fad. It's a characteristic that is sorely lacking from the US political class.

The US Political Class is made up of Gullible people unable to do their own research because that is what the system has incentivized electing

People with intelligence, principles, and convictions rarely last long in politics;

People lacking those skills but the ability to charismatically reiterate the talking points of politically connected charities, action groups or lobbiest are well sought after....

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#5
post #2

It's good to see a politician actually doing their own analysis rather than just following every fad. It's a characteristic that is sorely lacking from the US political class.

I would agree with you if that person would have mentioned research paper and not just some very weak anecdotal evidence.

I find it very weird that their heat pump leaked and the efficiency is only at 150%.

It's not clear at all if this is an crazy outlier or reality.

IF this is not just an outlier than the next proper step from him would be to get the ball rolling with the right people to investigate the status quiet and fixing it.

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#6
post #5
post #2

It's good to see a politician actually doing their own analysis rather than just following every fad. It's a characteristic that is sorely lacking from the US political class.

I would agree with you if that person would have mentioned research paper and not just some very weak anecdotal evidence. I find it very weird that their heat pump leaked and the efficiency is only at 150%. It's not clear at all if this is an crazy outlier or reality. IF this is not just an outlier than the next proper step from him would be to get the ball rolling with the right people to investigate the status quie…

Heat Pump efficiency is inversely linked to outside air temp, the colder it is outside the less efficient the heat pump is as there is less heat energy to extract from the outside to "pump" into the inside...

Fixing is called physics... I am not sure magic words on a page (regulation) will "fix" physics....

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#7
I was wondering what the overall efficiency would be if you still used gas, but had that gas power a combustion engine to drive the heat pump compressor, while also reclaiming the heat from the engine and exhaust? Would that be more efficient than burning gas at a peaker plant to convert to electricity to run the heat pump?

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#8
I wonder if we will ever see them switch to R-1234YF refrigerant. "While R-134a has a Global Warming Potential of 1300, R-1234yf’s GWP is less than 1." The only issue is the higher pressures and the fact that it's somewhat flammable might be why.

I will say, my heat pump dryer, while it has removed some buttons from shirts, has exceeded my expectations on energy usage. It's night and day compared to my toaster I had before.

And possibly this senator got a bad heat pump setup. Sample size of one although the leaking being common is not good.

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#9
Anytime you have a technology that is marketed ubiquitously as if it's a silver bullet solution, you are going to have disappointed users and implementations that under deliver.

Of course it's extremely important to switch people to electrified heating systems, regardless of their efficiency. However it's a little disingenuous to pretend there is nothing but upside here. The upside is for humanity as a whole; for individuals there may be very little noticable changes or improvements, and the systems may be worse than what they are used to.

Re: Heat pump disappointment for climate-minded Massachusetts state senator

#10
> I do not fault the particular pump that we bought or our installers who were careful and professional. Apparently, however, we lack good rules of thumb to predict how a pump will perform in a particular installation.

A 278% estimation turning out as 150% real world performance, certainly was not done very carefully.

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