Source
r/heatpumps•
EVnegative

Heat pump manufacturing impact on climate and environment

Learning/Info

I am looking for information of the climate impact of the manufacturing and installation of air-source heat pumps.

Why? I bought a new apartment, and it has a gas boiler for heating and hot water. I would like to replace it with an air-source heat pump if that would be more climate and environment friendly. (Ground-source is unfortunately not possible here.)

Why wouldn't it be? The apartment will already use very little energy:

  • It has only 65m² / 700sq ft of heated space
  • Great insulation
  • Floor heating
  • Absolute maximum 3kW of heating requirement at -10°C / 14 F

Since the gas boiler is already installed, I would compare gas boiler use with heat pump use + manufacturing. The use will probably be low for both, so the manufacturing stage might have a big impact.

I can't seem to find much on the topic. I know this is often studied in an LCA (Life Cycle Analysis), but I can't find one that is close to this scenario.

Who has any figures?

Posted Mar 16, 2022, 7:53 PM UTC

56
4stars2stripes•

The calculation you are looking at is not just a one time sum. You have to look at the total life span of each. That boiler will have to be replaced at some point regardless so you might as well replace it now and get a few years of electrification. Over the life span of the heat pumps total carbon emissions will decrease while the carbon emissions of the boiler will only increase. For specific numbers you might have luck look at what brightworks has to offer

3
EVnegativeOP•

Thanks for the reply!

You are right, the life span and the life phases all need to be counted: manufacturing, use, maintenance, disposal/recycling, ...

The gas boiler is already manufactured and installed. There isn't a big second hand market for gas boilers where I live. So my reasoning is that the gas boiler manufacturing emission already happened. I don't count that anymore (can't turn back time). Replacing it by a heat pump is optional. So I would count the heat pump manufacturing. I would have preferred to choose a heat pump and not have the gas boiler at all, but that's not possible.

With brightworks, do you mean https://brightworks.net/ ?

2
alostpacket•

It's a good instinct to want to understand the "cradle-to-grave" aka Life Cycle Analysis. I would love to hear if you find any such studies!

I know of one study that was done comparing electric vehicles to gasoline.
https://www.greencarreports.com/news/1132821_green-payback-how-long-will-new-evs-take-to-be-cleaner-than-gasoline-models
It found in only a couple years EVs won out on carbon emissions despite having a much larger emissions from production (due to mining lithium, etc for the battery). Given that, I think it is safe to say this effect would be even more dramatic when comparing heath pumps and natural gas. There isn't all that much difference in manufacturing a gas burner vs a heat pump. The primary difference is the refrigerant.

Some things to keep in mind:

  • It matters a lot where you get your electricity to power the heat pump, but even from the grid (as opposed to solar) it is still almost certainly a clear winner.
  • The infrastructure for natural gas leaks far more methane than people think, and it is far less "clean" than is commonly thought. It's basically as dirty as coal in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.
  • A heat pump is basically an air conditioner with a reversing valve and can perform both heating and cooling.
  • Environmentally friendliness is like compound interest, the sooner you start having an impact, the better. We only have 1 planet after all.
  • Natural gas is basically methane, one of the worst greenhouse gasses.

Here are some resources that might help you get started:

I can tell you I am looking to move off my oil burner for several reasons:

  • I am 100% convinced that heat pumps are FAR more environmentally friendly than gas
  • heat pumps do both heating and cooling
  • It's likely to be cheaper and have much more predictable operating cost (electricity prices don't flucuate as much as gas/oil)
  • Far less dangerous infrastructure
  • It doesn't put money directly into the hands of fossil fuel oligarchs
  • I just don't want to burn things in my house
1
Dean-KS•

Some good points, some not technology grounded. If one stops using gas, does that stop infrastructure and production methane leaks?

0
Real_Time_Delay•

Jesus- just put in some Mitsubishi hyper Heat mini splits and call it a day.

0
EVnegativeOP•

That would be a possible solution if it was just for space heating. Here it's to be used for hot water as well. And there's already floor heating; it seems a shame to go for convection heating when the floor heating is already installed.

1