> If you pipe the same amount of energy through a less efficient process, less useful work gets done for that amount of energy. Therefore to hit your target of useful work via an inefficient process, you'll have to send more energy through it, and thus more energy also goes to waste (heat).
The point in the post I was replying to wasn't about efficiency.
The question was, whether heat pumps heat up the earth. They don't.
Why?
Because the energy that's used to power heat pumps would (as I've explained) have ended up as heat anyway.
If you use fossil fuels as energy source to power heat pumps, then yes, you convert chemical energy to thermal energy. But it doesn't matter if you use that fossil energy to power a heat pump or to power an EV or a computer, the energy always ends up as heat.
So it's not the apparatus "heat pump" that's a problem, but the fact that someone is using fossil energy at all.
No, heat pumps don't heat up the earth. Using fossil fuels does.
If you were to power the heat pump using solar energy, you'd mostly leave the earth's energy balance untouched.
The main point where you then interfere with the earth's energy balance is through altering the way that radiation gets absorbed/reflected/emitted by the solar panels as opposed to no solar panels being put up.
Some processes that indeed heat up the earth are:
- radiation from the sun (and earth) gets partially trapped by the atmosphere (absorbed/reflected)
- nuclear fission processes produce energy that gets converted to heat through a cascade of processes
> Every transformation has efficiency loss.
I didn't deny that.
> If you pipe the same amount of energy through a less efficient process, less useful work gets done for that amount of energy. Therefore to hit your target of useful work via an inefficient process, you'll have to send more energy through it, and thus more energy also goes to waste (heat).
The point in the post I was replying to wasn't about efficiency.
The question was, whether heat pumps heat up the earth. They don't.
Why?
Because the energy that's used to power heat pumps would (as I've explained) have ended up as heat anyway.
If you use fossil fuels as energy source to power heat pumps, then yes, you convert chemical energy to thermal energy. But it doesn't matter if you use that fossil energy to power a heat pump or to power an EV or a computer, the energy always ends up as heat. So it's not the apparatus "heat pump" that's a problem, but the fact that someone is using fossil energy at all. No, heat pumps don't heat up the earth. Using fossil fuels does.
If you were to power the heat pump using solar energy, you'd mostly leave the earth's energy balance untouched.
The main point where you then interfere with the earth's energy balance is through altering the way that radiation gets absorbed/reflected/emitted by the solar panels as opposed to no solar panels being put up.
Some processes that indeed heat up the earth are: - radiation from the sun (and earth) gets partially trapped by the atmosphere (absorbed/reflected)
- nuclear fission processes produce energy that gets converted to heat through a cascade of processes