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The more people install air conditioning the more energy we use, warming up the world even more, requiring even more AC units to be activated.

rjmunro 1y ago
In terms of energy supply, air conditioning works pretty well with solar power. Normally hot days and sunny days are very correlated. If you are worried about the local heat generated by the air conditioners themselves, there are new coatings and panels that can radiate that heat directly to space, for example https://www.skycoolsystems.com/ https://www.skycoolsystems.com/. Also just removing a few parking spaces and replacing them with green space can help at a city wide level.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  Yep, in an ideal world solar makes it not so bad and we're transitioning there. But my country (the Netherlands) is still about 50% powered by dirty sources and the energy transition is happening too slowly to avert the climate crisis, so let's not wave it away with solar promises. That's also only the operation of the things, their production and transport involves global chains of mining, shipping etc. and all the solar panels would be the same on top of that
ponector 1y ago
Energy used in private AC is very small fraction of total bill and has no meaningful effect on the climate. Compare with data centers running entirely off grid, powered by tens of massive gas generators.
- AlecSchueler 1y ago
  You're looking at the figures today, not the figures when every house in the country has to install it.
  - ponector 1y ago
    Today residential use amounts of 15% energy used in USA, and 40% of electricity use. In Florida, HVAC accounts to 40% of energy bill of the household. 40% of 15% is not that much, even if everyone is using AC.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      That seems like a huge amount of additional energy usage that's going to further exacerbate the problem, which is the position I took originally. Just because you can make it look small by focusing on the percentage doesn't change that. At the end of the day it means, if we accept these numbers, that the total national energy usage would go up by around 7%. That then gets multiplied across France Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, the UK & Ireland etc., to the point that the total power usage is as if we suddenly had another entire country. And keep in mind while considering any of these numbers that our current 100% is already much higher than where we need to be at to avoid widespread ecological disasters. We need to be reducing our usage not saying "well it's only a few percent more."

rjmunro 1y ago

In terms of energy supply, air conditioning works pretty well with solar power. Normally hot days and sunny days are very correlated. If you are worried about the local heat generated by the air conditioners themselves, there are new coatings and panels that can radiate that heat directly to space, for example https://www.skycoolsystems.com/ https://www.skycoolsystems.com/. Also just removing a few parking spaces and replacing them with green space can help at a city wide level.

AlecSchueler 1y ago
Yep, in an ideal world solar makes it not so bad and we're transitioning there. But my country (the Netherlands) is still about 50% powered by dirty sources and the energy transition is happening too slowly to avert the climate crisis, so let's not wave it away with solar promises. That's also only the operation of the things, their production and transport involves global chains of mining, shipping etc. and all the solar panels would be the same on top of that

ponector 1y ago

Energy used in private AC is very small fraction of total bill and has no meaningful effect on the climate. Compare with data centers running entirely off grid, powered by tens of massive gas generators.

AlecSchueler 1y ago
You're looking at the figures today, not the figures when every house in the country has to install it.
- ponector 1y ago
  Today residential use amounts of 15% energy used in USA, and 40% of electricity use. In Florida, HVAC accounts to 40% of energy bill of the household. 40% of 15% is not that much, even if everyone is using AC.
  - AlecSchueler 1y ago
    That seems like a huge amount of additional energy usage that's going to further exacerbate the problem, which is the position I took originally. Just because you can make it look small by focusing on the percentage doesn't change that. At the end of the day it means, if we accept these numbers, that the total national energy usage would go up by around 7%. That then gets multiplied across France Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, the UK & Ireland etc., to the point that the total power usage is as if we suddenly had another entire country. And keep in mind while considering any of these numbers that our current 100% is already much higher than where we need to be at to avoid widespread ecological disasters. We need to be reducing our usage not saying "well it's only a few percent more."