MystikIncarnate

Finally someone taking sense.

Asking me to compare my own bills between natural gas and heat pump is insanity, I don't have both systems installed just for shits and giggles.... but it doesn't seem to stop people from saying I should do that sort of insane thing to really know.

That site sure is interesting, I haven't dived into the data enough to know how they got the figures they did, or what it represents... but assuming they're saying that it's saying that $0.63 worth of natural gas gives you the equivalent thermal output of 1kWh of conventional electric heating (more or less)... which I think it kind of does, since, to the best of my knowledge, electric heating systems are among the most efficient at converting 100% of the energy input to heat output (or as close as we can get to that). As we know heat pumps exceed this because they're not generating heat, they're just moving it around.

Also, a blanket statement like "heat pumps should be able to beat 2.6 SCOP, even in Canada" is problematic, since Canada is huge, and some of that landmass is in the Arctic circle. To be fair, 90% of Canada's population (or something similar to that) is in the southern 10% of the landmass.... still. If we're being detailed, then such blanket statements should be avoided. A good alternative is "for the majority of the population of Canada", which is wholly accurate.

There's also other inefficiencies that aren't being considered and unless we get really deep with the information, that fact is unlikely to change; however, those inefficiencies may make heat pumps even better on paper....

There's a lot to say about this incredibly complex topic. And that's not even touching on the nuances of the word "efficiency".... since efficiency relies on specific conditions, and usually is a comparative figure. Eg, the Ford F-350 super duty is an extremely efficient vehicle, when compared to the Ford model T.... many decades of innovation will pretty much guarantee that statement is accurate. But comparing the F-350 to, say, a Toyota Prius on MPG alone, then the F-350 seems like a gas guzzling bohemouth, that's a symbol of gluttony.... Wasting so much more fuel, to travel the same distance. Both saying that the 350 is incredibly efficient and also that it's extremely inefficient, these are both true, depending on context.

There's too much nuance here that I'm just going to stop talking before I ramble myself into getting cancelled somehow.

The study isn't wrong, but it's also not right, IMO.

This doesn't seem to mention the cost of the energy, just how "efficient" it is.... which, honestly, "efficient" can imply several things, and they don't seem to clarify what (at least from my first pass of this doc).

The issue is that even if you're getting 3-4 times as much heating/cooling as you could with something else, per jule of energy potential that is put into the system (in whatever form that is), if your energy cost for that source of power is high, it's going to lose the financial argument every time.

Sure, a natural gas furnace will consume "more fuel" and produce less effective heat than a heat pump, but if you're paying 10x the cost for electricity, then you're still going to end up spending more per degree of heating than with the cheaper fuel.

Where I am, electricity is pretty cheap, but natural gas is tremendously cheaper per jule.... so we can actually pay less by using the "inefficient" fuel for our home.

I don't think the numbers are dramatically different at the end of the day, but this study seems to completely ignore the core issue that most people will be concerned with.... which is: "will this save me money?" Which is arguably the more important metric.

To be fair, they kinda do similar things. One heats up a tiny room, the other heats up the whole house.... it's sort of the same idea in concept.

Germany has corrupt politicians? Say it ain't so!

/s (all politicians are corrupt)

I've got news for you.

Even if the gas lines work, your furnace still needs power to open the fuel lines, ignite the fuel, circulate the inside air through the heat exchanger, and, above all else, do it safely.

You're screwed either way if you don't have power.

Sure, you can run a gas fired furnace on batteries far easier and more cheaply than you could with an all electric system (regardless of how it's generating the heat), but in every case, you need electricity to run the systems.

This is all dancing around the very real fact that we need to upgrade the grid. Between air conditioners, heat pumps, and electric cars, adding to the already increasing demand from so many computers and computerised gadgets that we have today, sucking back so many more kilowatt hours more power per day, per household than ever before. About the only thing that's going to work when the power shuts off is your toilet.

Why should they pay more?

These companies have been driving people into the poor house for years. A nontrivial number of products started out as sustainable. The big business execs decided to save money and increase profit by moving their manufacturing to something that wasn't sustainable... all so they could get a bonus, or short term increase to their bottom line.

Did they pass any of those savings onto customers? Fuck no. They pocketed that cash faster than you can say "corruption".

Now that they want to reverse that decision, they want to pass off the cost of doing it the right way, to the consumer?

How about you go get fucked in the ass with a cactus you fucking money worshipping fuckheads.

I tried to watch this, and I kept shipping forward until he said something on topic.... after 15 minutes, he got to the title of the video.

That's 15 minutes of random anecdotes, intro, discussion with the crowd, and just general chatter that didn't have anything to do with RISC-V, before he even said the title of the talk.

I just quit at that point because I don't care about what places he recommends to go visit or eat at in whatever city he's in that I am not, and might never be. I finally got into something resembling content and my brain was so taxed trying to figure out how someone can speak so many words, yet say absolutely nothing, that I could not go on.

I like RISC-V. I want to see more RISC-V stuff on the market. I don't want to sit through an episode of diners, drive-ins and dives just to get info about it.

Right? And the only thing adjacent to an apartment that you can own is a condo, which you still have to pay rent for, plus buy the damn thing, and on top of it all, you get to be forced into an HOA.

Woo.

Okay, but, video games aren't the problem here, they were a solution to the problem; so I'm not sure how they're to blame.

They couldn't go outside (stay at home orders), couldn't really play around outside with friends (social distancing at least), and didn't really have options to simply hang out with friends, at all, ever. Many schools were doing remote learning too. So they spent all day, every day, physically alone.

So they played games with their friends, so they could chat, emote and dance at eachother in the game, goof off if they wanted (within the limits of the game), and work together or against eachother to achieve goals or whatever the purpose of the game was.

It seems video games were not the problem, but rather the solution to a litany of issues during the pandemic. On top of all of that, they didn't have to beg for money to go to the shops or movies or whatever.... Which is a benefit not only to the kids, who rely on their parents approval to do those things and provide them with the required funds to participate, but also on the parents pocket book. Overall a win/win.

On top of that, they don't need to worry about curfews, or any danger from strangers, or bullies battering them. If they don't want to associate with someone they can simply not team up with groups that include that person. They can jump into public groups if their friends are busy and make new friends. Literally the only sacrifice they make is that they're not going outside or getting much exercise.

What's a Kapwing?

As a person who uses a vape, most of the "save the children" stuff is FUD. Bluntly, underage tobacco users never went away. The fact that many of those users switched to vaping is unsurprising. The fact that they got their hands on tobacco products before vaping because popular, and got their hands on vape products when they because popular is the point. It's not a matter of what products they get their hands on, it's that they can get their hands on them at all.

So what's the solution? Simple: enforcement. The tobacco enforcement has been so lackluster that shops like gas stations hardly care if they're selling to someone underage. Certainly the owner just wants to see the product leave the store so he can get paid, and the cashier doesn't get paid enough to give a shit either way. With enforcement being so poor, most companies face relatively minor fines if caught.... And that's only if they're caught. Cashier's face no reprocussions. So there's no real motivation to even enforce the rules. Sure it's "illegal" but so is speeding, and you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who hasn't gone over the posted speed limit at some point... Many do it almost constantly, like it's a game of "how much can I speed before someone notices" spoiler: a lot.

Flavorings are not the problem. I'm a full assed adult and I like fruity flavors. Underage users still smoked when it was 100% tobacco products, which to many, taste like crap. They still used it. Child resistant packaging, which is a big factor contributing to the whole disposable craze, is also not helping. Sure, have difficult to open packaging on concentrated bottles of the liquid.... Drinking that stuff straight is bad and kids are stupid enough to do it... So that's good, but making it difficult or impossible to make refillable vape products due to child resistant packaging is insanity.

My main vape is very old, it doesn't have any child restraints on it, because I'm an adult and I don't let children near it... Because I'm responsible. Everything about it is reusable, besides three very specific items. 1. Cotton. It's referred to as "wicking material" and gets directly exposed to both the liquid, and the coil that vaporizes it.... So it gets damaged over time. It's cotton. No big deal. 2. The coil. It doesn't need changing nearly as often as the cotton, but eventually, due to the harsh operating conditions, it burns out, like a lightbulb..... Maybe every month or two, it needs replacing. 3. The liquid. This is just obvious.

So for a small pile of cotton, and a single small piece of resistance wire for the coil, plus some liquid, I can happily vape for a few months. My type of vape is referred to as a "squonk RDA". And they're banned because of the child resistant laws. I cannot buy a replacement. I've had several of the same kind of unit, and I like this one the most and it's also lasted the longest. When it fails, either I need to find a way to fix it myself, or I need to go to something more wasteful. The unit uses 18650 removable and rechargable batteries, though, I've had some that use 21700 as well (same thing just slightly larger). I've burned out maybe two 18650 batteries in the ~5 years I've been using this thing. Around one every 2-3 years, which is pretty normal for daily use. I spend maybe 15 minutes a month rebuilding it to replace the cotton (and coil, if required), and that's it.

It's appalling to me that anyone uses disposable vapes. It's actually more environmentally friendly to simply smoke actual cigarettes, compared to what disposables are doing to the environment. Most of the FUD sprouting surrounding vapes is a product of lobbying and infighting with cigarette manufacturers; they want people to keep killing themselves with their products, not move to something less harmful and less costly, chewing into their dwindling profits, so they manufactured a narrative to "save the children" and none of the proposals put forward have actually moved the needle on underage tobacco use. All the laws have done is make it harder for legal users to obtain and use a less harmful alternative to cigarettes, which was the point all along. If it's so difficult to use, people will just keep using the brain-dead simple combustible tobacco products that they always have, putting another nail in the coffin as they do.

And I get it. Underage tobacco use in any form isn't great. So the government should enforce the laws that already exist and make it difficult or impossible for minors to get their hands on tobacco products including vapes. We don't need more laws with vaping, we need enforcement of the laws that already exist. I'm a vaper and I believe that people who are underage should not have access to vape products (or any other tobacco products). Period. I'm in agreement with that entirely, but punishing me and the environment so that it's "harder for underage users" is only making my life more difficult, and doing real damage to the environment.

Might ruin YouTube? Brother. It's already ruined.