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One of these days I'm gonna pipe these bad boys into my homes duct work LMAO (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/memes@lemmy.world
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[–] 6 points 2 years ago (4 children)

Is there any way to store surplus waste heat for redistribution months later? The only thing I can think of is just a really large, high heat capacity mass surrounded by incredible insulation material, with a heat pump system built in to it. Which would be incredibly impractical.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Look into geothermal heat pumps. During the summer they pump heat from your house underground, and during the winter they pump it back in.

    But the energy doesn't really stay there. The thermal mass and temperature of the ground just means that you can always efficiently take heat from it or effectively dump heat into it. Always predictably the same efficiency.
    If the heat was actually stored, the start of summer and winner the pump would be super efficient, but by the end it'd be inefficient working hard to move the heat. So it seems kinda wasteful that the energy isn't being stored, but it's actually kinda better that it isn't.

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