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Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

economist.com

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Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#81

Post by lloeki »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #65
lloeki wrote: post #34

Can't read the article (paywalled) so I'm basing myself on what I see > Green electricity means never having to say sorry for lowering the thermostat I literally just read some reports yesterday day about how AC can be a pathological solution. It's not about the energy being green or not, it's that independently of the energy source AC is a heat pump, so it pumps heat out into the air, which makes the air inside cool…

> It's not about the energy being green or not, it's that independently of the energy source AC is a heat pump, so it pumps heat out into the air, which makes the air inside cooler, but hotter outside; and for that, green or not, it needs to put in energy to do the work, which results in _even more heat_. What? If things would have worked as you say, we would have solved global warming in no time. Just open the windo…

> If things would have worked as you say

They work _exactly_ as I say:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump_and_refrigeration_cy...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics

> Just open the windows and blow the cold air out and keep the inverter inside

This "just" seems to hint that you don't seem to quite be grasping the concepts and scale at hand:

- Assuming perfect efficiency and unlimited free energy, where would you even put the heat from outside?

- Since energy is neither free nor unlimited, the energy needs would be enormous+

- Since it is not perfectly efficient and the energy needs are so high, the amount of wasted energy (which is heat) would be colossal, and only make the problem worse

+ The heat causing global warming comes not from human activity but from the sun, the anthropogenic effect at play is that this energy from the sun is captured by greenhouse effect.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#82

Post by DanielHB »

pjerem wrote: post #73
DanielHB wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Awnings are significantly better than shutters, but they at most mitigate the heat and the temperature range they make the ambient confortable is quite limited.

I guess there is a cultural difference on the word here and I should have be more precise. In France, shutters aren't like most American ones, here we mostly use either plain wood with no gap for light (old houses) or for most of the recent houses, we use rolling shutters that let 0% of light (and therefore, 0% of radiative energy from the sun) get to the window and will make the room entirely black. Also, most moder…

An awning protrudes out of the window so airflow can still pass and light still gets into the room (just not direct light).

Even if the shutters are wood and white when sun hits them they will radiate some heat into the indoors. But of course shutters are still better than letting the sun hit your floor directly.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#83

Post by soco »

thefz wrote: post #76
slibhb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile ~40 (mostly young) people drowned in France recently trying to cool off as temperatures exceeded 100F around Paris. It's true that historically Europe is cooler than similar latitudes in North America. But there's also an anti-AC movement in Europe based partly on environmentalism, partly on reflexive anti-Americanism, and partly due to a general preference for "naturalness"/suspicion of anything new.

> It's true that historically Europe is cooler than similar latitudes in North America. But there's also an anti-AC movement in Europe based partly on environmentalism, partly on reflexive anti-Americanism, and partly due to a general preference for "naturalness"/suspicion of anything new. This is complete speculation from your part.

That part might be speculation, okay, so then let's add the number of people, European citizens, dying of overheating every year (lately at least). The history is history, while the current world is so much hotter. It doesn't matter whether you deny climate change models, reality is that France just had their hottest day ever recorded, and such records get broken year after year. I've seen yesterday a picture of a Madrid bus station showing +51°C. So, if there's a better solution than AC for the affected persons I'd be very happy to hear it.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#84

Post by FullMetalBitch »

sgerenser wrote: post #69
carlosrg wrote: post #29

I don’t understand the obsession the Americans have with claiming that we hate AC. Europe is not a country. There are countries where AC is more used. Here in Spain it’s common. It’s probably less common in other, less hot countries. Besides heat, countries with a lower GDP probably have less ACs installed than richer countries. So probably France have more AC-per-capita than Moldova, my guess is that something simil…

Mississippi, despite its much lower per capita income than California, has a much higher percentage of housing units with air conditioning (93% vs 72%). AC is now so inexpensive that whether or not a house has AC is mostly about average summer temperatures not income.

Average price of AC instalation in Spain goes from 550€ to 5000€ depending on what kind of instalation, equipment and units. Average wage is between around 1300€ net per month.

In Spain it's not cheap.

Edit. And also local towns have rules, I can't just install one that have a device on the outer wall/window and I own the whole house, in the flats you depende on the community to decide.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#85

Post by blahblaher »

thefz wrote: post #76
slibhb wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile ~40 (mostly young) people drowned in France recently trying to cool off as temperatures exceeded 100F around Paris. It's true that historically Europe is cooler than similar latitudes in North America. But there's also an anti-AC movement in Europe based partly on environmentalism, partly on reflexive anti-Americanism, and partly due to a general preference for "naturalness"/suspicion of anything new.

> It's true that historically Europe is cooler than similar latitudes in North America. But there's also an anti-AC movement in Europe based partly on environmentalism, partly on reflexive anti-Americanism, and partly due to a general preference for "naturalness"/suspicion of anything new. This is complete speculation from your part.

You're being too generous. It's not "speculation", it complete bullshit.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#86

Post by woodpanel »

daveguy wrote: post #16
varjag wrote: post #7

[flagged]

You don't think it has to do with all the dying from a heatwave going on there?

Quick, somebody sent them American brothers and sisters some of those Covid era Chinese bodybag scaremongering videos, dubbing it „EurOpOoRs dying from heatwave“

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#87

Post by lloeki »

Kaibeezy wrote: post #44
lloeki wrote: post #34

Can't read the article (paywalled) so I'm basing myself on what I see > Green electricity means never having to say sorry for lowering the thermostat I literally just read some reports yesterday day about how AC can be a pathological solution. It's not about the energy being green or not, it's that independently of the energy source AC is a heat pump, so it pumps heat out into the air, which makes the air inside cool…

Archive link is below

I can't seem to be able to pass these damn captchas

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#88

Post by spockz »

ExoticPearTree wrote: post #43
invalidusernam3 wrote: post #19

Why has this become a meme? Sure aircon is nice but there are also reasons why it's not common in some parts of Europe. Here in central Prague a lot of the buildings are historic and protected, so you can't just gouge out a section of the building to install an aircon. Also it's generally only hot enough for aircon maybe 2-4 weeks a year. I'm seeing more and more American's yapping about not having aircon in Europe.…

You can add AC systems in the attics and then run the piping inside the building. You keep the facade as it is. I guess it depends on the country, customs and other things. In my part of Europe, older people are convinced the AC will kill them if they use it. So YMMV.

You can indeed. But then you lose significant space internally and not to mention the noise. Of course, better than having nothing. However, space in these houses comes at a premium as well.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#89

Post by close04 »

slibhb wrote: post #50
invalidusernam3 wrote: post #19

Why has this become a meme? Sure aircon is nice but there are also reasons why it's not common in some parts of Europe. Here in central Prague a lot of the buildings are historic and protected, so you can't just gouge out a section of the building to install an aircon. Also it's generally only hot enough for aircon maybe 2-4 weeks a year. I'm seeing more and more American's yapping about not having aircon in Europe.…

Meanwhile ~40 (mostly young) people drowned in France recently trying to cool off as temperatures exceeded 100F around Paris. It's true that historically Europe is cooler than similar latitudes in North America. But there's also an anti-AC movement in Europe based partly on environmentalism, partly on reflexive anti-Americanism, and partly due to a general preference for "naturalness"/suspicion of anything new.

It's very Americentrist to assume anyone ever thinks of "Americans" when deciding their home improvements and expenses.

Most of Europe only sees occasional heatwaves (for now) so it's a compromise to suffer some heat briefly but save money and effort on the AC installation. Those who can, time their vacation to overlap with much of the peak heat.

I think this slowly changes but it's driven by need (longer and hotter heatwaves), affordability, local regulation, not by thinking of "Americans". Not even US Americans.

Re: Europeans should learn to love the air-conditioner

#90

Post by comrade1234 »

The building I live in is like a fortress - all cement construction, another outer layer of stressed concrete panels, triple pane windows... very well-insulated. We have a ground temp heat exchanger its floor heating/cooling which has been more than adequate during this heatwave.
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