this post was submitted on 23 May 2025
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[–] Kelsenellenelvial@lemmy.ca 12 points 2 months ago (19 children)

Been a little while since I looked up the utility rates, but last I remember gas is about 1/7 the cost of electricity in Saskatchewan. Makes it hard to justify heat pumps for heating in most places. Hope the technology continues to improve and it’ll be a more sustainable option when we have a more sustainable grid.

[–] turtlesareneat@discuss.online 15 points 2 months ago (7 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.

[–] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 3 points 2 months ago (4 children)

How does something achieve 300-400% efficiency?

[–] exasperation@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months 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 2 months 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!

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