The One Thing Holding Back Heat Pumps

If billionaires actually cared about saving the planet, they’d pool their vast wealth and buy everyone a heat pump. Instead of burning planet-warming fossil fuels, these appliances extract warmth from even freezing outdoor air and transfer it into a building, thanks to neat tricks of physics. In the summer, they reverse to act like an air-conditioning unit. One recent study found that if everyone in the United States got a heat pump, it’d slash emissions in the building sector by 36 to 64 percent, and cut overall national emissions by 5 to 9 percent. (Because they’re fully electric, heat pumps run on a grid increasingly loaded with renewable energy.)

Not

→ Continue reading at Wired - Science

More from author

Related posts

Advertisment

Latest posts

When grief and AI collide: These people are communicating with the dead | CNN Business

CNN  —  When Ana Schultz, a 25-year-old from Rock Falls, Illinois, misses her husband Kyle, who passed away...

The US Is Cracking Down on Synthetic DNA

The White House has issued new rules aimed at companies that manufacture synthetic DNA after years of warnings that a pathogen made with mail-order...

Internet connectivity — even in 2024 — is vulnerable at a number of levels

Modern human life relies on a stable internet connection. But threats to internet connectivity are varied — from underseas rock slides and technical errors...