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Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

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Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#271

Post by slfnflctd »

owisd wrote: post #159
slfnflctd wrote: post #64

I've been thinking for a while about whether it would be feasible to produce an affordable 'personal cooling chamber' for lower income people in places getting scorched in the summer that don't have A/C. Basically an automotive air conditioning unit hooked up to a battery and solar panel, with a tanning bed type form factor (up to maybe capsule hotel size), painted or coated to reflect light & heat. Highly portable.…

Japan already did it - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/cjej4y3gvzlo

Wow, that is really close to what I had in mind, and helpful info. Cool! Literally! Appreciate you sharing it.

As I feared, though, with a price tag of $10k USD, you're halfway to buying a solid used car (preferably hybrid) with air conditioning... which could sleep at least two people fully reclined, plus kids or pets. So you might as well do that. I'd love to see a viable path to bringing this price down.

Regardless, there do seem to at least be niche applications even at this price point.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#272

Post by esseph »

vlyan wrote: post #266
esseph wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all, I just don't fucking care at all. It's irrelevant. Race is not something I care about, and cultures come and go. The groups we were 10,000 years ago are not the groups we have now, which are not what the groups will be 10,000 years from now. Big whoop.

yes, yes, very virtuous of you, now back to my point: why should Hans give a flying fuck about climate change if he will have no descendants to suffer from it?

You have a very bleak view of the world, I'm sorry. I have hope for you though.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#273

Post by lstodd »

elil17 wrote: post #261
lstodd wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nope, no typo. 15C+100RH+no convection = you just die in a few hours.

Well if there's no convection you must be in a vacuum! But if you mean no forced convection, that's just not the case. You can survive at wetbulb temperatures in excess of 30 C, which means 30 C + 100% RH. Hell, my house right now is at about 25 C drybulb and 18 C wetbulb, which from the perspective of evaporative heat transfer is identical to 18 C with 100% RH, so I should be dying any minute. See you on the other s…

you still have convection even in a sealed room. its walls also do not have zero thermal conductivity so if you don't move, you only have to reject about 100W and that is survivable

but I would not want to live in that bath house.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#274

Post by stasomatic »

deanc wrote: post #107
fnordsensei wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I hear you, I think AC is better centralized for the building, along with heat and water. Yes, there are numerous reasons why this is harder to do than just doing it ad-hoc per apartment, but if we’re to see it as infrastructure, it should receive the same level of consideration as other utilities.

Agreed, new builds should be mandatory, but this is not easy to retrofit to existing apartment buildings in a country where labour and parts are notoriously expensive and have to be split with the residents.

I can run a broken toilet tank all day long without extra fees, hundreds of gallons. Can turn all faucets on without penalties, nobody is counting and the utility doesn't care. The maintenance fees for water cover it, spread across all residents (although they are not low, like $1,800 on top of mortgage, subsidizing things I don't use, like card rooms, ping pong hall, etc.). Some families live 4-5 in a 2 bedroom, in my case it's just the two of us and the dog. Pretty insane, no logical solutions in sight. Moving isn't inexpensive.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#275

Post by michelsedgh »

yourusername wrote: post #243
michelsedgh wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most EV chargers are burning gas to charge the ev cars. Thats just wasting energy. Almost any fast charger ive used has a gas generator next to it.

And no fast charger i've ever used had a gas generator next to it. Even if it were true (and in the EU it is definitely not) DC fast charging is only small percentage of EV charging.

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2035921843757216158?s=20 This is just one example. EVgo and many other very large charging networks use generators also. Even if you charge at home or anywhere else which you don't see the generator, that electricity has to be made from using coal gas or other stuff, renewables are not a big share in most of them. Those cables transferring electricity loses a lot of energy and gives off lots of heat but you won't see that.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#276

Post by raincom »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #260
raincom wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They just buy slogans from those who espouse efficiency. In a traditional AC unit, heat is produced by either electric strips or by a gas burner, no refrigeration circuit is involved in the heating cycle. So, just a blower motor runs, compressor (and condenser fan) never runs in the heating cycle. In heat pumps, refrigeration circuit does both heating and cooling. So, compressor works in both cycles.

How is that not just better since the power requirements are less? The whole point against conventional ACs and for what we call heat pumps is purely that they use less electricities (well, they can also heat and cool, so you don’t need two systems). People like heat pumps simply because they are more energy efficient. It isn’t guerrilla marketing making people like a new thing that is the same as the old thing.

Heat pump = conventional AC - (heat strip/gas burner) + reversing the refrigeration circuit for the heat cycle + efficient ECM motor (for air blower) + VFD compressor (single phase to DC to three phase AC with variable frequency) + modern controls to manage both inside and outside motors.

One can install an efficient AC unit with electric strips (gas burner) with "efficient ECM motor (for air blower) + VFD compressor (single phase to DC to three phase AC with variable frequency) + modern controls to manage both inside and outside motors." That's where modern AC units are driving at.

Heat pump uses electricity for compressor fan and fan in that outdoor unit. In an efficient conventional AC unit, one trades the extra electricity used in the outside unit for the electricity used for heat strips.

Geothermal heat pump is efficient and is a different ball game.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#277

Post by kalleboo »

michelsedgh wrote: post #275
yourusername wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And no fast charger i've ever used had a gas generator next to it. Even if it were true (and in the EU it is definitely not) DC fast charging is only small percentage of EV charging.

https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/2035921843757216158?s=20 This is just one example. EVgo and many other very large charging networks use generators also. Even if you charge at home or anywhere else which you don't see the generator, that electricity has to be made from using coal gas or other stuff, renewables are not a big share in most of them. Those cables transferring electricity loses a lot of energy and give…

Rare exceptions exist (the other is chargers out in the middle of nowhere, or during construction that impacts the grid connection), if they all used gas generators that cost for a fast charge would be 4x what it is, it's obvious it's not normal.

> that electricity has to be made from using coal gas or other stuff, renewables are not a big share in most of them

If we're talking about Europe as this thread was, fossil fuels are 35% of the grid and dwindling (it was over 50% 20 years ago). Coal is only 11%.

> Those cables transferring electricity loses a lot of energy and gives off lots of heat but you won't see that

Transmission losses are 5%. Transporting oil (be it by ship, truck or pipeline) isn't free either.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#278

Post by ryandrake »

stasomatic wrote: post #274
deanc wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, new builds should be mandatory, but this is not easy to retrofit to existing apartment buildings in a country where labour and parts are notoriously expensive and have to be split with the residents.

I can run a broken toilet tank all day long without extra fees, hundreds of gallons. Can turn all faucets on without penalties, nobody is counting and the utility doesn't care. The maintenance fees for water cover it, spread across all residents (although they are not low, like $1,800 on top of mortgage, subsidizing things I don't use, like card rooms, ping pong hall, etc.). Some families live 4-5 in a 2 bedroom, in…

That seems unusual to me. I've never lived in a place where water was not metered and charged by the volume consumed. A necessity like water (and A/C) should be as you describe, but I've never seen it, at least not in the USA.

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#279

Post by robocat »

Yizahi wrote: post #202

I also find deeply and even extremely ironic, that the same greenwashing radicals who bash ACs in Europe are then supporting "heat pumps" as a modern and efficient heating device. There are even programs labelled as Eco or green or whatever the jargon of the day is, to subsidize or finance heat pumps. People are seemingly unaware that heat pumps are just an AC with a tiny additional valve in the pipes :) .

The biggest issue with greenies is that their goals tend to be overly idealistic.

They don't compromise - even when a compromise would strictly improve the world. Well, most voters hate to make compromises but the greenies seem to do it harder. In NZ we have a very left wing Green Party who in theory could have power in a minority coalition with our "conservative" party. However politically it would never work. I think both parties veto working together, but New Zealand loses out on green progress because of that. Instead the Greens only make a coalition with the left, which is already quite green focused so the Greens remain rather impotent.

Conservative greeny voters in New Zealand need better representation.

Fortunately our heat pumps usually also have AC. I can only guess we don't have any insane rules about that because having a heatpump with AC has been normal for decades (AC isn't just for the hated tall-poppy wealthy: and very few have a dedicated aircon unit).

Re: Air Conditioning Is Not a Luxury, It Is a Necessity

#280

Post by Markoff »

elil17 wrote: post #9

Cooling technologies are a necessity and air conditioning is one of many possible options. Europe north of France is substantially cooler than much of the US, even on the hottest days. Many homes could get by on ceiling fans, but they are very uncommon here.

yeah, I honestly dont understand why every apartment doesnt have ceiling fan, it's almost zero investment like 40-60EUR and it can be combined with light, so you don't even need any new power line

personally I tried one summer back here in Europe without AC just with ceiling fans in each room and gave up and installed AC next year, that was like 10 years ago, can't imagine just ceiling fans in these 35-40C heatwaves, you will be just moving hot air since building can't cool down even in night

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