Europe’s Cities Weren’t Built for This Kind of Heat

Re:Europe’s Cities Weren’t Built for This Kind of Heat by noonespecial on Thursday July 25, 2019 @02:42PM (#20528165)

A curious thing that people have no problem dumping endless kilowatts (and gas btu's) into their heaters all winter but a few watts of AC when its warm is environmental heresy and a sign of personal weakness. This despite the fact that heat-pump AC's use far less power.

All I can figure is people have been heating themselves for 10's of thousands of years and AC is a distinctly modern phenomenon. From Mother Earth's perspective it would be far better for humanity to live in the tropics with AC than nearer the poles with heaters.

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Re:Europe’s Cities Weren’t Built for This Kind of Heat by raverbashing on Thursday July 25, 2019 @02:55PM (#20528293)

Might I add that some countries are especially known for liking their internal temperatures more in the tropical range even when outside temperatures are around 10C/15C and just natural heat from people would be enough to make it comfortable.

AC is not a waste of electricity, quite the contrary, if it can be inverted (that is, pumping hot air in instead of out) then it's more efficient than electric heating.

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Re:Europe’s Cities Weren’t Built for This Kind of Heat by ekr on Thursday July 25, 2019 @02:47PM (#20528220)

Indeed, but you can also use an AC to heat a space, but the efficiency will go down as the outside temperature drops. Heat pumps work both ways.

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