Sources and references for March 2008 editorial, “Heat pumps, phlogiston and the world wide web”...

“The same process works in reverse in a heat pump during the winter. The heat pump takes heat out of the outside air [ ..] and it moves that heat inside, where it is transferred from the evaporator coil to the air circulating through your home. That's not a typographical error, by the way- the heat pump moves heat from outside to warm your home, even on a cold day. That's because "cold" is a relative term. Air as cold as 30 degrees still contains a great deal of heat - the temperature at which air no longer carries any heat is well below -200 degrees Fahrenheit. A heat pump's heat exchanger can squeeze heat out of cold air, then transfer that heat into your home with the help of a fan which circulates the warm air through your ducts.” From http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/heating_cooling/heating_cooling.html#howwork

Alternatively - The Second Law Revisited - It is impossible to produce a cyclic engine that generates work by extracting heat from a reservoir without expelling some waste heat. it is impossible to produce a heat pump in which the sole result is the transfer of heat from a low-T to a high-T body.” From http://astronomy.sussex.ac.uk/~kps/HM/LectureNotes/he2004_heat3.ppt.

And the various Wikipedia contributions ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_source_heat_pumps.

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompe_%C3%A0_chaleur

And the US government likes ’em too! http://www.eere.energy.gov/consumer/your_home/space_heating_cooling/index.cfm/mytopic=12610

And also ... “Examining the Amazing Free-Energy Claims of Dennis Lee - Hundreds of investors believed Dennis Lee's claim of a free-energy machine. A closer look is in order.” From http://www.csicop.org/si/9707/krieg.html

Comments from readers ...

Neil,

I enjoyed your thoughtful comments about heat pumps in the March edition of Oil Information Technology Journal. It called to mind an interesting concept that I ran across years ago, web-surfing to find information about 'green' technology to satisfy my own curiosity: a house-that-is-a-heat pump. The website is still active: http://enertia.com. I hadn't thought about all of this in ages, so it was fun to revisit the topic!

Kind regards,
Susie
Susie Foss (Anadarko)