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Comment by verve_rat | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, as a Kiwi, watching all the debate happening here is just super weird.

Meanwhile, I'm annoyed that heat pumps that dump the waste heat into the hot water cylinder aren't standard.

It's just the Yanks that have subsidised natural gas in many states, and a messed up energy infrastructure that gives electricity prices in the same range as what we have in Europe while being at war.

I was trying to find heat pump adoption rates for Europe and US.

Seems like its still pretty low in Europe outside some northern countries. Germany is less than 2000/100000 people.

https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/heat-pumps/top-countries

Meanwhile this link says US has a 15% adoption rate across all income groups. That seems higher than I expected.

https://energypost.eu/u-s-heat-pump-adoption-is-evenly-sprea...

Is there a better source on heat pump adoption rate in Europe and US?

Not a source, but it's more common to have heat pumps in the southern States where winters aren't that bad. I'm born and raised in Arizona and they seemed to be common in houses after the 1973 energy crisis. My grandparents house in Tempe, AZ (was built in like 1950's) did no have one. A house I purchased in central North Carolina had a heat pump. I'm now around Washington DC area in Virginia, and we has gas. I think a simple explanation is that natural gas is almost a by product (certainly from landfills, which is how most USA disposes of trash) and is very cost efficient. Also the energy crisis changed the outlook of house building. I hope that helps explain it some, sorry I don't have any concrete facts I'm typing on a small keyboard.

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