I have a room that I want to add 1000w per hour of heat energy to
I have the options of:
burning 1050W of gas per hour
running a 1000W theoretically lossless electric resistive heater per hour
running a 600W heat pump per hour
Sure, the gas is combusting, the resistive is radiating, and the pump is moving the heat, but functionally they're all trying to add that 1000W to the room continually for an hour. One of them is doing it a whole lot more efficiently.
Another way to look at it is as any civilisation gets sufficient technology they begin simulating entire universes, to better understand their own.
That means we're either the OG universe and haven't figured out how to run simulations of that size yet (so no simulated universes exist yet), or there is some chain of universes above us who are likely also simulated until you get to the OG universe.
Considering everything in our universe seems to follow a set of base rules (speed of light, attraction between masses, etc), I'm partial to thinking of those as essentially input variables prior to our sim being run.
No you said heat pumps are air conditioners which is wrong.
Heat pumps are a technology.
Some are used as air conditioners, some are used as heaters, some as both. Some are used for heating liquids, some are used for cooling foods. They simply move heat from one location to another, application and reversibility independent.
Air conditioners are heat pumps too, and it's not the reversing valve that differentiates them. Heat pumps move heat, reversing valve let's you decide which way to move it.
1 - renewable surpluses. As wind and solar keep ramping , hydrogen is a fantastic way to store that energy. Sure, there are efficiency losses but it's transportable, able to be stored long term, and able to be used from small scale to grid scale applications.
2 - total life cycle cost. There is an incredible amount of emissions embodied in evs. Haven't seen a comprehensive analysis of a h2 vehicle but I would imagine a few hundred kilos of missing lithium is a good thing.
I used to love Mitch Hedberg references. I still do, but I used to, too.