Carnot cycle refrigeration by mechanical compressors has been around for over a century, and it’s a mature technology. Since World War II, it has been used to heat and cool structures, but with increased urgency in reducing fossil fuel use, heat pumps are under renewed scrutiny as a low-emission climate control solution. Moving heat with this technology is significantly more energy efficient than electrical resistance heating but is more expensive than natural gas boilers for space heat applications. A wholesale switch to heat pump technology will require government subsidies, carbon taxes, direct regulation or some combination of the three unless some new, lower-cost way to compress the working fluid is discovered. * * *Want to watch this podcast as a video? This Week in Engineering is available on engineering.com TV along with all of our other shows such as End of the Line, Designing the Future, Manufacturing the Future, and the Engineering Roundtable.

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