What next? 22 emerging technologies to watch in 2022

economist.com

15 points·2a0c40··4 comments

How the hell can combined heat pump/cooler be emerging technology to watch in 2022?

These have existed for ages and there are endless number to choose from LG, Philips, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Bosch, Samsung, Pioneer, ...

Heh, most people in the US don’t know about them and when you ask an HVAC contract about them they will give this argument about how nobody likes them because they don’t spew out hot heat and if they install one then the consumer will say they don’t work because they expect hot air and even if they do end up installing them they will insist on also installing a gas furnace and set the cut off to 35-40 degrees because they haven’t kept up with the technology and don’t realize that modern heat pumps can work well below zero F and even if it goes below that temp for a couple hours a year it doesn’t mean you will freeze.

How the US can be so technologically isolated from the rest of the world?

Here in Finland heat pumps are everywhere and 40% of new houses have geothermal heat pumps (they are like heat pumps, except you bury coils into the ground and they work with good efficiency even in extremely cold weather).

I think its more interesting looking at predictions from prior years. It's not the same thing, but here is ten trends to watch out for in 2021 [0]. This one seems a lot more sensational, so it'll be interesting to come back to this next year.

[0] https://www.economist.com/the-world-ahead/2020/11/16/ten-tre...

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