this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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Heat pumps continue to push fossil fuels out of Canadian homes (440megatonnes.ca)
submitted 5 days ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
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[–] turtlesareneat@discuss.online 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Gas furnaces achieve about 96-98% efficiency. Heat pumps achieve 300-400%. So you have to factor that in.

There's still a cost difference but the hope is for governments to start supporting serious nuclear energy to drive down electric costs. It'll take time but natural gas will become less economical as decades go on especially with investments.

[–] exasperation@lemm.ee 2 points 3 days ago

start supporting serious nuclear energy to drive down electric costs

Eh, I can see a resilience based argument for why we need nuclear, but building new nuclear is never going to be cheaper than solar or wind.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 3 points 3 days ago (3 children)

How does something achieve 300-400% efficiency?

[–] multcher@sh.itjust.works 5 points 3 days ago

Refrigeration cycle can get crazy efficiencies like that because it is transferring energy from one side of the system (indoor unit) to the other (outdoor unit). The amount of energy that is transfered is greater than the amount of energy required to push the refrigerant through the system.

[–] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago

Its partly due to how you are measuring efficiency. It mainly moves heat rather than creates it.

Another fun way to get more heat is condensing, a dehumidifier gets over 100% efficiency if you were to use it as a heater. Heard of evaporative cooling right? Well condensing is the opposite, you get extra heat from that.

[–] exasperation@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you take 100 joules of electrical or chemical energy, and then direct them to a heater in a house, it'll create about 100 joules of heat. That's 100% efficiency.

But if you use the 100 joules of energy to run a heat pump, it might bring in 300 joules of heat into the house. That's 300% efficiency, when measured locally at the place you actually care about (inside the house). Zoom out and laws of thermodynamics still make it impossible to create more energy than was put in, but if you look at just the part you care about, it's possible locally.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

Ok yeah, so you would consider it as two systems, one being the heat pump and the other being the rest of the world.

And instead of creating heat you’re moving it, so your heat pump is operating at above 100% efficiency while the rest of the world is not.

Thanks for the explanation!

[–] Don_alForno@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

Newly built nuclear would do many things, but it wouldn't drive prices down.

Wind and solar would do that though.