6 ms·

The eco-harm it causes is more related to its energy use and how it is typically generated. But there are eco-friendly ways to generate (and store) energy, not

The eco-harm it causes is more related to its energy use and how it is typically generated. But there are eco-friendly ways to generate (and store) energy, not burning fossil fuels in general, or even burning at all. You can't separate ACs from other energy consuming devices, the same could be said, about, I don't know, microwave ovens. Its the energy what should be redefined, how we get it. Besides that, they are becoming more efficient, and there are alternative approaches to control temperature at homes.

kolinko 4y ago
This. Also, AC needs energy during clear summer days - exactly when it’s the cheapest to deliver by PV. With minimal effect on climate.
- masklinn 4y ago
  An interesting side-effect although sadly not leveraged much in the US, and also little used in europe because of the stigma on AC, is that AC is a heat pump and heat pumps are reversible. It’s finally gaining in popularity, and depending on weather conditions a modern heat pump can provide heating several times more efficient than straight up burning fuel even if you’re producing electricity from that fuel. When your electricity is nuclear or hydro (or other renewables but that tends to be a bit sticky in winter) it’s manna.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    It's a travesty that A/C units in the US are not (in many cases) designed to be reversible. I mean, even if you have a gas furnace, using the heat pump when it's only mildly cold can be cheaper.
- zdragnar 4y ago
  This is really not true. Case in point, today where I am it will be overcast, 85*F, and very high humidity. We also get extreme cold in winter, so there's no getting around needing both AC and heating, but solar isn't a panacea. Unfortunately, hot cloudy days also don't tend to produce much wind either.
  - kolinko 4y ago
    I may be wrong but isn’t this an exception, not a rule?
    - zdragnar 4y ago
      A bright sunny summer day will be hotter, but there's nothing magical about clouds that makes the need for air conditioning disappear unless you live in a desert.
      - kolinko 4y ago
        At least in my region (central Europe) cloud cover is closely correlated with temperature. As in - when clouds and rain come during summer it gets colder as well. I may be wrong here, no scientific data behind this.
  - saltcured 4y ago
    The AC system is not consuming the same energy in an overcast day versus an intensely sunny day, even if the outside air temperatures are comparable. The direct radiant heating of the structure with sun exposure introduces much more heat than the mere conductive transfer from outside air. When people say that AC costs correlate with solar power, they are pointing out that the same solar energy that increases heat gain for buildings during the bright hours also increases photovoltaic output which can be used to compensate for that heat gain.
Scarblac 4y ago
The cooling gases in ACs also leak over time, and contain very strong greenhouse gases. It's not only energy use.
- dtech 4y ago
  As far as I know, modern appliances use gasses without this problem. It also holds for fridges.
  - Scarblac 4y ago
    As far as I know, gases that cause holes in the ozone layer aren't used anymore, but they're still extremely strong greenhouse gases (recent newspaper article I read mentioned 2000x CO2).
  - sdflhasjd 4y ago
    There is a move to more environmentally friendly gasses, but the new gasses are still in the hundreds of times Co2 equivalent (Down from thousands)
    - g8oz 4y ago
      This is the move: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali_Amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali_Amendment
  - throw0101a 4y ago
    >> The cooling gases in ACs also leak over time, and contain very strong greenhouse gases. > As far as I know, modern appliances use gasses without this problem. It also holds for fridges. Completely wrong, and the exact opposite of reality. The currently-used gases are such a problem that the plan is to phase them out for new one in the upcoming years. Just do a search for "R410a phase out". > Because of the global warming potential of many HFC refrigerants, the latest amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the Kigali Amendment, has proposed to phase-down the use of refrigerants such as R-410A. The phase down is expected to begin sometime in the 2020’s. The leading replacement for R-410A refrigerant is a pure, single component refrigerant called R-32, which has one-third the global warming potential of R‑410A. * https://www.goodmanmfg.com/resources/hvac-learning-center/hvac-101/the-refrigerant-story-from-r-22-to-r-410a https://www.goodmanmfg.com/resources/hvac-learning-center/hv... One possible replacement is R-32: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difluoromethane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difluoromethane Automotive AC has already moved to HFO-1234yf (from R-134a, Freon): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene
amelius 4y ago
Doesn't thermodynamics laws say that if you want to cool something down, you need to warm some other thing up more?
- ryan93 4y ago
  Quality of HN commenters has really declined.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    I represent that remark!
- infinityio 4y ago
  From my understanding - the more significant factor in global warming is GHG emissions Sure, moving the heat outside makes the environment slightly warmer, but that's nothing compared to the significant amounts of solar energy getting trapped because you made the energy to run your a/c by burning coal or any other fossil fuel (Also - the volume of every place where you could reasonably want A/C is negligible compared to the volume of the earth's atmosphere, so that isn't as much of an issue)
- dtech 4y ago
  You have a fundamental misunderstanding of this part thermodynamics. ACs only move heat, not produce extra ignoring GHG, the process is heat-neutral.
  - CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
    It's you that has a fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy only increases, you cannot move heat without producing more. And it's not insignificant，a typical AC uses 1kWh to move 3kWh.
- kolinko 4y ago
  First of all - yes, AC heats up outside as much as it cools down inside. But the temperatures get equalised over time (the moment you open windows, or hot air gets back in through poor insulation), so the overall balance is exactly zero. But more importantly, even if we put all the energy produced by humanity into space heaters, we wouldn't be able to increase the planet's temperature by any measurable amount. To give you a sense of perspective - Humanity produces 4 TW of electricity on average at any given moment. Sun delivers at that same moment 170,000 TW of energy.
justinc-md 4y ago
It uses a lot less energy for people to live in a warm climate with air conditioning than a cold climate with heat. The US spends four times more on heating than cooling, primarily because of greater temperature differences. Responsible environmentalists should set an example for everyone else and move to an area where heat isn’t required, then they can also choose to live without air conditioning. The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer.
- NegativeLatency 4y ago
  I think the Texas grid has some other problems, possibly not the best example to prove your point https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-record-heat-wave-again-with-no-blackouts-2022-07-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-reco...
- porknubbins 4y ago
  It took me a long time to realize this I think because heating your house by 40 degrees F in the winter feels cozy and normal, while AC is loud and drippy and somehow feels unnatural even though mostly it only needs to drop 15 degrees.
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  >The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer. It could fail this summer due to insufficient capacity relative to demand. Alerts and calls for conservation have been provided starting last week, this time the lion's share of the increased risk can be attributed to air conditioning alone. This occurred for a different reason in the winter because it got so unusually cold that the nominal water content of the natural gas froze in critical places within the delivery system and the gas could not be provided to the gas-fired electrical power plants. Unprecedented electrical climate-control demand was also a factor then. When we were freezing in the dark with nothing but electrical heaters and no electricity, I didn't know how the traditional homes having natural gas connections fared. Nobody has gas lights any more but plenty still have gas heating & cooking. Natural gas is also often supposed to fuel household emergency generators, maybe they were OK to some extent. Liquified propane is a much more expensive alternative fuel gas and that's stored on site, but it could also possibly become obstructed by ice if it gets cold enough. One thing about the way natural gas burns and electricity is made. Traditionally it takes enough gas to heat 3 homes in order to produce the electricity to heat one home. Regardless of price. Not all of the energy from the gas is recovered either way, and after the electricity is delivered to the residence it is converted to heat more efficiently than gas but it's too late then to say there is a favorable comparison overall. This leaves gas heat still less environmentally detrimental compared to electrical heat when the electricity is from a gas fired plant. Pricing between these options when available can be expected to exaggerate uncertainties when comparing apples to oranges so there is that. Your pricing may vary, greatly. Then there's the traditional thing about the way electricity heats and the way it cools. Once you've got the electricity and you want to use it for temperature control, then it takes about 4 times as much electricity for an air-conditioner to make it one degree cooler than it takes for an elecric heater to make it one degree hotter. Those electric heaters are wicked efficient on an electrical kWh basis. But if you're on batteries you could easily conclude that any electric climate control is out-of-the question. The remaining math can be derived from your own personal situation, and most often it can reveal why air-conditioning was considered nothing but a luxury item for so many generations until consumption got completely out-of-control.
iso1631 4y ago
If energy was generated from wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, hydro etc then sure, knock yourself out However energy is generated by burning fossil fuels AC specifically allowed more economic activity in large areas of the world which drove more power usage which drove more AC in an increasing spiral. It's not the only energy multiplier, but cities like Dubai would not exist in anywhere near its current size and thus energy requirements without aircon, and instead economic acitivty would go to places with less energy overhead (you don't need aircon in anywhere near the same amounts in Istanbul for example)
- rayiner 4y ago
  > AC specifically allowed more economic activity in large areas of the world which drove more power usage … you say that like it’s a bad thing…
  - iso1631 4y ago
    it is without sustainable energy usage. Far better for Dubai to have retained its 1970s size and have say Karachi grow instead, same economic activity with less energy use.
- gmuslera 4y ago
  Burning fossil fuels for energy is not something that happens everywhere. There has been important investments on clean energy all around the world, there are many countries and regions that don't rely on fossil fuels for energy. If you are worried about climate change, pushing for the use of clean energy generation will achieve more than not using AC.

kolinko 4y ago

This. Also, AC needs energy during clear summer days - exactly when it’s the cheapest to deliver by PV. With minimal effect on climate.

masklinn 4y ago
An interesting side-effect although sadly not leveraged much in the US, and also little used in europe because of the stigma on AC, is that AC is a heat pump and heat pumps are reversible. It’s finally gaining in popularity, and depending on weather conditions a modern heat pump can provide heating several times more efficient than straight up burning fuel even if you’re producing electricity from that fuel. When your electricity is nuclear or hydro (or other renewables but that tends to be a bit sticky in winter) it’s manna.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  It's a travesty that A/C units in the US are not (in many cases) designed to be reversible. I mean, even if you have a gas furnace, using the heat pump when it's only mildly cold can be cheaper.
zdragnar 4y ago
This is really not true. Case in point, today where I am it will be overcast, 85*F, and very high humidity. We also get extreme cold in winter, so there's no getting around needing both AC and heating, but solar isn't a panacea. Unfortunately, hot cloudy days also don't tend to produce much wind either.
- kolinko 4y ago
  I may be wrong but isn’t this an exception, not a rule?
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    A bright sunny summer day will be hotter, but there's nothing magical about clouds that makes the need for air conditioning disappear unless you live in a desert.
    - kolinko 4y ago
      At least in my region (central Europe) cloud cover is closely correlated with temperature. As in - when clouds and rain come during summer it gets colder as well. I may be wrong here, no scientific data behind this.
- saltcured 4y ago
  The AC system is not consuming the same energy in an overcast day versus an intensely sunny day, even if the outside air temperatures are comparable. The direct radiant heating of the structure with sun exposure introduces much more heat than the mere conductive transfer from outside air. When people say that AC costs correlate with solar power, they are pointing out that the same solar energy that increases heat gain for buildings during the bright hours also increases photovoltaic output which can be used to compensate for that heat gain.

Scarblac 4y ago

The cooling gases in ACs also leak over time, and contain very strong greenhouse gases. It's not only energy use.

dtech 4y ago
As far as I know, modern appliances use gasses without this problem. It also holds for fridges.
- Scarblac 4y ago
  As far as I know, gases that cause holes in the ozone layer aren't used anymore, but they're still extremely strong greenhouse gases (recent newspaper article I read mentioned 2000x CO2).
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  There is a move to more environmentally friendly gasses, but the new gasses are still in the hundreds of times Co2 equivalent (Down from thousands)
  - g8oz 4y ago
    This is the move: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali_Amendment https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kigali_Amendment
- throw0101a 4y ago
  >> The cooling gases in ACs also leak over time, and contain very strong greenhouse gases. > As far as I know, modern appliances use gasses without this problem. It also holds for fridges. Completely wrong, and the exact opposite of reality. The currently-used gases are such a problem that the plan is to phase them out for new one in the upcoming years. Just do a search for "R410a phase out". > Because of the global warming potential of many HFC refrigerants, the latest amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the Kigali Amendment, has proposed to phase-down the use of refrigerants such as R-410A. The phase down is expected to begin sometime in the 2020’s. The leading replacement for R-410A refrigerant is a pure, single component refrigerant called R-32, which has one-third the global warming potential of R‑410A. * https://www.goodmanmfg.com/resources/hvac-learning-center/hvac-101/the-refrigerant-story-from-r-22-to-r-410a https://www.goodmanmfg.com/resources/hvac-learning-center/hv... One possible replacement is R-32: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difluoromethane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Difluoromethane Automotive AC has already moved to HFO-1234yf (from R-134a, Freon): * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2,3,3,3-Tetrafluoropropene

amelius 4y ago

Doesn't thermodynamics laws say that if you want to cool something down, you need to warm some other thing up more?

ryan93 4y ago
Quality of HN commenters has really declined.
- paulcole 4y ago
  I represent that remark!
infinityio 4y ago
From my understanding - the more significant factor in global warming is GHG emissions Sure, moving the heat outside makes the environment slightly warmer, but that's nothing compared to the significant amounts of solar energy getting trapped because you made the energy to run your a/c by burning coal or any other fossil fuel (Also - the volume of every place where you could reasonably want A/C is negligible compared to the volume of the earth's atmosphere, so that isn't as much of an issue)
dtech 4y ago
You have a fundamental misunderstanding of this part thermodynamics. ACs only move heat, not produce extra ignoring GHG, the process is heat-neutral.
- CorrectHorseBat 4y ago
  It's you that has a fundamental misunderstanding of thermodynamics. The second law of thermodynamics says that entropy only increases, you cannot move heat without producing more. And it's not insignificant，a typical AC uses 1kWh to move 3kWh.
kolinko 4y ago
First of all - yes, AC heats up outside as much as it cools down inside. But the temperatures get equalised over time (the moment you open windows, or hot air gets back in through poor insulation), so the overall balance is exactly zero. But more importantly, even if we put all the energy produced by humanity into space heaters, we wouldn't be able to increase the planet's temperature by any measurable amount. To give you a sense of perspective - Humanity produces 4 TW of electricity on average at any given moment. Sun delivers at that same moment 170,000 TW of energy.

justinc-md 4y ago

It uses a lot less energy for people to live in a warm climate with air conditioning than a cold climate with heat. The US spends four times more on heating than cooling, primarily because of greater temperature differences. Responsible environmentalists should set an example for everyone else and move to an area where heat isn’t required, then they can also choose to live without air conditioning. The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer.

NegativeLatency 4y ago
I think the Texas grid has some other problems, possibly not the best example to prove your point https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-record-heat-wave-again-with-no-blackouts-2022-07-13/ https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-reco...
porknubbins 4y ago
It took me a long time to realize this I think because heating your house by 40 degrees F in the winter feels cozy and normal, while AC is loud and drippy and somehow feels unnatural even though mostly it only needs to drop 15 degrees.
fuzzfactor 4y ago
>The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer. It could fail this summer due to insufficient capacity relative to demand. Alerts and calls for conservation have been provided starting last week, this time the lion's share of the increased risk can be attributed to air conditioning alone. This occurred for a different reason in the winter because it got so unusually cold that the nominal water content of the natural gas froze in critical places within the delivery system and the gas could not be provided to the gas-fired electrical power plants. Unprecedented electrical climate-control demand was also a factor then. When we were freezing in the dark with nothing but electrical heaters and no electricity, I didn't know how the traditional homes having natural gas connections fared. Nobody has gas lights any more but plenty still have gas heating & cooking. Natural gas is also often supposed to fuel household emergency generators, maybe they were OK to some extent. Liquified propane is a much more expensive alternative fuel gas and that's stored on site, but it could also possibly become obstructed by ice if it gets cold enough. One thing about the way natural gas burns and electricity is made. Traditionally it takes enough gas to heat 3 homes in order to produce the electricity to heat one home. Regardless of price. Not all of the energy from the gas is recovered either way, and after the electricity is delivered to the residence it is converted to heat more efficiently than gas but it's too late then to say there is a favorable comparison overall. This leaves gas heat still less environmentally detrimental compared to electrical heat when the electricity is from a gas fired plant. Pricing between these options when available can be expected to exaggerate uncertainties when comparing apples to oranges so there is that. Your pricing may vary, greatly. Then there's the traditional thing about the way electricity heats and the way it cools. Once you've got the electricity and you want to use it for temperature control, then it takes about 4 times as much electricity for an air-conditioner to make it one degree cooler than it takes for an elecric heater to make it one degree hotter. Those electric heaters are wicked efficient on an electrical kWh basis. But if you're on batteries you could easily conclude that any electric climate control is out-of-the question. The remaining math can be derived from your own personal situation, and most often it can reveal why air-conditioning was considered nothing but a luxury item for so many generations until consumption got completely out-of-control.

iso1631 4y ago

If energy was generated from wind, solar, tidal, geothermal, hydro etc then sure, knock yourself out However energy is generated by burning fossil fuels AC specifically allowed more economic activity in large areas of the world which drove more power usage which drove more AC in an increasing spiral. It's not the only energy multiplier, but cities like Dubai would not exist in anywhere near its current size and thus energy requirements without aircon, and instead economic acitivty would go to places with less energy overhead (you don't need aircon in anywhere near the same amounts in Istanbul for example)

rayiner 4y ago
> AC specifically allowed more economic activity in large areas of the world which drove more power usage … you say that like it’s a bad thing…
- iso1631 4y ago
  it is without sustainable energy usage. Far better for Dubai to have retained its 1970s size and have say Karachi grow instead, same economic activity with less energy use.
gmuslera 4y ago
Burning fossil fuels for energy is not something that happens everywhere. There has been important investments on clean energy all around the world, there are many countries and regions that don't rely on fossil fuels for energy. If you are worried about climate change, pushing for the use of clean energy generation will achieve more than not using AC.