An indoor refrigerator in the winter is essentially a resistive heater. It’s not nearly as good as a heat pump, but may be better for the environment that burning gas, depending on the local electricity mix.
That is an excellent point that I had not considered—it might actually be more efficient to make use of the heat in your food to heat your home than to pump it outside!
That’s not my main point as I don’t think the heat capacity of food is so important over the long term.
I mean, that the inevitable inefficiency of the fridge in a closed system, is no different, that any other device consuming the same amount of energy, as it all ends as waste heat.
In his defense, he is doing his best to save the climate by keeping his refrigerator outside in the Winter!
Power companies hate this one trick
An indoor refrigerator in the winter is essentially a resistive heater. It’s not nearly as good as a heat pump, but may be better for the environment that burning gas, depending on the local electricity mix.
That is an excellent point that I had not considered—it might actually be more efficient to make use of the heat in your food to heat your home than to pump it outside!
That’s not my main point as I don’t think the heat capacity of food is so important over the long term.
I mean, that the inevitable inefficiency of the fridge in a closed system, is no different, that any other device consuming the same amount of energy, as it all ends as waste heat.