Discussion

Rising Air-Conditioning Use Intensifies Global Warming

MisterTea: This past summer I tried to forgo AC. It lasted until the dog days of July/August where the humidity was so high that it made me lethargic. I gave up and setup my AC in the window.Then I traveled to Spain in August and was hosted at someones house for a week. They had no AC. And their method is simple: split the day in two resulting in the siesta. During the day in the intense heat you're tired by 3 PM and nearly dead by 5. The Spaniards? They go home and go to sleep for an hour or two then wake up when the sun has gone down and it cools down. Most things close at 5PM and reopen around 8PM. People stay out late too - I saw parents chatting on benches at a playground after midnight while their children played.We have ways around this heat problem. Though I know people so spoiled that they INSIST their home and workspace must be at 60F even in 100F heat. They'll burn forests just so they wont be inconvenienced by a bead of sweat.

joe_mamba: >Most things close at 5PM and reopen around 8PM. Shops and stuff yeah. This doesn't work for workers in the 9-5 jobs.

anon7000: There are cultures around the world that pull this off very broadly. It takes a different attitude towards work and human wellness than what we have in the US

joe_mamba: I live in Europe where 9-5 (more like 8-5) is common, not the US. Not everything revolves around the US, we have our own issues too.I'm sure my current country of Austria won't adopt Spanish way of work and life anytime soon just because summers are hot an people don't have AC. Societies, especially the Austrian ones, are incredibly stubborn to change for a variety of reasons.

skybrian: AC use largely corresponds with peak solar, though, so it doesn't seem like a particularly tough problem to solve? In California, there's often a surplus of solar energy on hot days.

ge96: Ice batteries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSvguJ7u3VM

gedy: I run my AC off solar (mostly needed in mid afternoon). Fine no?

rconti: I think many of us (myself included) operate under this fundamental assumption that air conditioning is somehow sinful and wrong, against the natural order of things, but heating spaces is a good and worthwhile use of resources.I made a slightly-snarky comment along these lines once, and a fellow commenter on HN pointed out how efficient air conditioning is. For one, it's always accomplished via heat pump; eg, moving heat, so the only byproducts are electricity consumption and waste heat. We know how to produce clean electricity. On the flip side, heating indoor spaces also produces waste heat, but a lot more of it. Much worse, the vast majority of home heating (at least in the US) is done by burning fossil fuels. If you compare the heating demands of the northeast to the cooling demands of the south, in terms of BTUs, the heat demands are way more intensive.The most important factor in this equation is the temperature change required. The temperature differential between a winter temp of 20 or 30F to an indoor temp of 70F requires SO much more energy than cooling from a summer temp of 90F to indoor temp of 70F.So I can remain smug about living in a mild climate in the Bay Area; my total energy consumption is much lower than the average home. But I probably shouldn't feel smug about not needing A/C when the real problem is the gas furnace I run every morning and part of the day, for months on end, from November to March.(My house is actually currently missing several walls; the gas furnace has been thrown in the trash and it's being replaced with 3 heat pumps, which will give me both A/C _and_ more efficient heat. No thanks to PG&E, which will reward my GHG reductions by charging me out the ass for the electricity required to heat my home).

kube-system: I think the other part is historical -- humans have harnessed combustion-based heat in their shelter for thousands to millions of years.Powered air conditioning didn't really take off until the mid 20th century. Prior to that most simply used fans.

rconti: I'm not sure about a surplus. 4-9pm are still peak hours and a quick skim of this CAISO page[1] indicates we're importing electricity during peak hours.I think the solar generation from say 10am-4pm is where you'd find a surplus, if there is one.At least at my home, there's only ~20% difference between peak and off-peak rates, but, if you have A/C, it still makes sense to pre-cool on hot days, back it off at 4pm and then turn it back up at 9pm if you still need the cooler temps to sleep.1. https://www.caiso.com/content/summer-loads-resources-assessm...

SirMaster: >I think many of us (myself included) operate under this fundamental assumption that air conditioning is somehow sinful and wrong, against the natural order of things, but heating spaces is a good and worthwhile use of resources.I don't think I have ever met or heard anyone think or say that...

rconti: I'm curious where you grew up. Heating indoor spaces in the winter has been effectively mandatory during the lifetimes of anyone who would be commenting here. On the flip side, air conditioning only became widespread during the lifetimes of many HN commenters, and the population explosion in the sun belt (desert southwest of the US) is a relatively recent phenomenon. So from a familiarity perspective alone, heat is far more popular. That's before you get into the way A/C is often treated as a luxury, from installation to utilization costs.

SirMaster: The Midwest. In my experience, either people have central air, or in older houses they put window units in all over the house.All the apartments I see have mini-splits or in-wall units. I put a floor standing dual-hose unit in my bedroom where my desktop PC and server also are.

delichon: About 8.5% of deaths are cold-related and 0.9% are heat related. That's 4,600,000 v. 489,000 annually, about 9:1. A climate change that favors air conditioning over heating is a favorable signal for human survival in marginal conditions.

GuB-42: > We have ways around this heat problemI don't consider that being uncomfortable is a solution.There are actual solutions used by hot countries to deal with the heat: ventilation, vegetation, construction techniques, etc... But adjusting work schedules so that you have a hour or two of poor quality sleep when you can't do anything else is the kind of thing you do when you have no other choice, not a solution.I have nothing against the Spanish schedule, but I would rather not do my siesta in an unbearably hot place. And yes, AC is a solution.AC doesn't have to be that bad. Set a reasonable temperature, combine it with good insulation, etc... Same idea as for heating in the winter.

kube-system: The siesta is a part of the solution to being uncomfortable. Rather it works with the nature of the earth and human biology, instead of using brute force to work against it. It is a different solution to the same problem.