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AC Feels Great, but It’s Terrible for the Planet. Here’s How to Fix That
- aliasEli 5y agoI normally read AC as something opposed to DC, but not as air conditioning. My country is located in a moderate region. So our cars traditionally did not have A/C. Long time ago, when I visited Arizona, we tried to keep cool by opening the windows, like we did at home. I was very happy after reading the car's manual to learn what this mysterious A/C button on the dashboard was.
- megaman821 5y agoI don't know why AC has such a bad rap. The US spends more energy in heating than it does in cooling. Most heat is produced by burning gases (natural gas or propane) which create more CO2 than the average electricity mix to power an AC. Even if everyone used heat pumps, there is a larger delta between the outside temperate to the desired inside temperate in cold-climates than in hot climates. It seems heating is a much bigger problem for the plant than cooling.
- aliasEli 5y agoAir conditioning is frequently applied at places where it is used very inefficiently. Take a car for instance, any car will generate heat, but if you want to cool it you will need to use more energy (which will generate more heat). In most places each house has its own A/C installation(s) using a shared heating/cooling system (heat pumps) is more efficient. Another problem with cooling is that the peak demand coincides with the peak demand from industry, because it happens during the day (instead of the night) so there has to be overcapacity. A final reason why cooling is not really popular is that many spaces are cooled to very low temperatures (which costs a lot of energy) even when most people would feel comfortable with a higher temperature.