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Comment by indymike | Hacker News Reader

> Not true, heat pumps are widely used as primary heat sources in environments as cold or colder than NY, like in Montreal and other parts of Canada.

As the owner of a 5 year old heat pump in a milder climate in Indiana, I can tell you this:

* When it is under 10°F, my heat pump switches to emergency heat... forced air electric and is very expensive to run. * Often the temperature swings are pretty wild... 40-50 degrees and that also can force emergency heat.

Oh, and since the electric company is usually using gas to generate the electricity, isn't the environmental impact somewhat of a wash?

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You bought a shitty heat pump and decided you were okay with living in a state that produces electricity using fossil fuels. What's your point again?

What state doesn't produce electricity using fossil fuels? At midnight last night, which wasn't atypical, California was 50% natural gas and the total CO2 emitting is even greater due to imports and CO2 emitting renewables.

Vermont is mostly green via hydroelectric and wind

Vermont also consumes ~3x more energy (all energy, not just electricity) than it produces and has the lowest energy consumption of any state.

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=VT

I've noticed often the response to criticism is "you should have spent $10k more". And the people who spent the extra who enquire about excessive costs then get met with "why did you over-spec your system?" lol

I bought the best product available at the time. Since Iceland is the only nation on earth that has successfully kicked the fossil fuel habit (11% of energy is produced by burning fossil fuels), I suppose you are suggesting I move there to blunt my aching conscience. I'm sure Iceland is nice, but I think I'd squander any environmental benefit flying to see my friends, relatives and immediate family.

Interesting reading: https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-least-dependen...

When your heat pump is using emergency heat yes it'd be "better" to burn natural gas to do so directly that to burn gas to make electricity to do resistive heating.

However you need to look more at the average scenario to draw a complete picture. When your heat pump isn't in emergency heating then it's more efficient to burn the gas for electricity to power that heat pump than it is to burn the gas for heat (moving heat is substantially cheaper than making heat). So how often is your heat pump in regular heating vs. emergency heat? And then is it in emergency heating often enough to justify having a secondary piece of infrastructure to get gas to your house where you then also need a gas furnace which is more expensive than some resistive heat strips are?

I'd love to have gas forced-air as the emergency heat on my heat pump. Best of all worlds.

Yep if you live in Indiana your electricity comes from gas or coal, there's a tiny bit of generation from a wind farm in the northwest corner of the state and some scattered token solar farms.

> Oh, and since the electric company is usually using gas to generate the electricity, isn't the environmental impact somewhat of a wash?

This is something that can be improved.

You do not have a Mitsubishi hyper-heat unit, then.

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