this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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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: Graph of temperature as observed with significant warming, and simulated without added greenhouse gases and other anthropogentic changes, which shows no significant warming

How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world: IPCC AR6 Figure 2 - Thee bar charts: first chart: how much each gas has warmed the world. About 1C of total warming. Second chart: about 1.5C of total warming from well-mixed greenhouse gases, offset by 0.4C of cooling from aerosols and negligible influence from changes to solar output, volcanoes, and internal variability. Third chart: about 1.25C of warming from CO2, 0.5C from methane, and a bunch more in small quantities from other gases. About 0.5C of cooling with large error bars from SO2.

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What Would Happen if Every American Got a Heat Pump (www.wired.com)
submitted 8 months ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to c/climate@slrpnk.net
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Archived copies of the article: archive.today ghostarchive.org web.archive.org

The paper the article is about is here and its press release

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[–] CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago (7 children)

I'm building a new house soon, and looked heavily into this. Live in USDA zone 5 Midwest.

First, like many have mention, I MUST keep gas furnace to handle the few weeks of -10F we have.

SECOND - the cost of gas is SO CHEAP, and electricity SO HIGH - that it ALWAYS costs more to run the heat pump. Even adjusting the heat pump range.

I couldn't justify spending $10k more on the house, just to spend more on monthly bills.

My gas is like $7/mmbtu, and electricity $0.20/kwh.

[–] FenrirIII@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Is solar an option to offset the cost?

[–] CraigeryTheKid@lemm.ee 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

actually, I did the math!

  • gas only (96% eff), plus SEER 13 A/C - annual heating/cooling $2000
  • gas + heat pump (w/ SEER 17ish) - annual heating/cooling about $2800 / yr
  • gas only again, but with solar that "matches" annual electric on cooling only - $700/yr
  • gas/heatpump/solar "do all the things" around $800/yr

SO

  • if my goal is to spend the least amount of money over < 15 years - do nothing
  • if my goal is to spend the least amoutn of money over > 15 years - just add solar
  • if my goal is to minimize my carbon footprint at all costs - do all the things

the "matches cooling electric" comments means that I sized the panels such that the excess generated in the summer, balances out the deficit in the winter, for solar generation of household electricity. During the winter, there's no heating/cooling electric in the 'gas only' mode

edit2

I should mention that, while not major consumers, i AM opting for electric induction range and electric dryer, even though the builder acted like I was weird. most midwest states, outside Chicago city & maybe Minnesota or Iowa, aren't all that progressive on this stuff

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