Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps • Hacker News Board

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#231

Post by maxxxxx » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

rplst8 wrote: post #106

maxxxxx wrote: post #71

Just insulate the houses in the US. I am always shocked how badly built US houses that cost 600k are.

Good insulation is pretty standard here in the US for everything built in the last two decades or so. That said, fiberglass insulation mostly only helps against convection cooling/heating. I.e. through the movement of air. Summertime heat is mostly conductive and radiative i.e. near infrared. Insulation doesn't do much to stop that. Shade trees however help this big time. A large tree placed in the right spot to shad…

Maybe it's getting a little better but in the apartment buildings I have seen the wind pretty much blows straight through the windows and the walls are paper thin. Even on the East Coast where they have real winters.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#232

Post by scythe » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #171

djsumdog wrote: post #119

So we curb emissions by building a bunch of new A/C units? Sorry, that's silly. CO2 is just one of many many forms of pollution. Think you're doing your part by purchasing a hybrid or electric vehicle? There are barrels of oil that go into those tiers, the plastics, not to mention all the pollution that goes into battery production. If your car is fuel efficient, the best thing you can do for the environment is drive…

The current situation is largely caused by artificially low prices of fossil fuels. We are borrowing from the future to fuel our consumption. If we agreed to increase those prices by, say, 5 to 10 times and used the money to fund research towards removing carbon from the atmosphere, the world would become a much better place. Problem is, everybody is afraid of the shock this would cause and everybody thinks only abou…

Carbon taxes are the way to go.

Why? Because they allow governments to set policy empirically. You can raise the tax a little, bit-by-bit, until you start seeing negative effects. Carbon taxes allow a legislature of non-economists to procedurally find the maximum reduction that the economy can bear, which is good, because obviously you don't want more than that, and given the nature of the situation you probably don't want less.

The difference between this and a cap-and-trade model is that with cap-and-trade, there's a lot of money tied up in the carbon shares allocated, so lowering the cap is politically impossible. Big corporations like it because they have an easier time acquiring carbon credits than small companies, because they have political influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_emission_trading#Incent...

Cap-and-trade worked with other kinds of emissions because those emissions are less common and come only from certain industries, whereas carbon comes from everywhere. As such, it wasn't possible for the acid rain producers to lobby Congress to raise the cap on NOx. Or to not lower it. Furthermore, the market is small enough that it was possible for charitable organizations to make a dent by buying emissions allowances and "retiring" them -- which is extremely unlikely to matter for carbon given the size of the carbon market.

Carbon taxes are fairer and simpler, and it's harder for a company to weasel out. Some observers have suggested that an industry could lobby to be exempt, but this seems unlikely: how many industries have successfully exempted themselves from income tax? From VAT? By contrast, this happened:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carbon-credits-sy...

> a diplomatic cable published last month by the WikiLeaks website reveals that most of the CDM projects in India should not have been certified because they did not reduce emissions beyond those that would have been achieved without foreign investment. Indian officials have apparently known about the problem for at least two years.

>[...] Today, more than 720 Indian projects have been approved and have gained some 120 million tonnes' worth of carbon credits, a large fraction of the 750 million tonnes issued since 2005 (see 'Cleaning up').

> Yet on the evidence of discussions at the meeting, most of the carbon-offset projects in India fail to meet the CDM requirements set by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#233

Post by barrkel » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 9:59 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #119

So we curb emissions by building a bunch of new A/C units? Sorry, that's silly. CO2 is just one of many many forms of pollution. Think you're doing your part by purchasing a hybrid or electric vehicle? There are barrels of oil that go into those tiers, the plastics, not to mention all the pollution that goes into battery production. If your car is fuel efficient, the best thing you can do for the environment is drive…

You might not realize this, but you're advocating keeping people in the developing world poorer than people in the West.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#234

Post by Mz » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

ch4s3 wrote: post #186

Mz wrote: post #156

Passive solar and vernacular architecture makes vastly more sense. I get so tired of these schemes to make our broken lifestyles "more efficient." Just adopt a better method entirely and quit quibbling about tiny efficiency gains.

You're saying that as though passively cooled architecture has no drawbacks in terms of cost, structural integrity, versatility, or suitability for building dense living spaces. I doubt we can develop large cities in the future without a serious focus on improved HVAC. Sure, passive methods, geothermal heating/cooling, etc will have a place, but they certainly aren't the only path forward. For example, how would you…

I don't know what country you are from, but I am saying that as an American who has lived in Germany and has studied this problem space some at the college level. Most American homes are terrible cardboard boxes. German apartments routinely have thicker walls, fewer windows and other interruptions in the wall space and the windows are more useful than American ones. It was common when I was there for windows to have two ways to be opened, one just for airflow that was not a security risk and one to allow it to open completely, like a door. They typically had no screens.

There is zero reason why American housing cannot incorporate, as a minimum, more thermal mass -- like German apartments routinely do.

Furthermore, many American cities are simply not that dense. There are few places in the U.S. that are really densely urban with lots of skyscrapers. So most passive solar methods would be applicable for most structures here.

I grew up in the Deep South, where 98F was quite common in the summer, with much higher humidity than 55%, and I have lived in the High Desert, where I did my long walks for exercise (up to 6 miles) after the sun set so temps would drop to a cool 99F. The temperature and humidity you list does not qualify in my book as "wet, hot death" and I see zero reason that a building could not be made reasonably comfortable in such conditions using mostly passive techniques.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#235

Post by thehardsphere » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

24gttghh wrote: post #65

thehardsphere wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite true. But if you are concerned about the EnergyStar cuts, it is fortunate because they are not likely to happen.

I wish I could share in your confidence. Have there been a number of bi-partisan congresspeople who have express support for EnergyStar and other efficiency programs?

Generally, spending for every program goes up every year. "Cuts" as typically talked about in the press are reductions in the already planned increases. Very few things are ever cut in real terms, and usually only in reaction to some significant embarrassment (e.g. Alternative energy research funding with Solyndra).

Nobody cares enough about EnergyStar to cut it, so I doubt it will be cut. It made it through the last time Congress was under Republican control totally unmolested, so I really doubt anybody is going to bother with it now.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#236

Post by the8472 » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #119

So we curb emissions by building a bunch of new A/C units? Sorry, that's silly. CO2 is just one of many many forms of pollution. Think you're doing your part by purchasing a hybrid or electric vehicle? There are barrels of oil that go into those tiers, the plastics, not to mention all the pollution that goes into battery production. If your car is fuel efficient, the best thing you can do for the environment is drive…

Even if we curbed consumerism our current appliances, infrastructure, agriculture and transportation still gobble up large amount of energy / emit carbon. They will need to be replaced one way or another.

Nobody is proposing we magically manufacture billions of new units of everything tomorrow and kick out all the stuff we purchased yesterday.

Turnover takes years or decades anyway. Just like the EU did not make possession of incandescent light bulbs illegal, they just mandated that all new ones sold beyond a certain date must meet energy efficiency standards that can't be met by incandescent ones.

> We have to consume less, build cell phones that are upgradable and last a decade instead of 2 ~ 3 years.

Cars already last more than a decade. As long as moore's law is not entirely dead cell phones will be obsolete simply by advances in the underlying hardware and software exploiting those hardware advances, you don't even need planned obsolescence for that.

And ultimately it depends on the individual product whether it requires more energy to build or during its lifetime. Without checking I bet a space heater will burn significantly more energy during its operation than manufacture, and replacing it with a heat pump would be a net gain at almost any point in its lifecycle.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#237

Post by undersuit » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

grogenaut wrote: post #108

axelfontaine wrote: post #64

American air conditioners running at full power, chilling the interior and dripping on the sidewalk below on a hot day always deeply trouble me. Maybe it's my european view on things, but for contrast here in Munich we aren't just building out a city-wide heat network, but we also have a cold network! Cold river water flows through the pipe network that traverses the city and large office building can get connected t…

"only slightly warmer" what does that do to the river, fish, algae, waste processing, etc. If you ran say houston with river water how many degrees would it be?

Houston already has large pipes running out into the ocean for other purposes. Radiators installed in deep ocean would just need to be more resilient to corrosion.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#238

Post by sampo » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:00 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #206

jwr wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The current situation is largely caused by artificially low prices of fossil fuels. We are borrowing from the future to fuel our consumption. If we agreed to increase those prices by, say, 5 to 10 times and used the money to fund research towards removing carbon from the atmosphere, the world would become a much better place. Problem is, everybody is afraid of the shock this would cause and everybody thinks only abou…

In Poland, the government recently announced they want to add +0.25 PLN ($0.07, or ~6% of current gasoline prices) of tax for gasoline. The stated reason is increasing the budgets for maintenance of local roads. Regardless of the issues of stated vs. real reasons, the reaction of people in the country was totally predictable: people are enraged. How dares the government raise the fuel price? You get a similar reactio…

Europe already has gasoline prices that are 2x to 2.5x higher than in the US. So compared to US, Europe has already gotten somewhere.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#239

Post by npsimons » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #119

So we curb emissions by building a bunch of new A/C units? Sorry, that's silly. CO2 is just one of many many forms of pollution. Think you're doing your part by purchasing a hybrid or electric vehicle? There are barrels of oil that go into those tiers, the plastics, not to mention all the pollution that goes into battery production. If your car is fuel efficient, the best thing you can do for the environment is drive…

I've got a 1996 Toyota 4Runner; it's paid off and I do put it's 4WD capabilities to use, but normally I pay for gas to carpool with someone else with a more fuel efficient vehicle to drive to trailheads for hiking and climbing. Otherwise I try to bicycle commute to and from work, including hitting the grocery store (which is on the way home from work). It's a pleasant commute, in part because I have a shower available at work, but more importantly because I picked a residence as close as possible to work, using this:

https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-can-i-travel.htm

It is a big shift in thinking, but consider this: most work schedules see people driving between the same two places twice a day, five times a week. Reducing that distance can give you back considerable time, not to mention reducing costs (even if you drive) and reducing stress. And before someone counters with the inevitable "I don't get paid enough", you should be getting paid enough to live as close to work as possible, or they should let you telecommute. It's also arguable you can afford to live closer to work:

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/06/the-true-cost-of-c...

This is a cultural problem that goes beyond just consumerism (although that's the elephant in the room) to things like corporate culture. I'm also still using a Nokia N900, but every year I more and more feel the pull to jump to an Android phone. Having a hardware keyboard for Emacs+org-mode is quite handy, though.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#240

Post by rlanday » Thu, Jul 13, 2017, 10:01 PM UTC

julianj wrote: post #169

hughw wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reducing the number of humans could be one approach. The idea causes rancorous response from religious people who believe God told us to be fruitful and multiply. To reduce births might require coercion, it's true, but it would not require killing people or making them suffer. I don't see how else we can continue to enjoy the benefits and power of technology while keeping the planet habitable and enjoyable.

Every time I see this suggested I am reminded of Idocracy. Only some people will choose not to reproduce. The genes of those who disagree with this idea will be the genes passed on to later generations. One could also assume that the opposing ideas regarding reproduction are also more likely to be passed on. I don't really see this as a viable voluntary solution. If not voluntary, how could a place do this without in…

The United States has basically already solved this problem. Just make housing, healthcare, and college tuition incredibly expensive so no one can afford to have more than a small number of children.