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mysteryberto posted:The biggest downside on the heat pump was having to crank the water temp up and also run it in a mode where it uses the resistive heating elements as well. Without that mode even for two people we were running out of hot water. I can only imagine a bigger family struggling. I would have sized up to a bigger tank had I known. We got the 40 gallon Rheem hybrid for our family of 3 and it's been no problem. But we only have one bathroom. Do you have a low flow shower head?
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Nov 12, 2023 16:37
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Also switching to electric also means (usually) running a new circuit, which can range from trivial to upgrade your panel and rip up your house for thousands. In places with less reliable grids it also means ability to run heat and hot water during power outages vs not.
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Nov 12, 2023 16:40
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RE Heat pump chat, Technology Connections guy has dove into those and hot water heaters not too long ago. Vids are worth a watch if you haven't and answer a lot of questions. https://www.youtube.com/@TechnologyConnections/search?query=pump
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Nov 12, 2023 17:03
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Civil posted:I went to a Toyota dealer yesterday and they had bz4x’s all over the front of the store. The sales guy told me he didn’t think they’d ever sell them. They’re leasing for 2k down and 400/mo, but I bet that will go lower with time. I think the BZ4X is a turd. Local dealership has 5000 off MSRP and 7500 lease cash deals on them. They still aren’t selling at 12,500 off. Low range, slow fast charging, and lots of competitors from other companies. I feel like if it had came out before model y or Id4 maybe it would sell better. It reeks of compliance car.
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Nov 12, 2023 17:20
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Awful turd, but still $10K less than the Subaru in  lol
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Nov 12, 2023 17:25
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Infinotize posted:In places with less reliable grids it also means ability to run heat and hot water during power outages vs not. Our hydronic boiler needed an electric pump to move the hot water through the registers. And the forced air heating systems I'm familiar with need an electric fan to blow the air around. What sort of heating system can continue to function normally without electricity? Steam?
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Nov 12, 2023 17:27
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Maybe some ancient boiler, but more practically you can run gas blower fans on like a 2kw honda generator and a pretty simple manual transfer switch, but to run a heat pump you would need a whole home generator install.
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Nov 12, 2023 17:40
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My 60 year old steam boiler requires electricity to open the gas valve (and maybe light the pilot light? idk I've never had to touch it in 10 years) but you could probably power that whole thing off of a cell phone charger battery.
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Nov 12, 2023 19:01
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distortion park posted:If your electricity is mostly sourced from gas (I never know whether it makes more sense to think of the average production, marginal, or how to handle green energy credit trading stuff when thinking about this) then switching from gas water heaters to heat pump ones isn't necessarily a big environmental win. The heat bump is ~~~3 times more efficient than a resistive electric one, but the losses in gas->electric generation are a similar factor. Whereas a gas heater is about 100% efficient. distortion park posted:My point was that generating that electricity from gas has losses of the same order of magnitude as the gain from heat pump Vs resistive. It's obviously better than straight resistive heating. I've gotta go so can't do the research but I'm pretty sure that is just straight up wrong! I'm pretty sure burning gas for electricity is going to be more efficient than for heat because of the order of scale of a power plant versus your furnace. And the ability to switch power sources at one location to renewables vs thousands or millions of installations. And as mentioned you do get more heat energy out of the electricity than you do from burning it. As to whether it's cheaper in terms of dollars to the consumer that is still gonna vary a lot for sure. Those technology connections are good at going into it all
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Nov 12, 2023 19:03
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mysteryberto posted:Heatpimp water heaters can also have huge utility incentives. In Oregon I bought a Rheem 50 gallon hybrid heat pump water heater for only $400 from an energy shop my local power company partnered with. With the incentive it really changes the payback period. If Heatpimp isn't a brand name then it really should be
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Nov 12, 2023 19:17
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Kia Soul Enthusias posted:I've gotta go so can't do the research but I'm pretty sure that is just straight up wrong! Siemens is bragging about having 60% efficiency on combined cycle gas turbine plants: https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/products-services/product/steam-turbines-in-combined-cycle-power-plants.html Burning gas for heat is much more efficient though some will escape as exhaust, as someone mentioend. So maybe 90%? Then there are some transimssion losses, leaks etc. for both. The trick is that a heap pumps gives you like 3x more heat by moving it around, vs just converting electrity into heat directly. So even with the losses, Gas->electricity->heat pump should be almost always better. Plus of course you can use nuclear or wind or whatever. I think this video covered it but not going to re-watch it now: slidebite posted:RE Heat pump chat, Anyway there's central heating here over which I have no control so...
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Nov 12, 2023 19:17
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mobby_6kl posted:Siemens is bragging about having 60% efficiency on combined cycle gas turbine plants: https://www.siemens-energy.com/global/en/home/products-services/product/steam-turbines-in-combined-cycle-power-plants.html If you take the best case numbers then it's like 1.8 Vs 0.9, but I doubt real life performance averages out at a cop of 3 and achieving those combined cycle numbers (Wikipedia says steady state performance is closer to 0.55). So it's pretty close and depends on your actual circumstances, probably not worth ripping out an existing system or worrying too much about. Don't get me wrong I love heat pumps, we have one for HVAC and have no gas supply! e oops had numbers a bit wrong. I admit that pure electric is better than I originally thought! distortion park fucked around with this message at 20:07 on Nov 12, 2023 |
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Nov 12, 2023 20:01
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At least in New Mexico, natural gas prices have been pretty volatile. It was a slam dunk cheaper for years, but that seems to be changing, and I fully expect it to continue changing as more renewable electricity comes online. Prices will probably go up more if we ever get around to giving a crap about the horrendous methane emissions from the Farmington area producing natural gas.
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Nov 12, 2023 20:11
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Newer combined cycle natural gas plants are really cool in terms of how efficient they are, 50-60% thermal efficiency is a crazy number, a big 'ol gently caress You to Mr. Rankine! Older fossil plants are going to be more in the 30-40% thermal efficiency range (nuclear plants too, but that's not as important). Don't forget pretty much anywhere you live in the US, at least 10% of your power generation is going to come from some sort of low carbon source like nuke, hydro, renewables etc. Also, gas gets a huge leg up for heat that does not apply to internal combustion engines, which will never come close to 90% thermal efficiency on their own. To my dismay, I think everyone's covered the efficiencies of various appliances, so I'll go ahead and agree with Cruft that if you're replacing your appliances anyways, electric is the way to go, since the grid as a whole is becoming more efficient, but if you have natural gas and your furnace or water heater is in good shape, it's probably not worth ripping it out. Maybe I'm just jealous, since my heatpimp is super expensive to run* in the winter. *my house is currently pretty badly insulated, the heat pump costs about the same to heat the house as the old baseboards did, with the massive caveat that the house is now a uniform, comfortable temperature. Next year I'll be getting back into renovations, fixing the insulation problem and getting a new heat pump water heater.
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Nov 12, 2023 20:43
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Imagine for a moment that you have not grown up in a place where natural gas has 'always' been a thing, and someone says to you: "We're going to pipe flammable gas into your house, where it will be burned in an automated, unsupervised way by equipment made as cheaply as possible". For me, who has grown up in a nation that does not do this, it seems obviously beneficial to get rid of natural gas appliances so you can stop piping natural gas into your home. Sure, electrical failure is a fairly common source of house fires, but you can at least control what's near your water heater, place it in a place that makes fire spreading less likely, and so on. Remove the fuel part of the combustion triangle. That's not possible with gas.
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Nov 12, 2023 21:36
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pun pundit posted:Imagine for a moment that you have not grown up in a place where natural gas has 'always' been a thing, and someone says to you: "We're going to pipe flammable gas into your house, where it will be burned in an automated, unsupervised way by equipment made as cheaply as possible".
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Nov 12, 2023 21:46
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Vegetable posted:My understanding is that natural gas is pretty safe for households and this seems alarmist. Yes. It's not 1910 with coal gas being piped into houses.
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Nov 12, 2023 21:48
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They put stinky stuff in natural gas so if there is a leak it is pretty noticeable to anyone in the vicinity and can GTFO. I have never encountered a gas leak though. That said it would be good to move away from burning fossil fuels when at all possible!
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Nov 12, 2023 21:55
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You can make anything sounds scary, just imagine having an invisible, intangible force running throughout your house that can instantly and silently stop your heart, or set your house on fire if the cheap rubber coating gets a little frayed.
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Nov 12, 2023 22:05
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Gas explosions still happen though  But yeah electricity can start fires as well but why have two ways of burning down your house when oen is enough.
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Nov 12, 2023 22:18
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Looks like anyone planning on flipping an early delivery cybertruck for big bucks is outta luck. Sales terms for the cybertruck include a no resale for one year clause. https://www.tesla.com/configurator/api/v3/terms?locale=en_US&model=my&saleType=Sale (page 3). Also, we're less than 3 weeks away from their big delivery event, and the only info on pricing has been that one leak. lmao
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Nov 12, 2023 22:25
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mobby_6kl posted:But yeah electricity can start fires as well but why have two ways of burning down your house when oen is enough. They go hand in hand really nicely, since one is usually the ignition source for the other.
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Nov 12, 2023 22:29
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mobby_6kl posted:
Jokes on you that's why my house has no electricity, gas lighting all the way!
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Nov 12, 2023 22:51
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Vegetable posted:My understanding is that natural gas is pretty safe for households and this seems alarmist. Pretty safe still means 100,000 US emergency room visits per year due to CO poisoning, and thankfully only several hundred deaths. It's not a negligible risk, it's just normalized.
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Nov 12, 2023 22:59
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In cold climates what you want is district heating, ideally with cogeneration, that is you use the waste heat from power plants to heat water that in turn heats buildings. Even without cogeneration, district heating is generally the best option since heat generation benefits from economies of scale and one huge furnace with a very sophisticated exhaust gas management system is a lot less polluting than a ton of small furnaces with probably no exhaust gas management at all. Also, with district heating you can swap out the fuel source without having to rip out the infrastructure of an entire city in the process. There are also opportunities for recycling waste heat from industrial processes and facilities like data centers. It's pretty neat! District cooling is also a thing in some places; it's not that common yet but I think it's a growing market. My favorite cogeneration plant is Ågesta, a small nuclear reactor for district heating, power generation and a side of weapons grade plutonium production built inside of a mountain only a few kilometers from a Stockholm suburb in the early 1960's (there's a different take on acceptable risks if I ever saw one). It closed in 1974 and then sat around for decades more or less untouched while nobody could agree on what to do with it. I had the great fortune to visit a few years ago before the final teardown started.  Main reactor vessel barograph, final roll of paper still intact with the words "STOP 1974-06-02" written in pencil. Left side (marked "atö") measures pressure in atmospheres, right side measures a volume but I'm not sure what. More pictures here. Sorry, just had to nerd out a bit! TheFluff fucked around with this message at 23:56 on Nov 12, 2023 |
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Nov 12, 2023 23:43
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I feel like there is this overall view of EVs on an individual level being viewed as an environmental projection that is being relentlessly exploited. I think moving away from fossil fuels is incredibly important as a large scale goal, but having made considerable investments in reducing my household energy consumption, every single dollar has been prioritized not by trying to save a few bucks but lifestyle returns. Yeah, EVs make sense holistically, butI like getting into a warm car with a hot steering wheel on a icy morning, also, gas stations are loving disgusting. Yes, spending $5K on new insulation significantly reduced our household energy usage, but also our house is so much more comfortable with more even temperature and so much quicker to heat up or cool down when we want to. LED lights, great, also the kitchen doesn't get hot with a gazillion lights in a confined space. Stop telling people that EVs are going to save the environment, tell people you never have to touch a filthy gas pump again.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:13
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borkencode posted:Looks like anyone planning on flipping an early delivery cybertruck for big bucks is outta luck. Sales terms for the cybertruck include a no resale for one year clause. https://www.tesla.com/configurator/api/v3/terms?locale=en_US&model=my&saleType=Sale (page 3). Uh, how can this be legal or enforceable if you’re buying the car outright with cash (or even with third party financing)? I could see them including this as a rule if you’re using Tesla financing, though.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:21
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Some people seem to enjoy paying high prices for energy at a disease transmission shack where they can also pay too much for garbage food, lovely coffee, and stale beer.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:22
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MRC48B posted:Some people seem to enjoy paying high prices for energy at a disease transmission shack where they can also pay too much for garbage food, lovely coffee, and stale beer. Arby’s doesn’t sell beer.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:34
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EVs are fine and getting gas really isn't that bad
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Nov 13, 2023 00:40
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MRC48B posted:Some people seem to enjoy paying high prices for energy Also, this, my god bitching about gas prices is a national pastime. I literally have no idea what gas costs and having for 5 years, just tell people when they sign their electricity contract that they don't have to give any fucks about the price of gas.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:41
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Infinotize posted:EVs are fine and getting gas really isn't that bad Cleaning gutters and raking leaves aren't bad either, but if you told me "hey how about if I raked these leaves for you" I'd say "hell yeah sounds good that's an extra 20 minutes watching some big bouncing anime titties on the tv for me yee haw" not "well actually raking isn't that bad"
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Nov 13, 2023 00:52
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Three Olives posted:Also, this, my god bitching about gas prices is a national pastime. I literally have no idea what gas costs and having for 5 years, just tell people when they sign their electricity contract that they don't have to give any fucks about the price of gas. I sometimes have a pretty difficult time not showing disgust at work when someone who I know drives a giant lifted wheel spaced and expensive truck every day complains about gas prices. Occasionally it takes real discipline to not just shout "Don't drive an $80,000+ vehicle that gets single digits MPG fuel economy if gas prices are a problem for you. Dumbass!"
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Nov 13, 2023 01:10
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Getting gas loving sucks and I don’t miss it at all. Incidentally I’ve already been seeing articles talking about how millennials are killing city gas stations
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Nov 13, 2023 01:11
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If gas stations were good and had decent food/facilities then more people would actually go to them.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:18
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Tiny Timbs posted:Getting gas loving sucks and I don’t miss it at all. I get that I have a reputation of being a snobby bitch but you are losing if you arguing that gas pumps aren't loving disgusting and inconvenient in every possible way.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:26
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Tiny Timbs posted:Getting gas loving sucks and I don’t miss it at all. lol it’s funny because in my home town all of the small gas stations in a big chunk of the area got closed down by the gas cos in favour of monster gas bars very far out in a much less desirable area. They did it to themselves, really. This was a good 20 years ago the trend started.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:29
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They’re nasty and each one is a mini superfund site that requires expensive remediation to address once it goes away.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:33
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Stultus Maximus posted:Yes. It's not 1910 with coal gas being piped into houses. There's newer(ish) research showing that burning natural gas as home isn't really as safe as once thought. Like the release of nitrogen oxides: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/gas-stoves-air-pollution-1.6394514 quote:Gas stoves produce more indoor air pollutants than even some scientists expect. After taking measurements, many of these researchers are switching to electric stoves — and warning the public about the health risks of cooking with gas.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:34
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https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/when-the-natural-gas-industry-used-the-playbook-from-big-tobacco/ And it turns out they knew about this a lot longer than recently.
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Nov 13, 2023 01:37
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