It sounds like a system design issue, i.e. they always intended there to be a “primary” heating system below 25F and it was sized as such. For every customer like you, there are 3 more that want to keep a fossil backup system in place so that’s where the market is. Unfortunately that also means customers need to be very educated themselves to select the “right” opinion. There are also downsides to oversizing heat pumps too, and typically oversizing is very common since manual J is overly conservative and installers are used to oversizing fossil systems. Your best bet is more weatherization to decrease heating load so that your HP can meet that load. Yes capacity drops as temperatures decrease, but good ccASHP can maintain full output closer to 0F. Do you have like a 1 ton mini for a whole home in Maine?

Isn’t the carbon were releasing now from fossil fuels carbon that used to be in the atmosphere? What self reinforcing mechanisms will allow for temperatures roughly beyond what has already occurred, which still sustained life?

This is exactly the calculation China made as they’ve positioned themselves to be the region doing a lot better. If everyone would realize this and fight for their slice of the pie, we’d be doing a lot better.

It will still be a dramatic improvement because these packs will be able to hold the max charge that the charger can support for much longer. E.g., a car that can hold 350kW from 0-90 is much better than one that peaks at 350kW for 2 seconds before dropping to 150 or 100kW for 40-90%.

Pedantry warning - we use the plural for decimal quantities less than 1 too. E.g. the tank only made it 0.8 meters before collapsing into a pile of low grade steel.

I think you’re conflating two different things. There are a variety of social factors that affect age cohorts differently, and a lot of that comes down to the experience during formative years. We are a product of our environment in many ways, and it’s not nonsense to study and opine on these shared experiences and how they shape us. Class solidarity is an entirely different subject. You likely do have more in common with your social class across generations, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have anything in common with wealthy millennials. I wouldn’t let lazy journalism own the concept of generations itself.

Their intention is to protest how we are ignoring climate change, you know, the civilization ending catastrophe. There are road delays all the time, for construction, crashes, event traffic, weather, floods, electricity outages, etc. Do you get this upset for every one of those events?

I’d argue “share the road” includes uses such as protests, marches, bike races, whatever. It’s a public good, you don’t have the final say on “approved” uses. Traffic in my town is insane on game day, do I get to jail the sports teams organizers for the disruption for 5 years? Someone probably shat their pants due to the delay, where is their justice?! Boggles the mind that a trivial delay causes this much outrage. Car brain is a hell of a thing.

Why is the road so sacred? Aren’t there multiple roads all going to the same places?

I wouldn’t generalize that people “don’t like TOU”. People understand that energy costs more during peak periods and are generally receptive to these market forces. People are used to driving around to save $0.02/gallon on gas, they can run their dishwasher later in the evening and adjust their thermostat slightly to save money. Plus obviously off peak EV charging.

As to the heat pump situation, you’re describing an air to water heat pump and a large buffer tank. You heat the tank off peak and it distributes the water throughout the day. You can then optimize to price, but the equation is complicated because the COP varies dramatically with outdoor temperature. These systems just aren’t that common in the US though, where forced air or ductless heads are dominant, but people absolutely replace boilers with heat pump driven hot water systems. We should see more options (e.g. R290 monoblocs) in the US at some point, hopefully.

Are people really that dumb that they willingly pay peak pricing to charge their EV? Or are significant numbers of people in CA not on TOU rates? Everything I’ve seen suggest TOU rates are quite effective in getting users to shift certain loads (and EVs are easily shiftable).

The article literally cites “relentless overplowing” as a primary cause. Of course that means removing the existing plants (i.e. native grasses) in the context of converting the prairies to farmland. Not really sure what additional context you are providing, or expecting the article to convey here. Cool pic though.

Absolutely, they are already experiencing flooding, fires, and permafrost melting is destroying tons of infrastructure. It seems like they’ll fare better than many countries but nobody is a “winner” here.

That’s what the Trump diapers are for.

The problem is a simple paved lot can be redeveloped into something useful easily. Once there are EV chargers and and solar roofs in place, it’s that much harder to break the cycle of car dependency. Places like Walmart/Costco/strip malls are probably better off just placing panels on the roof instead of building a new structure for them. I’d actually extend that to just about any building. This isn’t really happening at any scale on its own, which tells us it’s less economical than other installations. Forcing higher cost installations while also entrenching parking lots that often shouldn’t exist seems like poor policy, although I’m sure there are some places where it makes enough sense. But if we care about preserving farmland and wild spaces, stopping sprawl is the only real policy that matters, and that means stopping car dependency and parking lots.

Snow will accumulate on solar panels (source - have rooftop solar on Colorado). Panels are glass so snow will slide off depending on angle, and since panels are dark they tend to melt snow quicker once they get started melting, typically causing the snow to slide off dramatically.

Hi, I have solar on my roof in Colorado. Solar panels are glass, so depending on angle snow will accumulate and slide off dramatically if not for snow bars either on the bottom of the panels, or more commonly the roof below the solar panels. The structure needs to be able handle the snow load and be designed so snow doesn’t slide off and kill people.

Appreciate the context, thanks! It seems like, as with all things, a diversity of stresses on the body builds resiliency. I rock climb and while the shoes have improved over the years, they are still brutal on the feet. You can feel how they mold your feet because if you take a month off, everything feels totally different and much tighter. While I’m a little worried about damage, I’ve never had any issues but I mostly attribute that to wearing a bunch of different shoes for different activities, plus barefoot when I can.

There’s definitely some truth to the asymetric way we talk about heating dominated vs cooling dominated climates. I don’t hear people criticize folks for living in Alaska or the upper Midwest or NE despite their massive heating costs, and this type of living isn’t inherently any more noble than AC use (although synthetic refrigerants are all awful, but we use them for heat pumps too). Lack of water is a bigger issue arguably, cold is seen as more survivable than extreme heat, but carbon is carbon. The American SW used to have more water though, and their civilizations lived quite differently than modern Phoenicians.

Example numbers - I live in Colorado, have a high end cold climate heat pump, and use 10x the energy seasonally to heat my home vs cool my home. I also make excess solar power even when cooling in the summer, but winter is another story. I used 10 kWh yesterday when it was 100F (an amount an EV owner might casually use every single day), almost all covered entirely by my solar panels (except dusk until about 10pm when it shut off), while the coldest day last winter was -15F and I used almost 80 kWh that day, almost zero of it from solar because snow on the roof. We’re not going to get everyone to move at the macro level, so micro level movements, resiliency, and adapting to the environment rather than fighting it make the most sense.

The grasshopper and ant parable is about preparation and not the virtue of winter. It’s equally applicable to heat waves, storm surges, flooding, water, etc.

I understand what each of these words mean, but have no idea what you’re saying.

It absolutely has something to do with EVs, because there are massive new factories spewing out PFAS exclusively for the production of PVDF for batteries for EVs. You can just ignore this link. That being said, we absolutely need to regulate these chemical companies and that’s the “main issue”. Pretending like these real issues are FUD isn’t helpful though because the actual FUDsters don’t care about reality anyway. Even the EU has a special exemption for PFAS for EV battery production.