Big energy news for the Northwest Arctic Borough, while a new study adds to the pile of evidence suggesting that booming, hatchery-boosted pink salmon populations could be harming wild sockeye.
Checked out buying heat pumps in Anchorage, expected underground plumbing, but no, outside air except the efficiency went to zero a bit below 0 F. Cost was guesstimated at roughly one thousand dollars per kilowatt, more than ten times solar, gas or wind. So how are heat pumps going to work in the high Arctic with permafrost soils and minus 30 F air temperatures? Do I smell a confused idealism or a fraudulent rip-off, a Rat?
The proper measure is not watts but “tons”, the Heat Pump technicians talk in “tons” meaning
About 12,000 (12K) BTUs. That is where the $10K installed cost came from, e.g., $10K per Ton, it would take 3 to 4 tons to heat a house in Anchorage where-as the cooling (Air Conditioner) advantage of Heat Pumps is wasted. A conventional 40K BTU gas furnace installed cost should be less than &10K plus monthly gas bills. Going much North of Anchorage at 60 degrees North latitude makes for rapidly diminishing returns for air to air Heat Pumps but even a bit of geothermal would work wonders.
The pink/sockeye thing is fabricated. It's purely based on inverse correlation, no actual mechanism proposed. Pinks are increasing because their food is increasing, sockeye are decreasing because their food is decreasing. It's not because pinks are eating sockeye food or outcompeting sockey for anything.
Checked out buying heat pumps in Anchorage, expected underground plumbing, but no, outside air except the efficiency went to zero a bit below 0 F. Cost was guesstimated at roughly one thousand dollars per kilowatt, more than ten times solar, gas or wind. So how are heat pumps going to work in the high Arctic with permafrost soils and minus 30 F air temperatures? Do I smell a confused idealism or a fraudulent rip-off, a Rat?
The proper measure is not watts but “tons”, the Heat Pump technicians talk in “tons” meaning
About 12,000 (12K) BTUs. That is where the $10K installed cost came from, e.g., $10K per Ton, it would take 3 to 4 tons to heat a house in Anchorage where-as the cooling (Air Conditioner) advantage of Heat Pumps is wasted. A conventional 40K BTU gas furnace installed cost should be less than &10K plus monthly gas bills. Going much North of Anchorage at 60 degrees North latitude makes for rapidly diminishing returns for air to air Heat Pumps but even a bit of geothermal would work wonders.
I was waiting for that
I cannot find the link between the $50 million grant article and the 850 heat pumps in NW Alaska. What villages are receiving the grants?
Check out this article in review: https://www.authorea.com/doi/full/10.22541/au.168963197.70235108
The pink/sockeye thing is fabricated. It's purely based on inverse correlation, no actual mechanism proposed. Pinks are increasing because their food is increasing, sockeye are decreasing because their food is decreasing. It's not because pinks are eating sockeye food or outcompeting sockey for anything.