The reason heat pumps have traditionally been untenable is that they are prone to icing over when below freezing. If the coils are covered in ice, then air can't be blown past them to get new heat to pull in.
Further, in many cases, the heat pump wouldn't keep your house warm during the coldest period of the year, which meant you still needed a heater. Not a huge deal since you probably have an AC for the summer anyway.
The issue as I understand it, was that the thermostats were not smart enough to know when to quit and so a heat pump would run until it literally could not keep up with demand, when it should have instead switched over to gas heat some time earlier than that when efficiency dropped.
Modern heat pumps deal with all these factors to the point that I expect them to become standard fare as current ACs get upgraded over the next decade or two. I know that if we ever need to upgrade our AC it will be replaced with a heat pump.
Yes, these are all definitely issues. None of them should have been difficult to solve a long time ago though, there was just a lot of inertia behind it.
And there still is. Even now I'm talking to an hvac guy who seems generally knowledgeable and even he said something to the effect that "there isn't any heat in the air below -10" which is just not true at all. It's less efficient to pull it out for sure, but there's always energy to suck out of air.
Anyways, like I said, even up here where people barely know heat pumps exist there's still over 200 days of the year where even a shitty heat pump would do a decent job. Still people argue it won't get used.
(all of this is ignoring the fact that we should be doing even moderately expensive things to get off using natural gas if we can)
> where we begin to operate on a higher level of complexity, similar to when life transitioned to multicellular.
I've thought about this exact thing before and something to keep in mind is that there will be a split where part of the group consents to being absorbed into the mega-organism, and part will stay individuals.
Humanity won't move in unison. If it happens, part of the group will stay behind, just the same as we still have single celled organisms.
I'd modify that to say it's too easy for a large corporation to get a patent. I've heard quite a few acquaintances who work for large companies mention offhand that they just were awarded a patent for something or other.
Meanwhile, at my tiny company, we have I think one patent and another that got hung up with the examiner due to completely unrelated things. I think we finally stopped protesting it.
> Hopefully those that are vaccinated can move on with their lives
At least here in the Midwest, life is back to normal for all but the very most cautious. Even the people who were most glued to their televisions during the pandemic can't be made to care about "variants".
I really don't think it would be feasible at this point for the government to force restrictions back on people. I think the majority wouldn't comply.
Every time I think about WWI, it seems like about the most miserable and terrifying war conditions I can imagine.
But then when I watch old interviews with WWI veterans they all seem unusually chipper about it. Really kind of confuses me. Not sure if it was just a different time or if they had just repressed all the inhumanity of it.
Similarly, glioblastoma (a brain cancer) is still a death sentence. My dad died of it a little over 5 years ago, lasting about a year and a half from initial diagnosis.
Maybe a year later, John McCain came down with the same thing. In a weird way it was comforting to know that all the money and power in the world didn't make any difference in the outcome.
Modern news is all propaganda, all the time. Start with the narrative and shoehorn the events until they fit the narrative. Depending on the company, you get a different starting narrative, but the playbook is the same.
The article isn't actually about housing being unaffordable. It says housing is unavailable.
They could build more housing, but no one wants to get caught holding the bag if the boom turns to a bust as the world returns more to normal.
And even if they did choose to build the housing, housing next year doesn't solve the issue of housing today.
That said, where I live we are building plenty of housing but we still can't fill jobs. Why exactly is hard to say, but general consensus is that government unemployment benefits are currently compelling enough that people will trade taking a hit on their income in exchange for not having to work. Can't blame them, I guess.
Seems like a painful readjustment in the coming years as we unwind all the emergency decisions we made last year.
OP's comment still holds true: "Plenty of available jobs" is what happens when the deal you are offering- cash for labour- is not an acceptable deal to the labour side. When businesses cannot be profitable at market-chosen labour prices, the businesses will close down.
When low paid workers can't afford to live locally because of availability of affordable housing, they must live further away. Commuting has a cost too so if low paid workers can afford housing an hour away, it still might be cost prohibited to take those jobs because commuting costs too much (or "affordable" transportation isn't available). Then if you include the 2+ hours of commute time per shift to take those jobs, it may very well make those jobs less attractive as the effective hourly pay rate is lower than elsewhere.
> Commuting has a cost too so if low paid workers can afford housing an hour away
Maybe I'm wrong, but given my experience driving through the Rockies, I doubt there is any more housing an hour away than there is town. It's just a giant vastness of undeveloped land.
Wikipedia says that the county Ketchum is in has a population density of 8 people/sq mile, and an area of 2600 sq miles. Wikipedia also says that many people commute in for work from neighboring Lincoln county, population 5000.
I think the OP's comment is correct in general, but the particular situation in question has more nuance to it. I don't see any conflict between the two.
I calculated last year that for my family of 5, our health insurance premiums (when you include the portion my employer pays) equaled almost to the dollar the amount we spent on every other thing last year.
Granted we are pretty frugal, but health insurance is insane.
The town is having an economic boom because it saw a large influx of remote workers this past year. Those workers require goods and services, which leads to job openings to fill the demand.
It may come as a surprise to people in large cities, but the vast majority of the country (geographically) was pretty much business as usual from summer 2020 onward.
Further, in many cases, the heat pump wouldn't keep your house warm during the coldest period of the year, which meant you still needed a heater. Not a huge deal since you probably have an AC for the summer anyway.
The issue as I understand it, was that the thermostats were not smart enough to know when to quit and so a heat pump would run until it literally could not keep up with demand, when it should have instead switched over to gas heat some time earlier than that when efficiency dropped.
Modern heat pumps deal with all these factors to the point that I expect them to become standard fare as current ACs get upgraded over the next decade or two. I know that if we ever need to upgrade our AC it will be replaced with a heat pump.