I read somewhere that heat pumps are more efficient than resistance heaters. And this really got me confused. A resistance heater turns 100% of its input energy into heat. Where else would its energy go? So how on earth can anything be more efficient than 100%?
Well, after much research, it turns out that while a resistance heater turns 1 watt of electricity into 1 watt of heat energy, a heat pump can use 1 watt of electricity to move 3 or 4 watts of heat energy into a building.
I still can’t figure out why this doesn’t violate any laws of energy conservation or Thermodynamics? It seems like you could move 3 or 4 watts of heat energy into a heat engine and get back at least more than 1 watt. I’d still like to find out what prevents me from getting extra energy out of such a system.
Anyway, here were the best resources I found on that subject, but I’m afraid we’ll need an expert in Thermodynamics with a knack for putting complex concepts into laymen’s terms in order to answer this question fully.
- http://home.howstuffworks.com/question49.htm
- http://www.eco-hometec.co.uk/Heat%20Pump%20Efficiencies.htm
- http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heatpump.html
- http://rabi.phys.virginia.edu/105/2005/ps8s.html
Here are all of the searches I did:
- Why is a heat pump for efficient than a space heater
- how does a heat pump work?
- “Heat pump” thermodynamics resistance heating
- “heat pump” + violates + “conservation of energy”
[tags]Thermodynamics, heat pump, conservation of energy, carnot cycle, heat engine, free energy[/tags]