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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

#341

Post by erikpukinskis »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #295
astrodust wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ways of doing this that don't involve expending energy, but it requires re-thinking the very concept of the modern house. A thousand years ago you had to build things this way, you had no alternative, but now it's taken for granted that air-conditioning will solve all problems.

For sure, but I can't get insurance (hurricane or otherwise) on a home built to 1000 year previous standards. Do I care if the house can't cool itself naturally? I don't; I can't get a mortgage on it because I can't get insurance on it if its not built to current code. Hence why we run into this problem (which will be solved with more efficient AC and renewable energy).

Yes, this is the crux of the problem. Your state made it illegal for you to build a proper home.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#342

Post by erikpukinskis »

zabuni wrote: post #170
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.

evaporative cooling? thermal mass? Did you not read the parent? How is a thermal mass going to help a place that has a low temperature of 90? And how will evaporative cooling work in a place with 80% humidity?

Ground temp is lower than 90 so thermal mass can still help. You just need to design for proper insulation, exposure, shades, etc.

Evap at 80% humidity is about half the rate at 50%. Still functional.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#343

Post by erikpukinskis »

npsimons wrote: post #242
erikpukinskis wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your thinking is a little short sighted. Yes, on a 20 year horizon replacing our existing inefficient stuff is wasteful. But on a 100 year time horizon, population will rise to 10 billion, and we'll turn over almost all of our climate systems. What I would propose is we start now thinking about what sustainable architecture looks like, and start trying to imagine more permanent cultural edifices. I.e. permacu…

I think you and the GP are on the same page, just coming from different angles. You say we need to change communities; how do you do that without first changing the culture? Why do people want to live in suburbs? I don't know how to do it, but if there is enough demand for more efficient lifestyles I believe the market will meet it.

Culture is everything that outlasts us: buildings, language, tools, social calendars, contracts, habits, etc.

Changing the buildings is changing the culture. You identify a complete resource cycle, like a weekly grocery habit, and design a replacement. Drop it in, look for another one.

Demand is a trailing indicator. Significant demand for integrated permaculture living won't happen until long after the concept is proven and started scaling.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#344

Post by cestith »

Nition wrote: post #305
cestith wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That sounds excellent. The ones I see are always just one set temperature.

Mine came with the house. I can take a look and find brand and model number. There appear to be a number of them on the market, though.

On the Lowes.com site they have a specification checkbox for "high/low temperature setting" or something similar on each model's details but it doesn't seem searchable there. I don't see such a feature designation at HomeDepot.com as of right now. Amazon's are mixed depending on the seller and model it seems.

I know Nest lets you set separate heating and cooling points if you do the manual programming instead of letting it autolearn. https://nest.com/support/article/What-is-Heat-Cool-mode EcoBee and Hive I'm sure have similar features.

Having separate heating and cooling setpoints only seems natural for something that automatically switches between heating and cooling.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#345

Post by esrauch »

hughw wrote: post #332
esrauch wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you say "birth rate is falling" its effectively the second derivative on "number of people" right? As in, if we have go from 2 children born per person to 1.5 children born per person, we are still growing the number of people. Even if "children per person" falls slow enough you could even indefinitely increase the rate that new people are added right?

I said children per family, not per person.

I don't really understand the distinction: fewer children per family is the same thing as fewer per person right? Like if you have 1.4 children per person on average that means exactly 2.8 children per adult man + woman?

All I meant to point out is that "birth rate falling" doesn't map to "population falling", if the average number of children per couple drops 2.5 to 2.1 then each generation is still larger (and the population still grows exponentially).

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#346

Post by hughw »

esrauch wrote: post #345
hughw wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said children per family, not per person.

I don't really understand the distinction: fewer children per family is the same thing as fewer per person right? Like if you have 1.4 children per person on average that means exactly 2.8 children per adult man + woman? All I meant to point out is that "birth rate falling" doesn't map to "population falling", if the average number of children per couple drops 2.5 to 2.1 then each generation is still larger (and the…

Yeah, it has to fall below 1.0 child per person for the population to decline. And it's commonly reported that is happening in developed countries.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#347

Post by koffiezet »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #216
strommen wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CO2, and its interchangeably-used measure of CO2e (which is a sum of all greenhouse gases weighted based on how much they contribute to global warming) is the only pollutant that matters in this context. Our disposable-good society is a small fraction of our overall impact on the climate. It is 100% possible to power our world with solar, wind, and batteries while keeping the rest of our lives largely unchanged. The…

Air travel? Sure, that ones hard to fix, but we have had a solution for years which would drastically reduce the environmental harm done by cattle farming - eating plant-based foods instead of beef.

The problem is though, that many vegetarian options are soy-based, which are pretty much all grown abroad, and have an large environmental impact there. It also requires a LOT more land to grow the same amount of plant-based proteins than meat, which for example results in local farmers in South America burning rain-forest, only to farm 'environmently friendly' soy.

So no, plant-based foods alone is not the holy grail, and also not realistic to force this upon people in the first place. In my opinion, what should happen is that the relatively new plant-based hamburgers which are very very similar to meat would gradually replace the 'mass market' meat for things like fastfood restaurants. But that on it's own isn't enough, we need better production methods for these plants too, so we don't have huge transportation pollution.

And airtravel is not the only big issue, large container-ships are a much bigger problem. Once in international waters, many switch to burning very dirty oil, instead of 'clean' diesel which they only use in local waters to comply with emission norms. Not only that, ships are built to last for decades, and companies won't convert them to full electric without economic incentives.

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#348

Post by Nition »

cestith wrote: post #344
Nition wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds excellent. The ones I see are always just one set temperature.

Mine came with the house. I can take a look and find brand and model number. There appear to be a number of them on the market, though. On the Lowes.com site they have a specification checkbox for "high/low temperature setting" or something similar on each model's details but it doesn't seem searchable there. I don't see such a feature designation at HomeDepot.com as of right now. Amazon's are mixed depending on the…

I'm not in the US (I'm in New Zealand) so the market here is a bit different. Nest isn't available here for instance. Most homes install heat pump units like this kind of thing:

- http://www.fujitsugeneral.co.nz/heat-pumps

- http://www.mitsubishi-electric.co.nz/heatpump/c/7656/high-wa...

Re: Improving air conditioner efficiency could reduce worldwide temps

#349

Post by toomuchtodo »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #341
toomuchtodo wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but I can't get insurance (hurricane or otherwise) on a home built to 1000 year previous standards. Do I care if the house can't cool itself naturally? I don't; I can't get a mortgage on it because I can't get insurance on it if its not built to current code. Hence why we run into this problem (which will be solved with more efficient AC and renewable energy).

Yes, this is the crux of the problem. Your state made it illegal for you to build a proper home.

The state didn't; market forces did (ie insurance companies).
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