> I just use my computer [...] when I need some warmth
The difference is that the computer's fans don't blow directly at you and make you warm while leaving the room effectively unchanged as in my use-case.
When heating up a room, regular natural gas central heating is usually a lot more efficient than electricity. A gas power plant creating electricity for you to turn back into heat is rather lossy. Heat pumps are different: they roughly break even if you have a 100% gas power mix, because they move heat at 300% efficiency instead of creating new heat.
That's true but I still get useful work out of the electricity to heat conversion. For example I turned off my heater the other day and upscaled a bunch of media on my computer, my room was quite toasty.
Oh sure, when you're using waste heat that you would otherwise be venting or actively cooling then this is definitely better. The way you phrased it, it sounded to me like you'd find extra gpu tasks to turn on whenever the room gets cold that would otherwise not be done at all. In that case, on most grids it's unfortunately still better to burn gas directly.
The difference is that the computer's fans don't blow directly at you and make you warm while leaving the room effectively unchanged as in my use-case.
When heating up a room, regular natural gas central heating is usually a lot more efficient than electricity. A gas power plant creating electricity for you to turn back into heat is rather lossy. Heat pumps are different: they roughly break even if you have a 100% gas power mix, because they move heat at 300% efficiency instead of creating new heat.