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Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

nytimes.com

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Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#271

Post by cestith »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #60
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue in cooling preferences is that if it is too cold, people can wear sweaters or even bring space heaters. If it is too hot, there is not much you can do. I think this problem is exacerbated by open office plans. If you have private/semi-private offices, you can probably do a much better job of controlling local temperature.

We have private offices, but central HVAC. Multi-zone cooling (independent of having lots of little, less efficient window/through-wall units) is relatively uncommon. It's exacerbated (good word) by the fact that the large front office has mostly women sitting at low-power PCs, the offices are mostly men at powerful workstations (aka space heaters), and the HVAC ducts run though the office drop ceilings, meaning anyo…

Central HVAC can be zoned somewhat with thermocouple-adjustable or computer-controlled baffles. If you have a consistent over-cooling of one area and under-cooling of another there are magnetic strips made to partially cover the registers, or registers with adjustable baffles built in.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#272

Post by astrodust »

nostromo wrote: post #268
QuarterReptile wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with most of what you've said, but I'd also argue that having large groups living out in the desert is such an absurd configuration for humans that it presupposes an indifference for any sort of sustainability.

Better to put people in the desert than in places where they displace a lot of existing biodiversity (like, say, all of our coastal cities).

Not necessarily. These cities have a huge appetite for fresh water and can starve entire ecosystems of it.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#273

Post by pilom »

dpark wrote: post #266
WalterBright wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply using a white coating on the roof can reduce the A/C bill by about 3%. It's so simple, I do not know why this isn't part of the building code in hot places. People may not like it for their homes, but for commercial buildings with flat roofs, it's a no-brainer.

Don't most commercial buildings use white roofs? I've not spent a lot of time on commercial roofs, but the ones I've been on were always white.

In colder climates where heating is as much an expense as cooling, no. Most just put black tar up there because it is cheap. That said, when you need to pay to heat in summer and pay to cool in winter, the 3% savings in cooling doesn't help you when you also increase your heating bill in the winter by 3%.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#274

Post by cestith »

Nition wrote: post #49
klodolph wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off the top of my head, * A lot of home conditioners are fighting the weather in conditions with poor insulation, running when nobody is home, or running in rooms when people are in different parts of the house. * Office air conditioners are often set too cold, subjectively speaking, sometimes resulting in workers bringing sweaters or even space heaters to their desks. This is shockingly common. Multi-zone cooling ca…

Also, people who set their home heat pump to "auto" instead of "heat" in winter and "cool" in summer. No-one should mind if they have it on 18 in winter and the sun heats the room to 20 in the afternoon, but a heat pump on auto will start cooling to maintain the room at 18.

My system has separate "heat if below" and "cool if above" settings for its program, variable by user-defined portions of the day and by the (pre-set of course) days of the week.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#276

Post by sjg007 »

WalterBright wrote: post #174
thescriptkiddie wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of this could be mitigated by building with passive thermal efficiency in mind. Features like extra insulation on roofs and south facing walls, large thermal masses, strategic eaves that block sunlight in the summer but let it through in the winter, whole building energy recovery ventilation systems, green roofs, underground living spaces, etc.

Simply using a white coating on the roof can reduce the A/C bill by about 3%. It's so simple, I do not know why this isn't part of the building code in hot places. People may not like it for their homes, but for commercial buildings with flat roofs, it's a no-brainer.

It is in Arizona. White or silver.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#277

Post by khedoros1 »

crush-n-spread wrote: post #253
cmurf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rampant consumerism is the exploitative pyramid scheme that's made the U.S. (and really the entire west and the part of the world that mimicks its economics in some form or other) wealthy. There's no possible way U.S. or global plutocracy is going to be kind and look the other way at attempts to shrink their economy. They'd sooner see the world burn. I think what it would take, is a genome change. We'd need to be a d…

You're getting downvoted but you're basically correct. Notice how human civilization is dictated by a four-generation cycle like Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring. We're in the Summer/Fall transition and we will soon be entering the Winter right now. But if the baby boomers, Gen X and Millenials could have some genetic memory of WW1, the Great Depression and WW2, then we might not be in this situation.

It sounds like a milder version of the situation in Childhood's End (in the sense of humanity essentially birthing an alien race that will live in utopia, but dying off itself).

It's a creative re-framing of the problem, though. From "how do we force humans to behave better" to "what do humans need to be, in order to behave better".

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#278

Post by PhasmaFelis »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #94
jriot wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Berlin doesn't nearly get as hot as the United States. Try sitting inside a house in Mobile, AL in July without air conditioner and see how long you last. Using your water example, what about the deserts in the US that don't have a nearby water source to cool everything. Europe is much cooler in comparison to the US.

I agree with most of what you've said, but I'd also argue that having large groups living out in the desert is such an absurd configuration for humans that it presupposes an indifference for any sort of sustainability.

Most desert cities were founded before electricity, let alone air conditioning. Phoenix, Arizona was apparently founded as a farming town, and was quite sustainable at its early population.

You can't stop people from moving and aggregating. Relocating hundreds of millions of people into freshly-built temperate cities is obviously impractical, not to mention more resource-intensive in the short and medium term than air conditioning their current residences. We have to develop techniques that work with the world as it is, not just pine for utopias that might have been.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#279

Post by astrodust »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #176
erikpukinskis wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because your house is designed with active cooling as a presumption. If your house was designed to utilize passive cooling effects (thermal mass, green roof, evaporative cooling, overhangs, shades, airflow compression, etc) your bedroom wouldn't get that hot.

> That's because your house is designed with active cooling as a presumption. No, it isn't. I have an enormous oak tree that overhangs the southern roof. My windows have a very low level of solar radiation they allow through. The ambient air temp at night is almost 80F. The house is built of concrete block, and stores heat during the day, releasing it at night. We're routinely at 60-80% humidity. Just waiting for som…

As good as those features might be, you're still dependent on active cooling to make it liveable. There are other measures that have been used for millenia in desert and jungle environments where the house itself encourages particular paths of air flow that bring in cooler, fresh air and vent hot, stale air.

We've got the technology now to evolve this even further by doing computer simulations to come up with better designs, and by techniques like 3D house printing with concrete to make intricate ventilation systems that can circulate air through the floors and up through walls with zero energy cost.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#280

Post by astrodust »

undersuit wrote: post #196
toomuchtodo wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My bedroom in Tampa, FL reaches 90F at night without air conditioning. There is no way I could live without AC here.

I wonder how people lived in Florida for thousands of years then.

Nearly naked.
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