h a l f b a k e r yFlaky rehab
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From my understanding, heat pumps run more efficiently when they're operating in temperature extremes. It's easier to pull heat into coolant from 95 degree air than it is to pull heat from 7 degree air. This is how it would work: There would be large coolant pipelines. These would contain the compressors,
and pumps, and be very insulated, and move the coolant at high velocity. There would be a hot line, which is under pressure, a cold line, which is under pressure, and a return line, which is under negative pressure. Someone's heat pump in a hot area would heat up the coolant, providing air conditioning for their house, and then zip over a little ways and heat someone's home. You would have to pay for the electricity to run the blower, which would be very little. However, there would also be a meter on your heat pump that measures how much heat you put in or take out. You would be charged something like so much money for so many calories moved. In times like national heat waves, the coolant could go to a central power plant, or through huge radiators in the ocean or lakes, etc. In times when it's mostly cold, there would be large central heating stations, maybe built in to the exhaust from already existing power plants and factory furnaces. When we get more advanced in insulation and thermodynamics, we might even be able to build a network of pipelines that go between continents.
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Ah, a Brisbane, Australia to Brisbane (San Francisco), California trans-hemispheric airconditioning duct that would charge by the calories moved. Aside from all the engineering problems outlined in the other trans-oceanic tunnel/tube/railway/cable cart ideas presented on this site, isn't this distribution and pricing system similar to the grid manipulation that got Enron into so much recent trouble? (Admittedly, I am making the unfounded assumption that some one entity actually "owns" the coolant and controls its dispersal.) |
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