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Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps
- kylehotchkiss 9y agoWouldn't switching to DC motors for both the fan and the compressor save a lot of power?
- jngreenlee 9y agoNot the source of significance, according to the article: "New research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California indicates that adding improved efficiency in refrigeration and phasing out fluorinated gases used for cooling, as mandated by international agreement, could eliminate a full degree Celsius of warming by 2100. Given that the “business as usual” trajectory leads to 4 to 5 degrees Celsius of warming, that is shaving off a pretty big slice. Hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, account for about 1 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, but they can be thousands of times as potent than carbon dioxide "
- 21 9y agoI think you are talking about "inverter A/C"
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoThose require expensive rare-earth permanent magnets, and BLDC require expensive inverter controllers. Plus, even though the best BLDC are maybe 93% (after inverter losses) compared to a 90%, that's on the wrong side of the optimization problem, analogous to Amdahl's Law: Doubling insulation means you need half the energy in the first place, while doubling motor efficiency from 90% to 95% only saves 5%.
- adgqet 9y agoMisleading headline. Research found that the temperature increase could be lowered by one degree centigrade.
- 33W 9y ago[SPOILER ALERT] Can we change the post title to match the article? "If You Fix This, You Fix a Big Piece of the Climate Puzzle"
- ceejayoz 9y agoNo, that's uselessly clickbaity.
- mfoy_ 9y agoClick-bait
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoI much prefer my post titles to be spoilers, rather than clickbait. I waste less of my life that way.
- clenfest 9y agoIn this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!
- rb808 9y agoHalf the article wasn't about a/c efficiency it was that HFC is more of a greenhouse gas than CO2, and was agreed to be phased out. Is there really an HFC replacement - what is it? I wasnt aware.
- maxerickson 9y agohttps://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents/international_transitioning_to_low-gwp_alternatives_in_res_and_com_ac_chillers.pdf https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-12/documents...
- ajmurmann 9y agoI hear ammonia and propane: http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant-management http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/materials/refrigerant-mana...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoIsn't there a big fire/explosion risk as these are very flammable?
- timmaah 9y agoMost RV's use this combo for the fridge. They don't seem to explode but there does seem to be a number of fires.
- quicklyfrozen 9y agoWell, RV fridges are burning propane to heat ammonia (so it can function when electricity is not available). This is not the same as actually replacing the refrigerant with propane (or a propane/isobutane blend). Still seems less risky then a gas dryer.
- mzs 9y agoRV fridges burn the propane not compress it.
- SmellTheGlove 9y agoI have a Fujitsu mini split that has been awesome in terms of bringing my electric bill down versus window units (we live in Maine, central A/C is less common here, and few homes were built with it until the 2000's). It does, like most splits, use R-410A, but I'd be happy to use something else if it didn't kill the efficiency. In parallel with refrigerants and efficiency, though, I wonder if the article misses on mentioning geothermal cooling. Those systems are expensive, but if you can bring down the install cost and power them with cleaner energy, you solve some other problems. In developing nations, maybe you try and build larger systems designed to cool multiple residential units - and start to require it for mid/high-rise residential construction?
- jngreenlee 9y agoI have fond memories of helping my father replace the Freon in our window A/C units in the 1990s with products like R-410A. Thanks to that effort made by many, "A 2005 IPCC review of ozone observations and model calculations concluded that the global amount of ozone has now approximately stabilized. Although considerable variability is expected from year to year, including in polar regions where depletion is largest, the ozone layer is expected to begin to recover in coming decades due to declining ozone-depleting substance concentrations, assuming full compliance with the Montreal Protocol." [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
- maxerickson 9y agoI'd want to see the energy calculations for highly insulated, well sealed buildings. There is more material up front, but the insulation works during the heating season too.
- fastbeef 9y agoIf you want to build a new house in Sweden you need to present an energy calculation for the house so that you meet the fairly strict requirements. Of the top of my head, a normal family house (150m2, 1-1/2 stories) is allowed to consume between 5000-6500 kWh per year (low number in southern Sweden, same as Denmark. High number northern Sweden above the polar circle). This generally means >220mm insulation in walls and roof and >300mm insulation in the foundation. In northern Sweden you need a geothermal pump to hit those numbers.
- Dangeranger 9y agoCould higher efficiency cooling be done by using more evaporative cooling systems (Swamp Coolers)[0] rather than traditional AC units? There are climates where evaporative cooling is not effective, but perhaps they would be useful in the majority of climate regions. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler
- jngreenlee 9y agoThey can be very effective, they just look ugly and don't increase a house's value. http://atomictoasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/swamp-cooler-1.jpg http://atomictoasters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/swamp-c... Authority: I live in Colorado.
- SubiculumCode 9y agoand can even lead to mold
- kchoudhu 9y agoThis. American construction is mostly wood frame, making the possibility of mold terrifying for any home owner.
- peterwwillis 9y agoImproper installation of vapor barriers is much more likely to lead to mold. If you don't inspect your contractor's work, expect problems.
- parshimers 9y agoWhere they're effective I think people already tend to use them due to how cheap they are. The article mentions the regions that are starting to buy the most A/Cs are places like India and SE Asia, all of which are humid and hot.
- 9y ago
- EGreg 9y agoNot for nothing, but ain't greenhouse gases only the short term problem? The Earth radiates a fixed amount of energy into space every year. But when we produce electricity etc. no matter how we do it, more than half of the energy escapes as heat - a byproduct of boiling the water or whatever! This isn't sustainable in the long run either! We are basically raising the temperature of the atmosphere even without greenhouse gases. Tell me where I'm going wrong: https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist... https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/why-not-space/ https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2011/10/why-not-space/
- maxerickson 9y agoThe slightly warmer planet cools off faster (Newton's law of cooling). The heat doesn't just statically build up over time. As long as we still have cold seasons, it is safe to assume that solar inputs are dominating our own.
- lostapathy 9y agoRight. When we generate electricity via solar or wind, the heat involved has (essentially) been shifted from elsewhere. That energy was going to reach our planet either way. Whether we use a solar panel to shift it somewhere we can use it, or if it just heats the whatever it would have otherwise ran into, we aren't adding energy to the system by shifting it around. The waste heat from solar panels is just the energy from the sun, less whatever gets turned into electricity. No new energy was created - if there was, you could just create a perpetual motion machine to solve the problem.
- EGreg 9y agoSo then, isn't fossil fuel energy "just" stored sun energy too? If it hadn't wound up underground, our planet would have been slightly hotter already.
- lostapathy 9y ago
- bradlys 9y ago> The Lawrence Berkeley study argues that even a 30 percent improvement in efficiency could avoid the peak load equivalent of about 1,500 power plants by 2030. Okay, but where is this 30% jump in efficiency going to come from? That seems like a pretty big leap!
- klodolph 9y agoOff the top of my head, * A lot of home conditioners are fighting the weather in conditions with poor insulation, running when nobody is home, or running in rooms when people are in different parts of the house. * Office air conditioners are often set too cold, subjectively speaking, sometimes resulting in workers bringing sweaters or even space heaters to their desks. This is shockingly common. Multi-zone cooling can make things more uniform, and if you can get people to stop using space heaters during the summer, that can make a big difference. Gender is supposedly a huge factor in temperature preferences, and offices are set to men's cooler preferences. In some locations this is exacerbated by the fact that men wear suits and ties while the women wear skirts and weather-appropriate tops. Personally, I want an air conditioner system that isn't set to a specific temperature, but instead reduces the extreme temperatures outside. So instead of keeping it set at 22 degrees, maybe it would be set to 22 degrees when it's 27 degrees out, but the AC goes to 25 degrees when it's 35 degrees out. I find this more comfortable, because there's less of a shock when going outside or coming inside.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 9y agoThe issue in cooling preferences is that if it is too cold, people can wear sweaters or even bring space heaters. If it is too hot, there is not much you can do. I think this problem is exacerbated by open office plans. If you have private/semi-private offices, you can probably do a much better job of controlling local temperature.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoWe have private offices, but central HVAC. Multi-zone cooling (independent of having lots of little, less efficient window/through-wall units) is relatively uncommon. It's exacerbated (good word) by the fact that the large front office has mostly women sitting at low-power PCs, the offices are mostly men at powerful workstations (aka space heaters), and the HVAC ducts run though the office drop ceilings, meaning anyone doing physical projects in the central work space is the least cooled while our receptionist has been seen with a space heater.
- clumsysmurf 9y agoTrump's 2018 budget zeroes funding for Energy Star, which among other things, helps consumers pick the most efficient devices, save money in the long run. What other ways can consumers compare the efficiency of A/C units? I would think some standardized testing and labels would be required.
- rplst8 9y agoThere are standardized efficiency measurements that all A/C manufacturers must conduct and publish in the US. You'll see terms like COP, EER, and SEER. Those allow you to compare pretty easily. Currently the minimum is a SEER of 13, but I've seen units as high as 22 advertised.
- a_t48 9y agoHigher is better in this case?
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y agoYes.
- rplst8 9y agoYes.
- jdmichal 9y agoTo elaborate on the "yes": SEER is a ratio of energy expended to energy moved. So SEER 13 means that the system spends one unit of energy to move 13. And you should expect a SEER 20 system to be twice as efficient as a SEER 10 system. EDIT: I should mention that SEER uses different units for each part of the ratio -- BTUs of heat moved vs watt-hours expended. COP is dimensionless, and EER is just SEER but for a specific operating point. SEER extends the measurement through an entire "season", and so it theoretically gives a more realistic picture of overall efficiency.
- DannyBee 9y agoDepends on the type of A/C You can get ground source heat pumps that are 50 SEER, 5.3 COP (and they'll provide all your hot water, too) There used to be a federal tax incentive of 30% of the cost, no max, but it expired at the end of 2016.
- PhantomGremlin 9y agoWe need a corresponding article telling us how many power plants we can avoid building by not mining Bitcoin. I love the general idea of cyber currency / bitcoin / block chain, but I hate that the implementation requires so much energy.
- davidw 9y agoPeople in the US consume way too much air conditioning. It's pretty common where I work for people to have sweaters to put on inside due to the AC. Outside it's in the 80ies, with something like 10% humidity in the summer - absolutely perfect unless you're doing hard labor in direct sunlight.
- oh_sigh 9y agoSure, but a lot of places(like the north east) rarely get 10% humidity days.
- tomsthumb 9y agoWhile I agree that running the AC to to point of wearing a hoodie is ridiculous, there are some pretty enormous chunks of the US where an 80 degree summer day is relatively chilly, winds coming off of mountains or oceans are basically nonexistent, and the humidity is super high.
- davidw 9y agoYeah (see my response to the guy from Munich) - but instead of cooling to 60F or whatever, use the AC to dehumidify and cool off to, say, 80 or 78 or something comfortable.
- cestith 9y agoMeanwhile in Houston, we're having a nicely cool and dry day for July ... After a high of 93, at just before 6 PM it's 89 degrees and 57% humidity. By 4 AM, it'll be 78 F and 90% humidity, with a high tomorrow of 90 at 2 PM with 58%.
- pierrebeaucamp 9y agoI'm pretty disappointed in the numbers they chose for a vegetarian diet. It feels to me as if they actively went ahead and picked to lowest values they could find in their source. (Btw the source itself is a good read imo: http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet http://www.drawdown.org/solutions/food/plant-rich-diet) You could argue that people are not willing to go vegetarian or even vegan - but at least level the numbers when comparing it with other solutions: If everyone would go vegetarian, their source states 132 gigatons of CO2 reductions. I also liked this quote from the report: > As Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh has said, making the transition to a plant-based diet may be the most effective way an individual can stop climate change.
- beambot 9y agoBetter, balanced diets also create positive feedback loops in the healthcare equation too -- especially for low income homes. Like many things, it is a human psychology and behavioral challenge...
- npsimons 9y ago> Better, balanced diets also create positive feedback loops in the healthcare equation too You can still eat your way to obesity on a vegan diet - oreos are vegan, after all. Considering that the obesity epidemic is currently the number one driver for health care costs in USA, and it's only expected to get worse (http://dailybruin.com/2011/10/26/obesity_has_become_an_oversized_problem_in_the_u-s/ http://dailybruin.com/2011/10/26/obesity_has_become_an_overs...), we could probably vastly reduce costs (and therefore emissions) by just eating a little less, vegan or no. Edit: why the downvotes?
- beambot 9y agoBest rules I ever saw: (1) Eat "food", not processed crap; (2) not too much; (3) mostly plants.
- comicjk 9y agoAll due respect to the Zen master, but taking fewer flights, driving less, and living in a smaller and better insulated house, or having fewer kids, will all be more effective than vegetarianism for the average American. A single transatlantic trip emits more CO2 than eating meat for a year. See this paper on effective CO2 reductions: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541 I speak without bias on the subject, since I am actually a vegetarian myself. Going by the numbers, it's moderately effective, but not the most effective.
- SilasX 9y ago... only if this doesn't temporarily bid down energy prices and lead others to use the same energy somewhere else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox Note: the more potential uses of a resources, the more vulnerable it is to Jevons effects, where people use a resource more in response to being able to use it more efficiently. The real benefit of energy efficiency is not that it reduces energy use by itself, but that it reduces the utility loss from implementing the caps and taxes necessary to actually reduce total usage.
- axelfontaine 9y agoAmerican air conditioners running at full power, chilling the interior and dripping on the sidewalk below on a hot day always deeply trouble me. Maybe it's my european view on things, but for contrast here in Munich we aren't just building out a city-wide heat network, but we also have a cold network! Cold river water flows through the pipe network that traverses the city and large office building can get connected to it. This way they can save massively on electricity for air conditioning by having the water do the cooling instead. And then once the water has traversed all pipes, it simply gets released back into its stream on the other end of town, just as clean as when it entered, and only slightly warmer.
- davidw 9y agoSee elsewhere regarding Americans using way too much air conditioning, but to be fair, Munich is a pretty cold place compared to much of the US in the summer. And not nearly as humid as much of the southern/eastern US.
- jriot 9y agoBerlin doesn't nearly get as hot as the United States. Try sitting inside a house in Mobile, AL in July without air conditioner and see how long you last. Using your water example, what about the deserts in the US that don't have a nearby water source to cool everything. Europe is much cooler in comparison to the US.
- tbihl 9y agoI agree with most of what you've said, but I'd also argue that having large groups living out in the desert is such an absurd configuration for humans that it presupposes an indifference for any sort of sustainability.
- rplst8 9y agoHaving large groups living in mega city heat islands is also an absurd configuration but pretty much the entire world is guilty of that one.
- maxxxxx 9y agoJust insulate the houses in the US. I am always shocked how badly built US houses that cost 600k are.
- rplst8 9y agoGood insulation is pretty standard here in the US for everything built in the last two decades or so. That said, fiberglass insulation mostly only helps against convection cooling/heating. I.e. through the movement of air. Summertime heat is mostly conductive and radiative i.e. near infrared. Insulation doesn't do much to stop that. Shade trees however help this big time. A large tree placed in the right spot to shade a house in the afternoon can replace as many as seven window air conditioner units.
- maxxxxx 9y agoMaybe it's getting a little better but in the apartment buildings I have seen the wind pretty much blows straight through the windows and the walls are paper thin. Even on the East Coast where they have real winters.
- astrodust 9y agoIf anything they're over-insulated which can create other problems like a lack of fresh air, mold and fungus problems, and poor air quality in general. The more you insulate the more you need to ensure you have proper ventilation, which is a sort of paradox.
- maxxxxx 9y agoYou can insulate properly and still have air flow. It's not that hard.
- kalms 9y ago+1 to this statement. Just had extra insulation sprayed into the walls of our 1973 house, and replaced the windows with triple layer thermo glass. The difference it made during summer is remarkable, since the added insulation keeps the house from heating up excessively, while retaining heat during nighttime.
- dmritard96 9y agoOne thing missing from this article is demand response: "It matters, researchers say, because cooling has a direct relationship with the building of coal-fired power plants to meet peak demand. If more air-conditioners are humming in more homes and offices, then more capacity will be required to meet the demand. So 1.6 billion new air-conditioners by 2050 means thousands of new power plants will have to come on line to support them." We https://flair.co https://flair.co offer demand response tech for minisplit control that can help prevent having to build all the 'peaker plants'. This gets extra interesting when you add intermittent supply (solar/wind) and grid tied storage (Tesla has been making big pushes here among others). Hopefully, we are able to scale these up in parallel to prevent a bunch of coal fired plants from being built for the 1-3% of the year with the hottest days.
- dv_dt 9y ago> "So 1.6 billion new air-conditioners by 2050 means thousands of new power plants will have to come on line to support them." Or not, where California has brought enough solar power online to the point that during peak times it has to pay to offload power to other states because some natural gas operators can't (won't?) shutdown...
- dmritard96 9y agoA big part is also demand response in California, for instance, why PG&E was subsidizing smart thermostats. They can adjust all the setpoints and in aggregate reduce the compressor cycling. to 'chop' the peak down on really hot days.
- philippnagel 9y agotado offers something similar: https://www.tado.com/ https://www.tado.com/.
- jwilk 9y agoWrong symbol in the title: º = ordinal indicator ° = degree
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoTwo questions: 1. How did you notice this? 2. Why does it matter, or when would I want to use one instead of the other for reasons other than being technically correct?
- jwilk 9y agoThey look different in my font: https://i.imgur.com/gjTkaa6.png https://i.imgur.com/gjTkaa6.png
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoAh. Practically identical in mine: http://i.imgur.com/3YcxWIy.png http://i.imgur.com/3YcxWIy.png
- cannonpr 9y agoI hate to say it but AC always felt like thoughtless engineering and consumerism, especially the electric varieties. It's ironic that in a sunny, energy rich environment, you spend extra energy on a heat pump. In a lot of environments some better architecture will take care of the problem via passive methods, additionally evaporative methods work pretty well in dry environments and polute considerably less ? Failing that, hell atleast use some solar energy to run the heat pumps locally, atleast stop burning stuff to power them. Failing all of the above, stoicism isn't that bad, honest, neither are life style changes that shift high activity periods to later in the day, they are widely practised in Mediterranean countries.
- pdelbarba 9y agoCurrently live in Colorado where the highs are regularly in the 90s. Turn the house fan on at night for a couple hours, cool everything off, then close all the doors and windows during the day and everything is perfectly comfortable. When I lived in Philly however... 90% humidity and 80 degrees AT NIGHT is no joke.
- cannonpr 9y agoSo to respond, yes I generally suggested the above for dry climates, I have also lived in humid climates and agree to all the comments regarding them. However I am willing to bet we use electrical heat pumps out of sheer convenience even in climates that offer alternatives. That having been said, even for humid environments, the ground often offers us solutions that are more efficient. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-coupled_heat_exchanger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground-coupled_heat_exchanger They do however ofcourse require engineering and support from society to adopt.
- scottLobster 9y agoSpeaking as someone who lives just outside Philadelphia, if you can wave a magic wand and give us a Mediterranean climate I will happily give up my air conditioner. Right now according to my phone we're at a high of 89 F (31.6 C) and 83% humidity, low of 80 degrees tonight with that same or possibly greater humidity. If I open my windows tonight I get to experience my sheets sticking to my body like sweaty clothing every time I move and a thin layer of moisture on all of my possessions (including electronics) tomorrow morning. And this is not atypical of summer on the mid-Atlantic.
- grogenaut 9y agoIf we bumped efficiency 30%, how many more people would run the AC 30% more?
- Element_ 9y agoToronto has a deep lake water cooling system that pumps cold water from the bottom of Lake Ontario and circulates it around the downtown core. It is capable of cooling 100 high-rise buildings. I believe when it was constructed it was the largest system in North America. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enwave https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enwave
- contingencies 9y agoI'd never heard of these systems until reading this thread. I am frankly amazed that China isn't using them. Here in Shenzhen (literally "deep bay") alone I am certain this would save a lot of electricity.
- djsumdog 9y agoSo we curb emissions by building a bunch of new A/C units? Sorry, that's silly. CO2 is just one of many many forms of pollution. Think you're doing your part by purchasing a hybrid or electric vehicle? There are barrels of oil that go into those tiers, the plastics, not to mention all the pollution that goes into battery production. If your car is fuel efficient, the best thing you can do for the environment is drive it until the wheels fall off. When you do need to purchase a replacement, get a used hybrid or electric. Climate change/CO2 is not the problem. It's the symptom of rampant consumerism. We can't buy and purchase our way out of destroying the planet. We have to consume less, build cell phones that are upgradable and last a decade instead of 2 ~ 3 years. Companies need to be praised for smaller factories and lower sales for products that cost more and last longer. That is a very very huge shift in the way we think. I'm not sure if it's even remotely feasible or what it would take to convince people, industry, the world to simply consume less.
- flippyhead 9y agoThe irony is that consuming less actually leads to increased levels of happiness. If this was more widely appreciated the shift away from consumerism would be easier. I could imagine, for example, some kind of enlightened country/culture that actually intentionally contracts their economy because they've wised up to what really matters.
- cjlars 9y agoHans Rosling has a take on this: The Magic Washing Machine. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w&vl=en https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZoKfap4g4w&vl=en
- jwr 9y agoThe current situation is largely caused by artificially low prices of fossil fuels. We are borrowing from the future to fuel our consumption. If we agreed to increase those prices by, say, 5 to 10 times and used the money to fund research towards removing carbon from the atmosphere, the world would become a much better place. Problem is, everybody is afraid of the shock this would cause and everybody thinks only about his little square of the woods.
- pdelbarba 9y agoI'm a little confused why solar isn't mentioned. Peak temperature and peak solar flux are highly correlated so this isn't some weird grid storage problem. Tighten standards for new systems and construction to be a little more efficient and let economics go to work.
- Mz 9y agoPassive solar and vernacular architecture makes vastly more sense. I get so tired of these schemes to make our broken lifestyles "more efficient." Just adopt a better method entirely and quit quibbling about tiny efficiency gains.
- ch4s3 9y agoYou're saying that as though passively cooled architecture has no drawbacks in terms of cost, structural integrity, versatility, or suitability for building dense living spaces. I doubt we can develop large cities in the future without a serious focus on improved HVAC. Sure, passive methods, geothermal heating/cooling, etc will have a place, but they certainly aren't the only path forward. For example, how would you passively control humidity. It's 89F and 55% humidity where I'm sitting right now, outside airflow feels like wet hot death.
- Mz 9y agoI don't know what country you are from, but I am saying that as an American who has lived in Germany and has studied this problem space some at the college level. Most American homes are terrible cardboard boxes. German apartments routinely have thicker walls, fewer windows and other interruptions in the wall space and the windows are more useful than American ones. It was common when I was there for windows to have two ways to be opened, one just for airflow that was not a security risk and one to allow it to open completely, like a door. They typically had no screens. There is zero reason why American housing cannot incorporate, as a minimum, more thermal mass -- like German apartments routinely do. Furthermore, many American cities are simply not that dense. There are few places in the U.S. that are really densely urban with lots of skyscrapers. So most passive solar methods would be applicable for most structures here. I grew up in the Deep South, where 98F was quite common in the summer, with much higher humidity than 55%, and I have lived in the High Desert, where I did my long walks for exercise (up to 6 miles) after the sun set so temps would drop to a cool 99F. The temperature and humidity you list does not qualify in my book as "wet, hot death" and I see zero reason that a building could not be made reasonably comfortable in such conditions using mostly passive techniques.
- thomk 9y agoSlightly offtopic but I just had a new HVAC system put in my house and one of the things the tech pointed out to me is that effective AC has a lot to do with effective dehumidifying. I don't know why it never crossed my mind before but now when I transition from indoors to outdoors (and back) I notice the humidity delta as much as the temperature delta.
- return0 9y agolet's just build a giant A/C and put the external unit on the moon
- petre 9y agoUsing a white roof and employing other passive coolong techniques could improve AC efficiency, or even make it redundant.
- Girlang 9y agoHere's something that we can do that won't cost any money: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-shift-obesity-packs-serious-climate-consequences/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/global-shift-obes... All we have to do is charge/tax people who overconsume. Since it costs nothing to consume less (and actually saves money), everyone wins.
- uses 9y agoIt's funny how almost without fail on HN, I can go to the comments, and the #1-5 comments is someone who quickly dismisses the main premise of the linked article. It's ridiculous how common this is. I've been reading HN over a decade and I don't remember if it was always like this?
- bcatanzaro 9y agoThe planet would be better off if people moved out of the cold North and instead used more air conditioning. That's because heating is incredibly carbon intensive. Think about the temperature gradients in New York in the winter time. Going from 20 or 30 degrees F to 70 degrees is more carbon intensive than going from 90 degrees to 70 degrees, and the number of days it's cold in the winter is often greater than the number of days it's hot in the summer. The overall carbon burden of heating is greater than that of cooling. This means that the carbon angst directed at AC is primarily a puritanical impulse. It's a new thing! It feels nice! So it must be a sin! However, refrigerants are bad for climate because they have huge greenhouse gas potential multipliers. So the solution isn't really to improve air conditioner efficiency, it's rather to find refrigerants with less warming potential. And move everyone out of New York and Boston - their climate conditioning is very carbon intensive.
- afinlayson 9y agoAir conditioners are really inefficient, and people run them in excess. And because there's no carbon tax, the cost of them is too cheap to curb usage. Sure it won't solve the whole problem, but solving this issue would be very valuable to the planet.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Zarath 9y agoOpen a damn window. I'm sure in some places AC is necessary, but way too often I hear/see people running it when there is absolutely no reason other than they are even mildly uncomfortable. Seriously, this problem isn't going to be fixed until people actually pay the true cost of what they are doing: Electricity + Global Warming externalities.
- zackmorris 9y agoOne of the most wasteful components is the condenser. Salt water air conditioners can accomplish the same thing much more easily (50-75% savings): http://www.happonomy.org/get-inspired/salt-water-air-conditioners.html http://www.happonomy.org/get-inspired/salt-water-air-conditi... https://www.cnet.com/news/salt-driven-air-conditioner-looks-to-slash-energy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/salt-driven-air-conditioner-looks-... This is very old technology so people probably chose aesthetics over cost. Although when I think tacky, I think window air conditioning units..
- quadrangle 9y agoWe already have solutions for dramatically more effective conditioning of indoors. Simply do other effective things to cool the indoors. Modern insulated whole-house fans like Airscape, exterior shades, etc. see http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/10-overlooked-low-tech-ways-of-keeping-your-home-cool.html http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/10-over... The efficiency focus is itself misguided in several ways. http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-efficient-is-energy-efficiency-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ http://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-efficient-is-energy-effi...
- johngalt 9y agoLarge number of comments here acting like A/C is some wasteful extravagance, or that people who live in warm climates should just move or 'get used to the heat'. I don't mean to spoil the moralizing fun here, but cooling uses less energy than heating. So perhaps you should put on a sweater when it drops below freezing where you live. You'll get used to it. Or you could move.