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A comment on A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by 2028. Parent comment

Re:A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by ... by eternauta3k on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @01:41AM (#31245037)
Waste heat is not free to the degree that you're not cooling your cold side as efficiently. If "sending heat to homes" has the same thermal resistance as "just dissipate it", then sure.

However, I find it elegant that heat is directly used to heat homes, rather than turning it into low-entropy electricity just to turn it to heat again (which is inelegant, even with heat pumps).

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Re:A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by ... by ip26 on Tuesday May 03, 2022 @10:28AM (#31248751)
Burning natural gas to make electricity to run a heat pump isn’t elegant- but it is more efficient.

We need a heat pump that is heat-powered…

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Re:A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by ... by eternauta3k on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @04:04AM (#31257916)
There are old propane refrigerators which do exactly that (heat powered heat pumps).

Have you done the math to check whether it's more efficient?

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Re:A first for Canada: New type of nuclear plant opening by ... by ip26 on Wednesday May 04, 2022 @10:38AM (#31261075)
A natural gas furnace is up to 98% efficient. A natural gas turbine is 40-60% efficient; a modern heat pump can have a COP of 3 or even 4, for 150-200% equivalent efficiency (ballpark).
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