this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Heat pumps cap out at about ~~250%~~ 400% efficiency, so you'd still be spending more to run them than to burn natural gas at that ratio.
Heat pumps easily exceed 2.5 COP. More like 4 in the UK climate. And gas isn't 100% efficient either. But yeah it's a wash or can be more expensive to heat with heat pumps where electricity is really expensive. It helps if we all conveniently ignore externalities like pollution and carbon too.
Thanks for the correction, edited. How is gas not 100% efficient, though?
But yeah, heat pumps are definitely more environmentally friendly (unless you're habitually letting the refrigerant out, o guess). The real argument is whether the extra energy is worth it for protein folding (I'd say generally no, but if you don't have a heat pump, might as well).
Burning any fuel isn't 100% efficient, I went out and found a website talking about it that might help
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