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Comment by rjmunro | Hacker News Reader

I hate the sentence:

> Heat pumps are unique in that they are a tool for fighting climate change, where we have the technology today.

No. They are not unique at all. We have electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels, hydroelectric, nuclear, recovery of methane from waste, "smart grid" technology and many many other things today. And not just "the technology", in some theoretical sense, we have all of the above actually working now.

There's also things like more efficient light bulbs and electronics that use less power when not in use that are now nearly 100% of the market. You can't buy incandescent light bulbs or TVs that use several watts of power in standby mode any more.

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No. They are not unique at all.

In my opinion they still are pretty unique because their efficiency is higher than 100%. Which was what I thought the sentence would continue with when I started reading it. Cannot be stressed enough. It's like magic :] Sure your LED is more efficient than your incandescent light bulb, but it still produces heat which is not intended nor really wanted. In my book there's no comparing that to a heat pump. That being said, not really a fan of such sentences either.

% electrical efficiency is not a useful measure. What matters is how much do I save (measured in money and/or carbon emissions etc.) compared to taking other measures, such as a more conventional heating solution, better insulation or installing solar panels.

If you measure the efficiency of solar water heating in the same way, it uses no electricity, so it's efficiency is infinite.

Space heating/cooling, along with water heating, are the overwhelming majority of household energy use. In fact, in a heating-dominated climate there isn't much of win from having efficient lights and appliances, because the space-heating system has to make up for the energy not wasted by the lights/appliances.

So it's unusual ("unique" is a high bar) in that it's one of the largest privately-owned energy-consuming devices where existing technology can result in substantial energy savings and emission reductions.

That sentence is not aimed at the consumer, but is a very efficient mechanism for capturing government subsidies.

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