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A comment on Simple, solar-powered water desalination (2020). Parent comment

Re:Simple, solar-powered water desalination (2020) by trainsplanes on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:43AM (#27709587)
It very much can exceed 100% and it’s not a measure invented for click bait purposes.

Look up heat pumps. You can make things hotter by moving heat than you could by directly heating it by burning fuel.

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Re:Simple, solar-powered water desalination (2020) by MrsPeaches on Friday July 02, 2021 @05:48AM (#27709615)
As another comment pointed out, it’s usually called the Coefficient of Performance in this case.

Which is to say this is click bait, because saying it has a COP of 3.85 isn’t anywhere near as sexy, whilst being technically more accurate.

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Re:Simple, solar-powered water desalination (2020) by stephen_g on Friday July 02, 2021 @08:02AM (#27710357)
The ‘more than 100%’ is only in comparison to a less efficient process. A heat pump itself is operating below 100% efficiency - it’s just kind of “cheating” by using an external source of external energy as one of its inputs in addition to the electricity running it.
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