Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
Almost like there is a coordinated campaign by gas & oil lobbyists across the globe. Curious.
(Greetings from Germany where the government had the goal of helping 500k heat pumps get installed in 2024. People installed 200k heat pumps, but 500k gas/oil furnaces. This follows a solid year 2022/2023 of concentrated disinformation campaigns about heat pumps.)
Caveat: In Europe, heat pumps usually provide either no or less effective cooling though, because our heatings usually use water as the medium rather than air like in the US. And heat pumps are usually connected with a buffer tank, in many cases that's a combination hot drinkable water + heating water tank.
Water as the medium means cooling is usually less effective. And if you fuck up that buffer tank, cooling doesn't work at all.
Many of the highest efficiency heat pumps in the world are operating in Europe. How does water lower efficiency?
I was talking about cooling only.
How is water less efficient for cooling?
My opinion is that it isn't. If it can remove heat then it will cool the same as air AC.
However it comes with the problem of condensation everywhere. So those room radiators that give off heat in the winter will be dripping with condensation in the summer. As will all the system pipework that isn't fully insulated and protected.
So that's probably a lot of water running different places in the home.
You're a bit confused about buffer tanks. They are thermal stores and just store primary heating circuit water.
The water from the buffer tank isn't the hot water from the tap. The water in the buffer tank will be used to indirectly heat mains water. Either through a plate heat exchanger or an unvented cylinder.
I am not confused, although maybe my wording was confusing.
My point is, that generally speaking, you can't use water from the same tank to heat your drinking water and to cool your home (because it mixes and the resulting temperature will fill neither requirement). There are of course tons of variants of buffer tanks, and in some cases there are bypasses or there's a physical separation between heating water and (water used to heat) drinking water
Where is this misinformation? I have never heard anyone say anything bad about heat pumps.
Mostly boomer Facebook groups
Ah. That would do it.
To be fair, heat pumps are noisy. I've lived in two houses with heat pumps now and my nextdoor neighbor has one. All of them are loud. They're still worth it.
Not really. Older ones are loud, small/underpowered ones are loud but new, larger, correctly sized, modulating heat pumps can be fairly quiet.
The first one I experienced was definitely small and underpowered and I hated it because it couldn't keep up with 80°F+ temperatures. And it was fucking loud.
The two more recent ones I have had experience with are only a few years old, appropriately sized, and much more capable. They're not quite as loud, but still noisy.
As someone who is somewhat sensitive to sound, I couldn't stand the first one. The current one that I have, I often don't notice that it's on until it turns off and I suddenly feel a rush of relief that it's quiet again.
So they do have at least one downside. At least my current one can keep up with whatever weather comes our way.
Modern heat pumps are very quiet.
Again...we have them. Unless by "modern" you mean something like "no more than 2 years old", yes, they are still noisy.
No, they aren't. I have 2. I'm sitting 8 feet from one right now. The only thing you hear is the whoosh of air.
Edit: I think you are talking of the super old motel style heat pumps. Not minisplits. Old style heat pumps are noisy. Minisplits are not. But seriously, minisplits have been a thing for the better part of a decade... Who the fuck is still installing motel style heat pumps anymore?
I'm talking about modern heat pumps which do not use mini splits. Mini splits are nice and quiet. But whoever owned my house before me installed a heat pump that does not use them but uses the ductwork. It's loud.
There are obviously multiple models and we're not talking about the same ones. Neither of us is wrong.
Ahh ok that makes sense. I feel like pretty much everyone is installing minisplits these days. Not saying that heat pumps don't still exist, but it's kind of a "but... Why?“ reaction. As in, why would anyone install this over an adequately powered minisplit.
That's a question I expect to be looking into a few years from now.