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Comment by andruby | Hacker News Reader

It's just a centuries old technology, Air Conditioning and Refridgerator, used in reverse. It's been in use in other parts of the world since a very long time.

I have no idea why it's only now becoming a "hot" topic in the US. We've been using heat pumps for multiple decades in Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump#History

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Heat pumps are culture wars now, believe it or not.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/net-zero/why-heat-pumps-wi...

DT article to illustrate, not necessarily to inform. The idea I believe being that heat pumps are part of a supposedly unnecessary and costly push to Net Zero driven by industry and shadowy interest groups but which are just another means of a) enforcing control and b) screwing money out of 'the little guy' and siphoning tax dollars off compliant governments. And thus one is able to wave away an article absolutely bursting with scientific detail and research as 'well, it's all a bit convenient, isn't it?'

I honestly despair.

Oh wow. I lived in the US for a year, so this doesn't come as a complete surprise. But Heatpumps? I thought everybody loved Aircon, regardless of polical party, or socioeconomical background.

This is just Aircon.

I'll despair with you. Unfortunately, trends that emerge in the US tend to find their way to the rest of the western world too..

Counter point, the war on heat pumps is mostly a British problem. Everytime I have heard it come up its in context of the UK. Don't think the US has anything to do with it.

And we have been using heat pumps for a long time in the US too. It is just that until recently heat pumps were not as efficient at lower temps and you would always have a backup heater source to heat during colder periods of the season.

Now heat pumps are able to reliably and efficiently heat most parts of the US. In combination there is a general push for electrification. We have increasingly cheap renewables, EVs and other interesting tech that in the electric space.

From a grid perspective over the long term it can make sense to electrify everything. You no longer need to maintain two energy types going to a home (thinking of natty or similar), you now only need to maintain an electrical grid.

There’s an obvious PR component here, it’s not a mere coincidence when anything becomes an all-platforms hot topic.

Well, there is certainly PR and a push for heat pumps .. as a means of addressing climate change. You can even read that in these articles you keep dismissing.

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