4 ms·
On average, a human is a 100W heat source. It is much easier to insulate against excess loss to a cold environment than to refrigerate it in a hot environment.
by dsr_ 4y ago
On average, a human is a 100W heat source. It is much easier to insulate against excess loss to a cold environment than to refrigerate it in a hot environment.
- kortilla 4y agoThis is true, but the meta point is wrong. It’s far less energy to air condition 110F down to 80F than to go from 0F up to 65F. The energy required in cold climates for heating is far far greater than what it takes to air condition in our hot environments.
- dsr_ 4y agoIf you were in the vacuum of space, you would be correct. You are not trying to bring an insulated apartment-sized block of space on the ISS up from 0 to 65 or down from 110 to 80. You are trying to change the temperature in an insulated apartment-sized block of space in an effectively infinite ambient environment which is either 0 or 110, while one or more 100W heaters is moving around in it. There's conduction and radiation and convection, all helping out or hindering.
- kortilla 4y agoI’m talking about real world energy usage. It takes far more energy to heat Minneapolis, Boston, New York, etc than it does to air condition Southern California cities, Vegas, Phoenix, Tucson, etc. The only reason the grid doesn’t struggle in the winter is because many of those heat sources are not electric (wood pellets, gas furnaces, boilers, heating oil, etc). People don’t live in perfectly insulated boxes and even the best insulation that is actually livable (doesn’t suffocate you) will let through more than the 10MJ a person gives off through the course of the day. For context, a plug-in space heater is 1500 watts and that struggles to maintain the heat in a well-insulated 300 sq ft shop when it’s under 40F. Humans shouldn’t be living in the cold if you care about energy consumption. It’s just so normalized and we figured out how to burn wood so long ago that nobody thinks twice about it.