11 ms·

"Could" is a joke. Not commuting vs commuting with respect to its impact on the climate? The resources not spent by staying home are collectively enormous.

astrodust 3y ago
Who knew millions of people not driving for hours every day could have a positive effect?
basisword 3y ago
It’s probably not this simple. A lot of people commute by public transport (that’s running anyway or running on electric), walk, or bicycle. The world is a big place. Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes. I don’t know one way or the other, likely neither do you. Making big pronouncements (or deciding huge societal norms like where work) because climate change is probably not a good idea.
- NickM 3y ago
  Well, I was with you until that last sentence.
- thatfrenchguy 3y ago
  You must not have heard how, apparently, most Americans do not turn off (or down) the heat / A/C when they're not home. It's pretty crazy yet is a real thing!
  - Der_Einzige 3y ago
    A lot of those Americans have pets. Many of those pets (i.e. a husky) need climate control 24/7.
    - lostlogin 3y ago
      Do they though? If it’s hot, sure, but they seem able to tolerate temperatures of -50 centigrade, and sleep outside at the South Pole.
      - goatlover 3y ago
        What pets can survive sleeping outside in Antartica?
        jenscow 3y ago
        goldfish?
        lostlogin 3y ago
        The husky. They had kennels but they didn’t have doors or anything. They would nap in the snow and let it pile up to keep them warm. https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/dogs_huskies.php https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wild... https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hut-shackleton-antarctic.html?sortBy=relevant https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hut-shackleton-antarctic.h...
    - drno123 3y ago
      So to save environment we should ban pets
      - ilyt 3y ago
        Shooting you would be far preferable to getting rid of my pets.
  - sigstoat 3y ago
    considering the mass of a home, what’s the efficiency difference between letting the temperature stay in uncontrolled for 8+ hours and then trying to rein it in quickly vs just keeping it in place the whole time? remember to account for wear and tear on the relevant HVAC equipment.
    - gruez 3y ago
      >considering the mass of a home, what’s the efficiency difference between letting the temperature stay in uncontrolled for 8+ hours and then trying to rein it in quickly vs just keeping it in place the whole time? The energy lost from your home to the environment is dependent on the temperature difference. A warmer house (during the summer) loses less energy than a house that's cooled the entire time. Therefore at least from a pure energy use perspective, it's always cheaper to only turn on the system when you actually need it (ie. when you get home) than trying to maintain the same temperature. >remember to account for wear and tear on the relevant HVAC equipment. Without an accurate wear/tear model of HVAC equipment this can easily go either way. You could argue that having the equipment run for longer cycles shortens life because it has to work "harder", but you could also argue the opposite because most of the wear originates from the system starting/stopping and/or thermal stress from it being on/off.
  - WirelessGigabit 3y ago
    Isn't that... normal? I want to come home in a comfortable house. My parents used to do that. Turn off all heating. Come home, it's cold outside, cold inside and you have to wait until the radiators start to heat up. That takes a while. But it worked, radiators can heat up a room quite fast. On the other hand, if we consider heating with a heat-pump, or cooling with a heat-pump (i.e. just a normal AC) they rely on continuously heating up (or cooling down) air (or water in the case of an air-to-water or water-to-water heat-pump). So you just can NOT quickly change the temperature in a room. So I leave the AC on 78 all day. If I go away for a couple of days I'll set it to 85, but anything higher than that is not recommended.
    - gruez 3y ago
      This is a non-issue with Nest thermostats (and maybe other brands as well). They have a pre-heating/cooling feature which figures out how long it takes for your heating system to get up to temp, and starts heating/cooling early so it can reach the target temp by the scheduled time (eg. when you get home).
  - Larrikin 3y ago
    If you haven't run the numbers you could in fact be wasting more electricity by fully turning off your system when you aren't home. Depending on your home, system (central air versus room unit), how long you are away, climate, and temperature preferences it can often make sense to leave your AC or heating on at a different temperature versus fully shutting it off. Having your home heat up to 90 degrees while you're doing some weekend errands only to crank the AC to cool it back down to 70 to 75 will often times use more electricity than if you just set the AC to 80 while you were gone.
    - andruby 3y ago
      > If you haven't run the numbers you could in fact be wasting more electricity by fully turning off your system when you aren't home I've seen similar statements a few times, even in this HN thread. Most articles just repeat the statement without showing any numbers. This article does show numbers and the graphs. From the article: > What we found was that even when the A/C temporarily spikes to recover from the higher indoor temperatures, the overall energy consumption in the setback cases is still less than when maintaining a constant temperature throughout the day. Full data on https://theconversation.com/does-turning-the-air-conditioning-off-when-youre-not-home-actually-save-energy-three-engineers-run-the-numbers-188694 https://theconversation.com/does-turning-the-air-conditionin...
      - Larrikin 3y ago
        Digging into the article, it's a hypothetical home and they are only testing fully off versus ideal temperature blasting. I don't think it's always true, which is why I listed the factors that can influence it. But I am also getting into home automation and just watched a video where some one ran through the numbers on their specific house after getting electricity monitoring connected to their heating and Home Assistant. It's not that clear cut and really depends on your specific home. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8NRC1XrrA https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8NRC1XrrA
        tadfisher 3y ago
        I don't see how this could be possible, because it should always cost more energy to maintain a higher temperature gradient, assuming a non-zero R-value. If there are other factors you're optimizing for, such as energy cost rather than overall usage, then I could see how avoiding peak pricing could net savings in cost, but the laws of thermodynamics are pretty absolute if you're optimizing for energy consumption.
  - snickerbockers 3y ago
    I actually got an e-mail from my apartment manager telling us not to do that because supposedly the A/C uses more power to cool down the room by a few degrees every evening than it would've spent to keep it at that temperature all day. although personally i disregarded that because eight years of living in overpriced CA apartments that were built during the kennedy administration has conditioned (no pun intended) me to feel more comfortable with the AC off.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      I'd imagine that has more to do with price of power than absolute amount.
  - vsareto 3y ago
    I've always been told it was cheaper to maintain than to cycle on/off within a day as long as the insulation is decent and you aren't trying to get to 60F during 100F weather. My guess is that comes from a belief that the units work inefficiently to get the temp down as fast as possible when turned on, but work more efficiently to maintain a temp, but I have no idea if that's true.
    - ilyt 3y ago
      If anything it should be less efficient the colder you go. Cold house running during middle of hot day should be lowest efficiency during the day
  - Rayhem 3y ago
    Every apartment I've ever rented has had a barebones, one-temperature, set it and forget it thermostat. I would fully support legislation requiring a minimally-programmable thermostat in rental housing.
    - housemusicfan 3y ago
      I don't understand. What stops you from changing it yourself and swapping it back when you move out? And you're ready to propose more legislation. Most programmable thermostats need batteries, which now have to be changed on a maintenance schedule. One more task for the superintendent. These batteries often fail without warning. Which means pipes can freeze, leading to property damage. Most homeowners don't even know they have batteries till the heat stops working and they call the HVAC guy.
      - supertrope 3y ago
        Shady property managers consider security deposits an additional revenue stream and will cite any minuscule damage as reason for forfeiting it. For example they'll cite a need for "professional carpet cleaning" that coincidentally costs as much as the deposit, and then just pocket the money without delivering clean carpets for the next resident. When property management does not pay the utility bill they will furnish apartments with the cheapest energy hog appliances. When they do pay the utility bill they will lock the thermostat. If you select an premium apartment and the market is not tilted in favor of landlords as it is in most cities then they tend to care about the customer experience. Since they're making their margin on the higher rent already and they know too much BS will lead to people switching away.
  - housemusicfan 3y ago
    We could likewise list off plenty of stereotypes about the French too, but I thought we're above that here. Oh those dumb stupid Americans, like Willis Carrier.
  - mantas 3y ago
    It's not crazy at all. For example my house has floor heating. It takes a looong time for that slab of concrete to cool down. There's no point at all to mess with the temperature for a short time.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Here is an article[1] which cites Logan Kureczka, lead communications consultant at Duke Energy in North Carolina: "If you're just leaving home for the day, it's more energy efficient to keep your air conditioning turned on – but turn it a few degrees higher than you might set it for comfort if you were at home." This seems pretty legit. I also remember getting similar tips from PG&E here in California. Do you have any citations as to why turning off AC/heater is better than leaving them on when we leave home? [1] https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/should-turn-ac-up.htm https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/should-turn-ac-u...
    - ilyt 3y ago
      There doesn't appear to be any actually sensible evidence in the article? > I also remember getting similar tips from PG&E here in California. Company that sells you energy telling you to not stop consuming energy... Aside from that, I'd imagine they also want to limit power usage spikes. Everyone coming back from the weekend then running AC on the full blast just consumes a lot of power. Our office was actually given same advice (just leave AC running over weekend) but it was explicitly said it was to avoid power usage spikes, as cooling back down space that big just takes a lot of power for a long time. There might be some truth about saving money, if say the rate for power when you'd be turning AC back on is high, vs having that spread over lower rates, but certainly not kWh, at least not if you go out for a whole day or two. > Do you have any citations as to why turning off AC/heater is better than leaving them on when we leave home? Basics of thermodynamics ? I think easiest comparison would be boiling water. What makes more sense, to turn off a pot of boiling water after making tea, or to keep it running till you want next cup of tea? You can keep it running to get the next tea instantly ready, or turn it off to not. It's the same for AC. Turning it off saves power, but it will take longer to get back to the cold state) You need to keep moving energy (whether heating or cooling) to/from the system to keep it at temperature different than ambient. The bigger the difference, the more energy needs to be moved. Keeping AC on constantly is like keeping a pot boiling, you need to pump that energy constantly. Turning it off means that you stop, and while yes, you have to dump more power to get back to the desired temperature, you save all that power that you'd need to use to keep it at previous temp.
- rwmj 3y ago
  It says in the article: "Ty Colman, a cofounder and the chief revenue officer at Optera, a carbon-accounting firm that helps organizations quantify their emissions, said that in general, a fully remote company with no offices has the lowest impact-per-employee per year, at less than 1 metric ton of carbon-dioxide equivalent. That includes the uptick in energy used to power computers, keep the lights on, and maintain a comfortable temperature at home." (versus 1.4 tons for hybrid and 1.7 tons for full time in the office). There's quite a lot more about the effects on the environment in the article.
  - NickM 3y ago
    I wonder if it also factors in travel for remote employees though. Every fully remote company I’ve ever worked for has had regular in-person meetups where people fly to some central location a few times a year.
    - gruez 3y ago
      Given that a one-way flight from seattle to san francisco generates ~0.1t of CO2, and a flight from new york generates around 0.35. One or two meetups can easily blow away those savings.
    - jameshart 3y ago
      And every office-based company I've ever worked for has had regular travel to shuttle people between offices or send teams to offsites. I'm not sure there are massive differences in travel in remote companies - although maybe there should be.
      - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
        I guess you've only worked for big companies. Smaller ones only have one office.
        jameshart 3y ago
        Small companies are, indeed, small.
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >A lot of people commute by public transport (that’s running anyway or running on electric), walk, or bicycle. Do you think people riding public transit pollute more or less than people who don't commute at all?
  - gruez 3y ago
    That's addressed in the sentence immediately following that quote >Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes.
    - postmodest 3y ago
      It's almost as if the drive to end fossil fuel use and build vast mixed-use Arcologies at the end of the 70's were good ideas that conservative politicians overturned and here we are in the hell they made for us, trying to fend off their rabid supporters.
      - goatlover 3y ago
        Conservative politicians ended those in urban areas, which largely votes liberal? Is this US conservative or world-wide? Because the meaning of conservative varies.
    - solarpunk 3y ago
      people cool and heat their homes when they go home though.
    - VectorLock 3y ago
      Heating and cooling office buildings AND heating and cooling homes is less efficient than just heating and cooling homes. Many people aren't stopping heating/cooling their homes when they leave, or just reduce it, or don't do it at all since there are still other people in the home.
    - thefz 3y ago
      IDK about you, but in temperate middle Europe if you don't heat your house at least some when it's empty, Oct-Apr, you are going to spend way more to get it at 19-20°C when you come back. Not to mention the pipes risk exploding if you let it go close 0°.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- snickerbockers 3y ago
  >Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes On the flipside, how many people even have climate-controlled homes year-round? When I used to live in California, air-conditioning was a rare and valuable treasure in a $3k/month apartment. I think I've heard euros claim they don't have air conditioning, too.
  - vladvasiliu 3y ago
    > I think I've heard euros claim they don't have air conditioning, too. This. I don't know about Italy, Spain, and the like, but here in Paris, people mostly don't have A/C in their homes, but basically every office does. So yeah, carting people to the office and back consumes energy, then you have to consume some more to keep them cool. Bonus points for an impossible number of people burning gas in their cars while waiting around on gridlocked highways and polluting the air. At least public transit uses (mostly) nuclear power here.
  - btilly 3y ago
    Depends where you live. In Southern California, air conditioning is extremely common. Either central or window units. Go up to the Bay area, and I'd think it was fairly rare.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > When I used to live in California, air-conditioning was a rare and valuable treasure in a $3k/month apartment. In the mild climates of the Bay Area and similar places, sure, but not, at least in the last half century or so, in the LA Basin and the Central Valley.
- Solvency 3y ago
  Ah, so every available inch of asphalt in every single freeway in LA being 100% occupied by personal cars at every hour of the day is just an illusion?
- NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
  Even public transport can cut back schedules if there is that much less riding going on. While there's less to be saved there, we shouldn't act as if that's for free. Heating/AC might be the only area where energy consumption isn't reduced by WFH. If we don't decide social norms by what we consider to be pragmatism, how the hell do we decide them at all? I'm not a big believer in climate change, but when people are driving less, the price of gasoline tends to go down even as I need less of it myself. I can get behind that. The idea that people must work in the office, even when no one can articulate why that's a good idea, is some obscure form of lunacy that is transmitted by being bitten by rabid upper management.
  - jwells89 3y ago
    The other thing about public transport is that it is, generally speaking, more practical to switch to renewable power. Yes there's plenty of red tape to wade through to get any kind of infrastructure work done, but even factoring that in, a project like converting a commuter rail network to solar-powered electric is achievable on a dramatically shorter timetable than elimination of fossil-fueled cars and trucks. So while the impact of a public transport user is higher than someone staying at home, it's still smaller than that of someone driving to work each day and has greater potential for being shrunk in short order.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      Even renewable power isn't magical. When they switch buses or trains over to electric, they have to build a new vehicle... the processes of manufacturing them aren't 100% renewable. No one's exactly making renewable steel. When they have to repair a road for the buses to ride around on, that concrete puts CO2 in the air as well. If they need fewer because of WFH, they build fewer. WFH is a net win, if you care about this stuff. And, it turns out, it's a net win even if you don't. Might want to pull your money out of commercial real estate if you have any of that though.
      - jwells89 3y ago
        Of course, it's part of why I'm a big proponent of WFH. There will always be some number of people who can't do that though, and so I think it's also important to shrink public transit footprints as much as practically possible.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > I don’t know one way or the other, likely neither do you. Basic physics shows that energy = force * distance = mass * acceleration * distance. So moving more mass, further distances uses more energy than not, especially via the personal cars that are used in the US.
- alphaomegacode 3y ago
  Various bodies that track worldwide congestion/traffic show traffic trending upwards for years now. Of course not counting the CoVid year(s) but afterwards, it has been on an upwards trend. Even in "less developed" areas in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa the trends are to greater congestion and the associated lost time, deaths, increased pollution and lower quality of life. https://inrix.com/blog/2022-traffic-scorecard/ https://inrix.com/blog/2022-traffic-scorecard/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/road-congestion-levels-in-outer-london-higher-than-before-lockdown https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/road-con... https://www.itdp.org/2021/03/22/the-next-pandemic-surge-traffic/ https://www.itdp.org/2021/03/22/the-next-pandemic-surge-traf...
- whycombagator 3y ago
  > Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes That might be true but doesn’t this assume that people stop heating/cooling their homes whilst they are at work?
- tcfunk 3y ago
  Do people actually stop heating/cooling their homes while at work?
  - gambiting 3y ago
    Do people not??
    - tcfunk 3y ago
      Definitely not. And even less so during winter months I would guess. Add to that many apartment buildings share utility cost across the unit so there’s even less incentive.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    I used to, but I got sick of coming home mentally exhausted, just to get to “rest” in a 90 degree room.
- FredPret 3y ago
  This fundamentally does not make sense. - public transport does not run "anyway". If no-one goes on a route, any sane transit system will schedule less frequent services - heating a big building may be more efficient than a house, but isn't it really dumb to heat it efficiently if you don't have to heat it at all? It's not like people can switch off 100% of their home climate control when they go to the office. Likewise, the building is likely kept in a certain temperature range 24/7.
Aunche 3y ago
At least in my local bubble in NYC, people working from home as consuming more fossil fuels. They're moving to the suburbs, buying a car, or flying around the world as digital nomads. Obviously, it's not representative most office workers who already live in the suburbs.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ilyt 3y ago
  Putting solar on home can at least offset part of that usage.
thefz 3y ago
If I commute to the office, I need to heat the office and my apartment so it's not freezing when I return. If I work from home, I just need to heat my tiny home. And I pay for all the electricity so I care about waste. And there's no commuting, no lunch rush hour, and other car related emissions
RestlessMind 3y ago
You are assuming that a fully remote worker stays in the same house as a commuter. Lots of HN posts say one of the benefits of remote work is that you can move anywhere and afford a nice big house on your engineer's salary. I would like to see a study on the average house size of commuters vs remote workers, but my gut says if people can work from anywhere, they would purchase bigger houses in cheaper location and increase their impact on the climate.
- eldaisfish 3y ago
  This is a good point but it makes you wonder - when the majority of the world’s population is urban, what percentage of them would move to rural areas if offered the choice? What i see as more likely is people moving o suburbs. Suburbs, especially north american ones, are terrible for the environment and city finances.
  - RestlessMind 3y ago
    Agreed. In fact now that I am trying hard to recollect posts describing an ideal remote work setup, every single one of them advocated for a separate room for your home-office.

astrodust 3y ago

Who knew millions of people not driving for hours every day could have a positive effect?

basisword 3y ago

It’s probably not this simple. A lot of people commute by public transport (that’s running anyway or running on electric), walk, or bicycle. The world is a big place. Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes. I don’t know one way or the other, likely neither do you. Making big pronouncements (or deciding huge societal norms like where work) because climate change is probably not a good idea.

NickM 3y ago
Well, I was with you until that last sentence.
thatfrenchguy 3y ago
You must not have heard how, apparently, most Americans do not turn off (or down) the heat / A/C when they're not home. It's pretty crazy yet is a real thing!
- Der_Einzige 3y ago
  A lot of those Americans have pets. Many of those pets (i.e. a husky) need climate control 24/7.
  - lostlogin 3y ago
    Do they though? If it’s hot, sure, but they seem able to tolerate temperatures of -50 centigrade, and sleep outside at the South Pole.
    - goatlover 3y ago
      What pets can survive sleeping outside in Antartica?
      - jenscow 3y ago
        goldfish?
      - lostlogin 3y ago
        The husky. They had kennels but they didn’t have doors or anything. They would nap in the snow and let it pile up to keep them warm. https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wildlife/dogs_huskies.php https://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/wild... https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hut-shackleton-antarctic.html?sortBy=relevant https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo/hut-shackleton-antarctic.h...
  - drno123 3y ago
    So to save environment we should ban pets
    - ilyt 3y ago
      Shooting you would be far preferable to getting rid of my pets.
- sigstoat 3y ago
  considering the mass of a home, what’s the efficiency difference between letting the temperature stay in uncontrolled for 8+ hours and then trying to rein it in quickly vs just keeping it in place the whole time? remember to account for wear and tear on the relevant HVAC equipment.
  - gruez 3y ago
    >considering the mass of a home, what’s the efficiency difference between letting the temperature stay in uncontrolled for 8+ hours and then trying to rein it in quickly vs just keeping it in place the whole time? The energy lost from your home to the environment is dependent on the temperature difference. A warmer house (during the summer) loses less energy than a house that's cooled the entire time. Therefore at least from a pure energy use perspective, it's always cheaper to only turn on the system when you actually need it (ie. when you get home) than trying to maintain the same temperature. >remember to account for wear and tear on the relevant HVAC equipment. Without an accurate wear/tear model of HVAC equipment this can easily go either way. You could argue that having the equipment run for longer cycles shortens life because it has to work "harder", but you could also argue the opposite because most of the wear originates from the system starting/stopping and/or thermal stress from it being on/off.
- WirelessGigabit 3y ago
  Isn't that... normal? I want to come home in a comfortable house. My parents used to do that. Turn off all heating. Come home, it's cold outside, cold inside and you have to wait until the radiators start to heat up. That takes a while. But it worked, radiators can heat up a room quite fast. On the other hand, if we consider heating with a heat-pump, or cooling with a heat-pump (i.e. just a normal AC) they rely on continuously heating up (or cooling down) air (or water in the case of an air-to-water or water-to-water heat-pump). So you just can NOT quickly change the temperature in a room. So I leave the AC on 78 all day. If I go away for a couple of days I'll set it to 85, but anything higher than that is not recommended.
  - gruez 3y ago
    This is a non-issue with Nest thermostats (and maybe other brands as well). They have a pre-heating/cooling feature which figures out how long it takes for your heating system to get up to temp, and starts heating/cooling early so it can reach the target temp by the scheduled time (eg. when you get home).
- Larrikin 3y ago
  If you haven't run the numbers you could in fact be wasting more electricity by fully turning off your system when you aren't home. Depending on your home, system (central air versus room unit), how long you are away, climate, and temperature preferences it can often make sense to leave your AC or heating on at a different temperature versus fully shutting it off. Having your home heat up to 90 degrees while you're doing some weekend errands only to crank the AC to cool it back down to 70 to 75 will often times use more electricity than if you just set the AC to 80 while you were gone.
  - andruby 3y ago
    > If you haven't run the numbers you could in fact be wasting more electricity by fully turning off your system when you aren't home I've seen similar statements a few times, even in this HN thread. Most articles just repeat the statement without showing any numbers. This article does show numbers and the graphs. From the article: > What we found was that even when the A/C temporarily spikes to recover from the higher indoor temperatures, the overall energy consumption in the setback cases is still less than when maintaining a constant temperature throughout the day. Full data on https://theconversation.com/does-turning-the-air-conditioning-off-when-youre-not-home-actually-save-energy-three-engineers-run-the-numbers-188694 https://theconversation.com/does-turning-the-air-conditionin...
    - Larrikin 3y ago
      Digging into the article, it's a hypothetical home and they are only testing fully off versus ideal temperature blasting. I don't think it's always true, which is why I listed the factors that can influence it. But I am also getting into home automation and just watched a video where some one ran through the numbers on their specific house after getting electricity monitoring connected to their heating and Home Assistant. It's not that clear cut and really depends on your specific home. https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8NRC1XrrA https://youtube.com/watch?v=Dn8NRC1XrrA
      - tadfisher 3y ago
        I don't see how this could be possible, because it should always cost more energy to maintain a higher temperature gradient, assuming a non-zero R-value. If there are other factors you're optimizing for, such as energy cost rather than overall usage, then I could see how avoiding peak pricing could net savings in cost, but the laws of thermodynamics are pretty absolute if you're optimizing for energy consumption.
- snickerbockers 3y ago
  I actually got an e-mail from my apartment manager telling us not to do that because supposedly the A/C uses more power to cool down the room by a few degrees every evening than it would've spent to keep it at that temperature all day. although personally i disregarded that because eight years of living in overpriced CA apartments that were built during the kennedy administration has conditioned (no pun intended) me to feel more comfortable with the AC off.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    I'd imagine that has more to do with price of power than absolute amount.
- vsareto 3y ago
  I've always been told it was cheaper to maintain than to cycle on/off within a day as long as the insulation is decent and you aren't trying to get to 60F during 100F weather. My guess is that comes from a belief that the units work inefficiently to get the temp down as fast as possible when turned on, but work more efficiently to maintain a temp, but I have no idea if that's true.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    If anything it should be less efficient the colder you go. Cold house running during middle of hot day should be lowest efficiency during the day
- Rayhem 3y ago
  Every apartment I've ever rented has had a barebones, one-temperature, set it and forget it thermostat. I would fully support legislation requiring a minimally-programmable thermostat in rental housing.
  - housemusicfan 3y ago
    I don't understand. What stops you from changing it yourself and swapping it back when you move out? And you're ready to propose more legislation. Most programmable thermostats need batteries, which now have to be changed on a maintenance schedule. One more task for the superintendent. These batteries often fail without warning. Which means pipes can freeze, leading to property damage. Most homeowners don't even know they have batteries till the heat stops working and they call the HVAC guy.
    - supertrope 3y ago
      Shady property managers consider security deposits an additional revenue stream and will cite any minuscule damage as reason for forfeiting it. For example they'll cite a need for "professional carpet cleaning" that coincidentally costs as much as the deposit, and then just pocket the money without delivering clean carpets for the next resident. When property management does not pay the utility bill they will furnish apartments with the cheapest energy hog appliances. When they do pay the utility bill they will lock the thermostat. If you select an premium apartment and the market is not tilted in favor of landlords as it is in most cities then they tend to care about the customer experience. Since they're making their margin on the higher rent already and they know too much BS will lead to people switching away.
- housemusicfan 3y ago
  We could likewise list off plenty of stereotypes about the French too, but I thought we're above that here. Oh those dumb stupid Americans, like Willis Carrier.
- mantas 3y ago
  It's not crazy at all. For example my house has floor heating. It takes a looong time for that slab of concrete to cool down. There's no point at all to mess with the temperature for a short time.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Here is an article[1] which cites Logan Kureczka, lead communications consultant at Duke Energy in North Carolina: "If you're just leaving home for the day, it's more energy efficient to keep your air conditioning turned on – but turn it a few degrees higher than you might set it for comfort if you were at home." This seems pretty legit. I also remember getting similar tips from PG&E here in California. Do you have any citations as to why turning off AC/heater is better than leaving them on when we leave home? [1] https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/should-turn-ac-up.htm https://home.howstuffworks.com/green-living/should-turn-ac-u...
  - ilyt 3y ago
    There doesn't appear to be any actually sensible evidence in the article? > I also remember getting similar tips from PG&E here in California. Company that sells you energy telling you to not stop consuming energy... Aside from that, I'd imagine they also want to limit power usage spikes. Everyone coming back from the weekend then running AC on the full blast just consumes a lot of power. Our office was actually given same advice (just leave AC running over weekend) but it was explicitly said it was to avoid power usage spikes, as cooling back down space that big just takes a lot of power for a long time. There might be some truth about saving money, if say the rate for power when you'd be turning AC back on is high, vs having that spread over lower rates, but certainly not kWh, at least not if you go out for a whole day or two. > Do you have any citations as to why turning off AC/heater is better than leaving them on when we leave home? Basics of thermodynamics ? I think easiest comparison would be boiling water. What makes more sense, to turn off a pot of boiling water after making tea, or to keep it running till you want next cup of tea? You can keep it running to get the next tea instantly ready, or turn it off to not. It's the same for AC. Turning it off saves power, but it will take longer to get back to the cold state) You need to keep moving energy (whether heating or cooling) to/from the system to keep it at temperature different than ambient. The bigger the difference, the more energy needs to be moved. Keeping AC on constantly is like keeping a pot boiling, you need to pump that energy constantly. Turning it off means that you stop, and while yes, you have to dump more power to get back to the desired temperature, you save all that power that you'd need to use to keep it at previous temp.
rwmj 3y ago
It says in the article: "Ty Colman, a cofounder and the chief revenue officer at Optera, a carbon-accounting firm that helps organizations quantify their emissions, said that in general, a fully remote company with no offices has the lowest impact-per-employee per year, at less than 1 metric ton of carbon-dioxide equivalent. That includes the uptick in energy used to power computers, keep the lights on, and maintain a comfortable temperature at home." (versus 1.4 tons for hybrid and 1.7 tons for full time in the office). There's quite a lot more about the effects on the environment in the article.
- NickM 3y ago
  I wonder if it also factors in travel for remote employees though. Every fully remote company I’ve ever worked for has had regular in-person meetups where people fly to some central location a few times a year.
  - gruez 3y ago
    Given that a one-way flight from seattle to san francisco generates ~0.1t of CO2, and a flight from new york generates around 0.35. One or two meetups can easily blow away those savings.
  - jameshart 3y ago
    And every office-based company I've ever worked for has had regular travel to shuttle people between offices or send teams to offsites. I'm not sure there are massive differences in travel in remote companies - although maybe there should be.
    - Wowfunhappy 3y ago
      I guess you've only worked for big companies. Smaller ones only have one office.
      - jameshart 3y ago
        Small companies are, indeed, small.
itsoktocry 3y ago
>A lot of people commute by public transport (that’s running anyway or running on electric), walk, or bicycle. Do you think people riding public transit pollute more or less than people who don't commute at all?
- gruez 3y ago
  That's addressed in the sentence immediately following that quote >Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes.
  - postmodest 3y ago
    It's almost as if the drive to end fossil fuel use and build vast mixed-use Arcologies at the end of the 70's were good ideas that conservative politicians overturned and here we are in the hell they made for us, trying to fend off their rabid supporters.
    - goatlover 3y ago
      Conservative politicians ended those in urban areas, which largely votes liberal? Is this US conservative or world-wide? Because the meaning of conservative varies.
  - solarpunk 3y ago
    people cool and heat their homes when they go home though.
  - VectorLock 3y ago
    Heating and cooling office buildings AND heating and cooling homes is less efficient than just heating and cooling homes. Many people aren't stopping heating/cooling their homes when they leave, or just reduce it, or don't do it at all since there are still other people in the home.
  - thefz 3y ago
    IDK about you, but in temperate middle Europe if you don't heat your house at least some when it's empty, Oct-Apr, you are going to spend way more to get it at 19-20°C when you come back. Not to mention the pipes risk exploding if you let it go close 0°.
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snickerbockers 3y ago
>Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes On the flipside, how many people even have climate-controlled homes year-round? When I used to live in California, air-conditioning was a rare and valuable treasure in a $3k/month apartment. I think I've heard euros claim they don't have air conditioning, too.
- vladvasiliu 3y ago
  > I think I've heard euros claim they don't have air conditioning, too. This. I don't know about Italy, Spain, and the like, but here in Paris, people mostly don't have A/C in their homes, but basically every office does. So yeah, carting people to the office and back consumes energy, then you have to consume some more to keep them cool. Bonus points for an impossible number of people burning gas in their cars while waiting around on gridlocked highways and polluting the air. At least public transit uses (mostly) nuclear power here.
- btilly 3y ago
  Depends where you live. In Southern California, air conditioning is extremely common. Either central or window units. Go up to the Bay area, and I'd think it was fairly rare.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > When I used to live in California, air-conditioning was a rare and valuable treasure in a $3k/month apartment. In the mild climates of the Bay Area and similar places, sure, but not, at least in the last half century or so, in the LA Basin and the Central Valley.
Solvency 3y ago
Ah, so every available inch of asphalt in every single freeway in LA being 100% occupied by personal cars at every hour of the day is just an illusion?
NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
Even public transport can cut back schedules if there is that much less riding going on. While there's less to be saved there, we shouldn't act as if that's for free. Heating/AC might be the only area where energy consumption isn't reduced by WFH. If we don't decide social norms by what we consider to be pragmatism, how the hell do we decide them at all? I'm not a big believer in climate change, but when people are driving less, the price of gasoline tends to go down even as I need less of it myself. I can get behind that. The idea that people must work in the office, even when no one can articulate why that's a good idea, is some obscure form of lunacy that is transmitted by being bitten by rabid upper management.
- jwells89 3y ago
  The other thing about public transport is that it is, generally speaking, more practical to switch to renewable power. Yes there's plenty of red tape to wade through to get any kind of infrastructure work done, but even factoring that in, a project like converting a commuter rail network to solar-powered electric is achievable on a dramatically shorter timetable than elimination of fossil-fueled cars and trucks. So while the impact of a public transport user is higher than someone staying at home, it's still smaller than that of someone driving to work each day and has greater potential for being shrunk in short order.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
    Even renewable power isn't magical. When they switch buses or trains over to electric, they have to build a new vehicle... the processes of manufacturing them aren't 100% renewable. No one's exactly making renewable steel. When they have to repair a road for the buses to ride around on, that concrete puts CO2 in the air as well. If they need fewer because of WFH, they build fewer. WFH is a net win, if you care about this stuff. And, it turns out, it's a net win even if you don't. Might want to pull your money out of commercial real estate if you have any of that though.
    - jwells89 3y ago
      Of course, it's part of why I'm a big proponent of WFH. There will always be some number of people who can't do that though, and so I think it's also important to shrink public transit footprints as much as practically possible.
lotsofpulp 3y ago
> I don’t know one way or the other, likely neither do you. Basic physics shows that energy = force * distance = mass * acceleration * distance. So moving more mass, further distances uses more energy than not, especially via the personal cars that are used in the US.
alphaomegacode 3y ago
Various bodies that track worldwide congestion/traffic show traffic trending upwards for years now. Of course not counting the CoVid year(s) but afterwards, it has been on an upwards trend. Even in "less developed" areas in the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa the trends are to greater congestion and the associated lost time, deaths, increased pollution and lower quality of life. https://inrix.com/blog/2022-traffic-scorecard/ https://inrix.com/blog/2022-traffic-scorecard/ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/road-congestion-levels-in-outer-london-higher-than-before-lockdown https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/15/road-con... https://www.itdp.org/2021/03/22/the-next-pandemic-surge-traffic/ https://www.itdp.org/2021/03/22/the-next-pandemic-surge-traf...
whycombagator 3y ago
> Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes That might be true but doesn’t this assume that people stop heating/cooling their homes whilst they are at work?
tcfunk 3y ago
Do people actually stop heating/cooling their homes while at work?
- gambiting 3y ago
  Do people not??
  - tcfunk 3y ago
    Definitely not. And even less so during winter months I would guess. Add to that many apartment buildings share utility cost across the unit so there’s even less incentive.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  I used to, but I got sick of coming home mentally exhausted, just to get to “rest” in a 90 degree room.
FredPret 3y ago
This fundamentally does not make sense. - public transport does not run "anyway". If no-one goes on a route, any sane transit system will schedule less frequent services - heating a big building may be more efficient than a house, but isn't it really dumb to heat it efficiently if you don't have to heat it at all? It's not like people can switch off 100% of their home climate control when they go to the office. Likewise, the building is likely kept in a certain temperature range 24/7.

Aunche 3y ago

At least in my local bubble in NYC, people working from home as consuming more fossil fuels. They're moving to the suburbs, buying a car, or flying around the world as digital nomads. Obviously, it's not representative most office workers who already live in the suburbs.

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ilyt 3y ago
Putting solar on home can at least offset part of that usage.

thefz 3y ago

If I commute to the office, I need to heat the office and my apartment so it's not freezing when I return. If I work from home, I just need to heat my tiny home. And I pay for all the electricity so I care about waste. And there's no commuting, no lunch rush hour, and other car related emissions

RestlessMind 3y ago

You are assuming that a fully remote worker stays in the same house as a commuter. Lots of HN posts say one of the benefits of remote work is that you can move anywhere and afford a nice big house on your engineer's salary. I would like to see a study on the average house size of commuters vs remote workers, but my gut says if people can work from anywhere, they would purchase bigger houses in cheaper location and increase their impact on the climate.

eldaisfish 3y ago
This is a good point but it makes you wonder - when the majority of the world’s population is urban, what percentage of them would move to rural areas if offered the choice? What i see as more likely is people moving o suburbs. Suburbs, especially north american ones, are terrible for the environment and city finances.
- RestlessMind 3y ago
  Agreed. In fact now that I am trying hard to recollect posts describing an ideal remote work setup, every single one of them advocated for a separate room for your home-office.