Can We Solve the Air Conditioning Paradox?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 13 бер 2023
- We’re on PATREON! Join the community
/ itsokaytobesmart
↓↓↓ More info and sources below ↓↓↓
As the Earth warms due to human-caused climate change, billions of people in the developing world will face life-threatening heat waves, raising the demand for air conditioning. But powering all of that cooling is going to take more energy, which will require burning more fossil fuels! Are there new air conditioning technologies on the horizon that could solve this paradox?
NOTE: A previous version of this video had a graph at 6:19 with incorrect values. The video has been updated with the correct graph.
Aerial photography by Jeff Arnold
Written by Eli Kintisch and Joe Hanson
SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss a video! ►► bit.ly/iotbs_sub
-----------
High fives to all our Brain Trust Patrons:
Millennial Glacier
paul andre bouis
Mark Littlehale
Ali Freiburger
Mehdi Damou
Barbora Bei
Burt Humburg
dani bowman
David Johnston
Salih Arslan
Baerbel Winkler
Robert Young
Eric Meer
Dustin
Karen Haskell
Join us on Patreon!
/ itsokaytobesmart
Twitter
/ drjoehanson
/ okaytobesmart
Instagram
/ drjoehanson
/ okaytobesmart
Merch
store.dftba.com/collections/i...
Facebook
/ itsokaytobesmartpbs
This episode of Be Smart is licensed exclusively to UA-cam.
Could you live without air conditioning? Me neither. But if we want to stop making climate change worse, we need to fix it
Hi Joe! Are there ever plans to do a segment on Nuclear Energy to dispel some of the myths around it? I’ve always been oddly captivated by atomic tech, but many others aren’t, and their perception of Nuclear begins and ends with Homer in The Simpsons intro. Love your channel!
My family only use it for maybe 5 days a year and it's only in one room of the house, no central air. So yeah ... We can live without it.
Air conditioners made me sick when I travelled overseas.
@@Bibiboshhow so? Where did you travel?
NO!
I feel like the presence of trees weren't even touched, as it should be :)
It is observable that areas with better green coverage are cooler than other areas. I know, it is not a *solution* to the problem presented, but it is, first of all, a thing that we should be doing anyways, that is preserving nature, and second, it would at least make the "more heat > more power needed" less intense
Thanks for another interesting video, y'all!
Trees are definitely things that large populations should have.
Tree leaves block 5G. Cutting trees in cities will a priority.
@@bradleedenney never heard of leaves neutralizing all 5g signals in a city before... Will be conducting my own research on whether leaves from interspersed city trees can absorb ALL the radio waves in a given 5 mile radius. But just so you know any big city full of trees I've been to hasn't had a problem with cell phone coverage. Maybe I'm just lucky and always managed to accidentally find the right cell phone company who has hardware and towers that work around trees, who knows
Planting trees is probably one of the best ways to solve many problems we are facing in cities, especially considering heat regulation, and it's probably one of the easiest. I don't know why we always have to look out for new technologies for everything, when the solutions already exists.
This is true but consider that trees produce cooling through evaporation, thus you need more water for hotter climates, furthermore global heating will make hot places hotter and eventually these trees may no longer be able to survive in an environment that's too hot.
I saw a building not too long ago that had two roofs. The second roof was added to protect the original structure beneath it from weather damage. A side effect of doing that though was that the need for AC and heating noticeably decreased as the temperature stayed more constant over time. Utilizing the right type of trees also helps immensely with providing shade to buildings. Basements offer a natural escape from the heat because even a few feet below ground is always 60 degrees year round.
I sleep every sommmer in our basement for this reason
The problem with trees near houses is that their root systems can destroy sewer lines and foundations, and their branches and trunks can fall in storms and cause property damage. Otherwise, they're pretty ideal. I suspect you just have to plan based on how tall they get, how large their root system gets and how it grows (e.g., spreads out), and how far from the home you can place them and still benefit from the shade.
kind makes sense, a normal roof transfers the heat right into the house, a secondary roof "catches" that heat and then it gets cooled off by the wind
60 degrees?! 😶
That is way too hot!! 🤣🤣
Building houses underground is also a way to reduce long-term emissions, though the initial construction can have higher emissions.
It does drive me nuts how much we build structures with the idea that it doesn't NEED to be built with staying cool in mind, because "we can just air condition it."
We need to build homes to stay cool. Shades above the homes, shades over the windows, where tons of heat enters the home. We USED to have shades over windows, and I have no idea why we stopped that.
As an architect, it really bothers me why we don't do that, even though there are at least 15-20 good solutions.
A big issue is what a client thinks looks cool. Since they think shades over windows don't look cool, they don't want it. Similarly, almost all corporate buildings have a glass facade. Glass facades are only good for colder climates as the glass traps heat. So that reduces the heating costs. But if you got cold weathers half the year and warm summers, the trapped heat would be bad then. And it would definitely require air conditioning. But most people don't seem to get it and just want a glass building regardless.
We do, it's called insulation.
Did you just make that up? What state do you live in? California has some of the most stringent energy efficiency requirements in the country. There is plenty of effort put into new construction.
Even then, builders last thoughts are how HVAC systems actually work. If you put a return and a supply in every room, it actually makes the system the most efficient it can be.
Thicker exterior walls would help.
A university nearby to me has a building I've been in where they have huge pipes going underground, which uses that air to cool the building. It keeps the air in the building stable on hot and cold days and it's amazing
Pretty sure that was a central water system taking water to a cooling tower - a chilling tower . Air is blown over the water pipes.
@@terranhealerit’s geothermal
imagine, a place with the brightest minds using the least efficient method of cooling.
Air is horrible at holding heat
but that's not the case, its called chilled beam cooling.
this system uses a chiller (which uses refrigerant) to condition water,
that water then flows in beams throughout a building
that absorb the heat within it thus conditioning it.🤭🤭
Usually it's just 'brine' water that is pumped through the cold side of an A/C / heat pump. So only the heat exchanger part has refrigerant.
@@chark2131sure but you still have to condition the air that's been cooled geothermal which still takes power.
When I visited Texas (from the UK) I was horrified by how cold the hotel and conference space I was in was kept! It was 30deg celcius outside in late October and I hadn't brought any winter clothes, so I was absolutely freezing the whole time. Maybe start by just setting your AC to liveable temperatures?!
Households are usually not maintained that cold because people don't want to pay high electricity bills. For companies and hotels, it is a different matter... they have to compensate for the increase in human bodies packed into a single room and there is the added effect that if you even feel comfortable, humans tend to doze off, which is not good for employees or event attendees. And finally, far fewer people complaint about colder than warmer temperatures. If you have ever been into a warm meeting room, everyone is uncomfortable.
I'm often surprised how differently people's bodies tolerate heat or cold. I grew up/live in Oklahoma, central-ish US, where we often have temperatures over 100F/38C (not including the heat index/humidity).
But for some reason I can easily get overheated even in 27C temps and struggle to sleep with the AC over 24C. A hotel conference crowded with people and temps 30C+ sounds like a nightmare, unless they want me wearing only my underwear.
@@sevenofzach 38 celcius is hot 🥵, for me, 34 is the max I ever feel
6:33 is bullshit. It is just throwing the heat outside which was already there. Only thing to be worried about is the electricity generation process and avoiding leakage of coolant.
I turned my AC down to 68, just for you.
Passive cooling designs are laughably easy to utilize. Earth ships basically proved multiple concepts for sustainability back in the 80's. The problem is despite having several opportunities to revamp zoning and building codes, states and cities haven't done it. It drives me absolutely bonkers, because ultimately zoning and building codes are THE crux to solving climate change. But good luck finding a sound byte from any politician admitting such.
I wish Cob homes were more widely made and available
GM lobbying to maintain detached single family residences has a lot to do with why politicians don't mention it
Yeah getting past lobbyist tends to be a big obstacle for zoning reform. Unless you already have lots of money and connections to the given politician like as not those with interest for the statu quo will convince them not to.
In addition, hear pumps nowadays are also getting more affordable and work in a large variety of climates. Sadly, the same problem applies. Its always politics
Fox news would frame any such efforts as an attack on your freedom.
"They're coming to steal your AC!"
Idiots would eat it up, and it'd be politically dead on any large scale.
When I was in my mid 20's working as a mason. I bought a used green 1985 Toyota pickup truck for $700.
Not only did it last me 5 years without needing repairs; I sold it to a junk yard for $150.
But that little green pickup truck had an amazingly strange malfunction that I can't explain.
When I'd turn on the heat, it could get so hot that the vents started to melt.
And when I'd turn on the AC, it would get so cold that frost would build up on the vents!!!
I didn't complain, nor have it looked at by a mechanic. I just figured something magical was happening and let it ride.
daymnn
You should have read about the fish market in Madrid. Open door building, no AC, they implemented passive cooling and the temperature dropped by 15 degrees celcius.
So yes, we can actually get rid of ACs if we're open to these innovations and to change building designs.
Sure if you pay for the installation cost for my home
That doesn't work so well when there's high humidity
One of the big problems is that houses and buildings are now designed and constructed with AC in mind. You HAVE to have AC these days in certain parts of the country. No more well built, well insulated houses with good ventilation and high ceilings.
I wonder what it really is. Building engineers did not take into account the harm of air conditioners to nature, or they purposely help people who do business on air conditioners for money, because if people find a replacement for them, then their affairs will be bad)
@@cinemartin3530 its not that easy, im drawing a home for my sister in urban area. Middle of the city which the left and right is already have building on it
the best i can do is make the ceiling high and make a big-ass window for circulation,wind can only came from the front because the backside already have building on it
Swamp coolers do good when dew point Temps are lower than 48.
When I lived in Italy, we did not have air conditioning, but we did not need it. Old buildings, like the one I liven in, had very thick outer walls, over a meter thick. This kept the heat out, like living in a cave. There were also metal blinds on the outside that could be closed when that side of the building was in the sun. Very comfortable
But wouldn't that mean using more concrete which also leads to greenhouse gas emissions? (Not an architect/engineer)
@@omomer3506 You just have to move to the Mediterranean and purchase a very large building that was made 100 years ago. What's the problem?
@@omomer3506 Nobody pours a one meter thick concrete wall for residential buildings. At the most it'll be mainly bricks. Some places build with brick/stone walls with dirt filled in the middle. Wood and insulation work just fine. Americans just need to thicken their wood and insulation walls by like 3 times and problem solved.
@@georgehill3087 Unless you're in California that has earthquakes and now you've built 1 meter thick tombs for future earthquake victims.
Here in Brazil our houses have thick walls too, it really works wonders!
Might be a bit late, but it's important to mention there are other methods for cooling that don't put heat back into the air. We can use deep bore holes and underground loops to cool refrigerant too. There's a higher install cost, but long term it can save a ton of energy.
It really is criminal how people sleep on geothermal heating/cooling
Exactly...earthships underground are the only way to go. Native Americans around California/Nevada/Arizona built underground cooler houses. But Western man built upwards, which doesn't make sense.
@@reygamingchannel1505 lmao what are you on about. It makes plenty of sense. Most normal people don't want to live in a dark freakin' cave. Duhhhh. Like c'mon. Use your head Mr. Genius. As if people would sacrifice a beautiful home with a nice view for a dark cave when they can just use an aircon and live in a typical home lmao.
@Gcostansa230 Sure but I'm not a fan of commiefornians paving over all the greenery with black asphalt heat batteries and pushing up prices for everything here
@@reygamingchannel1505
"ut Western man built upwards, which doesn't make sense."
No, no, you don't have to go underground, nazzerdawk is talking about having a DEVICE underground that uses the natural temperature differences between the surface and underground to provide cooling and/or heating. 🙂
You can also make energy by accessing the heat that's really deep underground. We do a lot of that in California. 🙂
There is an easy answer: nuclear power.
????
For some reason basements have been all but fazed out but basements are naturally super cool and could have been a great natural way to keep cool.
What if we had a water system like the Romans did built into the floor and walls of a basement and they circulated through the walls of the upper floors of a building? It might not work for very tall buildings, but for the basic homeowner...
It really depends on where you live. Soil conditions can make basements way more expensive. Water condition can make flooding a major issue. High density housing can't have much of a basement.
@@akamesama Well, sure, the actual environment notwithstanding, if the entire residential area wasn't planned to have basements it's more difficult to add an extra house with a basement, or attic basement to a house in a pre existing residential lot. It all ends up coming back to the city planners and the politicians. We gots ta think ahead.
Not just basements but patios, good isolation, painting things white (whitewashing) or in pastel (whiteish) colors...
@@LuisAldamiz what the outermost layer of a building is made from as well as the substance of the paint would probably also be an important step to consider. A coating of something that scatters light as much as it reflects light so as to not blind passersby but still remove as much heat as possible from the surface
Something that wasn't mentioned but is incredibly easy: just plant shade trees near homes and buildings. Stopping the heat from getting into the building in the first place is far more efficient than pumping it back out ever will be
Hah it aint so simple. Trees attract bugs that damage roof structure, let off organic matter that make roofs rot and drain poorly, need to be cleaned...
While I absolutely love my maple and ash trees as they provide a ton of shade for the roof which drastically helps with cooling, the risk of them damaging the house is definitely something to consider. Root damage to the foundation, large falling limbs, potential for loss of life or injury, etc.
It gets sketchy in the fall if we get an early snow and they haven't dropped most of their leaves yet, but on the upside we can keep our windows open most of the year and be perfectly comfortable without even using the AC with some exceptions. We maybe used it two weeks in total last summer.
A downside of this is that solar needs shade-free access to properly charge, and may even not charge the panel depending on how it's constructed.
If u have big land is okay
@@noefvon if u have big land u are rich or rural and away from centralized social services and communal places
Not to mention that your body adapts to the constant temperature and cooler air, thus you become more sensitive to hotter weather and you'll believe it's hot before someone who lives without air conditioning.
Sadly, some of us need A/C in certain times of year for its dehumidifying, purifying, and air-circulating functions as well as cooling. I'm more tolerant of heat than I've been in the past (maybe it's all the, um, insulation I've put on my body over the decades) & as my asthma has improved, it's a little less of an issue, but I still need it to breathe well enough to function well.
@@elainebelzDetroit I feel you. I had asthma as a kid and I needed an air conditioner in the summer both because it helped with pollen in the air and it somewhat dehumidified and cooled the air so it didn’t trigger my asthma. Without it I had to use an inhaler nearly every other night which made sleeping a nightmare with the heart racing effect the meds had.
You're not wrong about our senses accommodating, but that tends to happen physiologically pretty fast, and then our senses readjust to a new norm. More accurately, modern humans in first world countries are less psychologically tolerant of suffering harsh conditions than we used to be, so we'll notice our own suffering quicker.
But that all said, there's a very narrow region in which humans need to thermoregulate their inner temperature, and physiological compensation mechanisms will not stretch very high to save you. What this means is that even if you notice it's hotter sooner, it will only be in a narrow temperature gap before your body is struggling anyway no matter how you perceive it.
If you've spent years learning how to slowly adjust to a very hot or very cold environment, you might develop behavioural compensation mechanisms (and even some accentuated physiological ones) that will keep you alive a little bit longer.
For someone like me who has a thyroid issue and hyperhidrosis our bodies feel any heat or cold to each extreme. I sweat immediately in direct sunlight and I can't feel my fingers with heavy gloves in the winter while actively moving. it really, really sucks. I'm in great physical shape as well
Don’t care, anything above 70 is too hot to live, anything above 60 is far too hot to sleep. If I walk into a business on a warm day, and it’s not noticeable colder in that establishment, I think far less of the owners and I’m unlikely to ever buy from that business again.
Living in New Orleans I can't imagine living without a/c. When its 100 or even 106 degrees, (perhaps dropping to a balmy 90 at night), with 70-80% humidity, getting cool is literally a lifesaving necessity. All I can do is try to keep the thermostat as high as I can stand it (usually 78 degrees) to decrease as much energy use as possible. If someone would come up with something better I'd be right at the front of the line to sign up.
Air conditioners used to be quite rare in Finnish homes but now that Heat pumps are added as more efficient heaters, they can also be used to cool the home. For some reason air conditioners aren't always made to also heat the air.
Here in Portugal ASHPs are sold just as ACs
Bro imagine having AC when living in the one of the most northern countries... wtf
@@whannabi We do get a few uncomfortably warm and humid days a year. But yea, there's a reason having just cooling ACs have not been that popular :)
@@whannabi As he just said, you can get it for heating. There are units that can heat in -25 celsius, and it's one of the greenest ways to heat a home. Optimally heating with AC/ heat pump from renewable electricity.
Heat pumps when first introduced in homes in the late 1900s where very unreliable the reversing valve that changes the direction of the refrigerant has gone through many changes. an air conditioner and a furnace that uses some sort of fuel was more desirable they heated the home better both units lasted longer and the operating costs where cheaper the heat pumps of today are far more efficient they are still more expensive to run in most areas in America and they do not last as long as a conventional air conditioner but they do work exceptionally well in southern climates I have one installed in my home
You should have mentioned how trees and plants can help cool down the environment. Adding more windows will not help if the wind is dry and extremely hot. It's like a blow-dryer on your skin. In tropical countries like mine, summer heat reaches over 40 degrees C.
Trees don't just grow everywhere irrigation is also waste of resources but its not like water is important to anyone
As someone working in the building technology, specialized in heating and cooling systems in switzerland, i get the problems with the refrigerants. But here in switzerland it's very common to not only cool the buildings with refrigerants, but also use them to heat the buildings (taking energy from wind, water or the ground via geothermal probes around 250 meters into the ground). The fact in cooling systems warmer air get's blown out into the atomosphere doesn't raise the air, since it's only transfering the warm air out of the building, so it has no effect on the climate. If there is a heating system, we even use the waste heat to put it back into the geothermal probes during the summer, so increase the longevity of the probes (since only taking the heat out of said probes will cool the ground over an 50 years period, which means a decrease in gained energy from it).
Only issue are the refrigerants
Living in a tropical country, this has been in my mind for a long while, humid heat is the worst. You need aircon to deal with it, but we definitely don't construct buildings/houses with this climate in mind, *because* aircon _was_ available.
Thing is, the best way to build in those places is to basically build a cooler for humans. You want to keep as much of the cool conditioned air you've made inside and insulate the heck out of your box to keep it that way.
Now just make sure you build it strong enough to handle hurricane winds, away from trees that could fall and at a higher elevation to deter flooding and you've got the ideal tropical and sub tropical home.
I live in Sweden and we don't usually have air conditioners in houses here, but it is becoming more popular now that we are getting warmer summers. Though, we don't seem to use them to the same extent other countries do. When I travel abroad it always surprises me how absolute freezing the temperature is indoors. It feels like walking into a refrigerator - I'm honestly surprised people can manage to live like that.
I do too, and I can barely survive the summers here without an AC. I'm freaking boiling here during the summers. I was born in the middle of winter and the summers weren't quite so hot when I was young. Nowadays, though... I so want to move to the northern parts of the country. Less I will finally boil over one summer.
I live in Maine (USA). Our summers have became hotter and winters are shorter with less snow. We had to have Split-AC installed. We only use it a few times each year. On the hottest humid nights.
We still burn wood for heat. It’s the cheapest and puts out the best heat.
Yeah, but average temperatures in Sweden in July is 18 C (about 64 degrees F).
Compare that to other countries, and it makes sense why you wouldn't need A/C most of the time.
I'd imagine most people in Phoenix, Arizona don't use their electric or gas heating units or rely on traditional furnaces/fireplaces to stay warm much either.
Where I live, the average temp this winter has been close to 17 C, and temps will average 34 C in July, with peaks up to 43 C
@@corey2232 what they're refering to is not really the need to use AC, which is natural. Is the extent of use. It really isn't necessary to lower temperature THAT much to be comfortable. It's actually uncomfortable for many people (specially women) to have AC running so strongly. And a few degrees in the set temperature makes a huge difference in energy consumption
@@corey2232 People in Arizona use heat pumps. I don't know what you call that in Sweden but, it's called central AC here. I lived in Arizona for 2.5 years. They also use swamp coolers for cooling. Efficient and uses less electricity than AC.
I think one of the most underrated things is good thermal insulation. Another way to cool buildings is to use ground water or earth-heatexchanger, which also ramps up efficiency
this works great for the first person on the block who gets it and progressively worse as more and more people try and use it ( what you dump heat into has more and more heat being dumped into it )
@@woltews I agree, this has to be monitored well. The groundwater temperature is increased for up to 300m downstream for each heat pump. In my city they solved it in the new areas by having block central heating and cooling and in the older parts by regulating the depth of the well to avoid interference, which isn't always unavoidable. But most people use just air for cooling and heating because it's cheaper to install.
Greetings from Germany
Theoretically, one build underground heat storage (or just use ground and/or ground water) as heat reservoir, both to dump heat during summer and pull it back during winter. But this requires pretty enormous heat capacity and, worse, the average temperature over the year needs to be below (for hot locations) or above (for cold ones) the desired one. But to us Europeans that might work, as we need both cooling in summer and heating in winter.
@@bazoo513 if someone else is already pumping the heat so there is a limit on how much you can also pump out , so if there are 24 houses on the block the first house can pump out lots of heat, but the 24th house might find the ground / water at ambient air temperature
@@woltews Yes, if you pump in, say, some kind of underground creek. It's more complicated than that.
Thank you Joe. Very clear and well done.
Yes I live without air-con. Victoria Australia. Old house (cheap old) . Direction of walls and windows, thick layer of bushy leafy low trees make a huge difference. North facing here = less direct sunlight in summer, more in winter hitting the walls and windows.
The hottest temp so far was 46c in 2019. Extraordinary temp - had me lieing on the floor * just there in the floor level breeze, wet towels on. People died of heat injuries that year. Power cuts all over the place.
I always think about how much energy would be saved if buildings just altered their temperature a few degrees in the direction of the outside temperature. Also, you wouldn't have to do a complete wardrobe change every time you enter a building that's overcompensating for the outside temperature.
You glanced over a white paint as it's "meh whatever". Meanwhile there are super reflective paints that passively make things cooler than surrounding air, and they're relatively cheap. Look into two last videos of Tech Ingredients out passive cooling, they explain physics and show demonstration, make this paint and test it. Too bad it's not easy to apply to already installed roof otherwise I would be planning this thing for a spring project)
EDIT corrected channel name
Kinda hard when the outside air is hot as Hell because of the dark roads.
there are also more advanced radiative cooling systems that you can literally just install on the roof before the hot air gets to the heat exchanger, they're passive systems so you don't need much maintenance and don't need to paint the whole building with an expensive paint
Just a quick correction it was the tech ingredients channel, not technology connections. I was really hoping this video would touch on passive cooling as well. I actually thought this video was going to be solely about passive cooling.
@@FenrizNNN no, it can actually cool things. unsure of the channel, mightve literally been vox or something, but they took it to india and showed their produce lasting longer while still exposed to air.
@@jonathanodude6660 Tech Ingredients made a video demonstrating the tech
Not a paradox. It's a feedback loop.
I was gonna comment the same thing. This is just a positive feedback loop in action.
Seems people just want to use fancy words without putting much thought into it.
It was to make the video more clickable. Thought you would be able to see that. Guess not
@@raymondqiu8202 are you suggesting it was a clickbait?
@@aniruddhapaturkar1884 yes ofc
This is the content I wanted. Thanks a lot to Be Smart team for making this video possible.
For my Master degree's Thesis. I built an experimental air conditioning that is based on water evaporation. The unit consists of 2 isolated chambers where air is drawn in from the environment through a duct and passes through a rotating desiccant filter, the dehumidified air is then blown onto a set of copper fins wrapped around a copper air duct with water continuously being sprinkled onto it. That air duct is the part where the room air is drawn though and there is a set of honeycomb copper inside it to help absorbs heat. The now "wet" air from the outer chamber is forced back out into the environment. In effect I have constructed a more efficient and effective "swamp cooler" that does not add humidity into the cooling space. Now the efficiency of this unit is somewhat on par with refrigerant based airconditioners but energy consumption is not as low as one would hope, the heating element for redrying that rotating desiccant filter certainly consumes energy close to a compressor. The prototype is also less capable of making drastic temperature reduction in really hot environment as evaporating water is not as cool as other chemicals. However I think this concept could be our solution to the airconditioning challenges in the coming decades.
Building a swamp cooler is not impressive.
you just made a twice as expensive climate wizard lol🤭
munters
@@P0nderProductions dunning Kruger
@@Mawyman2316 I'm an hvacr technician lmao
The vastly different climates in the US make solutions work well in some areas, but lousy in others. I grew up near Vancouver (Canada) and open doors and windows were fine for summertime. Most homes don't have A/C. But the summer temps do go down at night. Humidity is 20-35% during the summer months. This makes the breeze feel nice. Box fans and ceiling fans work well, as do opening skylights and/or tall opening windows. Swimming in the oceans, rivers, lakes, gave a refreshing cool down that keeps your body cool for the rest of the evening. Ocean temperatures in Vancouver in July are colder than Gulf of Mexico water temperatures in January.
Living in Houston, not too far from Austin TX, there is no cool breeze during the summer time. The high dew points during summertime (75-80°F or 24-27°C) means it's sultry outside even after midnight. And the high humidity keeps the temps from falling at night. Typical summertime weather is 95°F/35°C and 50-60% humidity during daytime and 75-80°F/24-27°C at night with the humidity in the 80% range......When you have 80°F weather at midnight with the humidity gauge reading 80-90%, opening a window is the last thing you want to do. The dew points max out around 80°F/27°C here. That means it's not only 35°C outside, but the humidity is the same as if it were 27°C/100% humidity. This does interesting things like cause condensation on the outside of the windows on your house and car. Sometimes you need to turn on the windshield wipers to clear the condensation.
Evaporative coolers ("swamp coolers") work well in dry climates like Arizona. They're very cheap to run. They're basically water running through a giant sponge with a fan blowing through it. But they don't work at all in humid places like Texas or Florida. Air conditioners designed for Arizona work miserably in Texas and vice versa. You want your A/C set up to maximize cooling while sacrificing humidity removal in the desert (faster fan speeds). In Texas you want to maximize humidity removal while sacrificing cooling (slower fan speeds). This is why homes are often too cold in the humid south. It's not because it's too hot. It's because it's too humid. When it's 74°F/95% humidity outside during spring/fall evenings, it's hard to keep a house comfortable with the thermostat on 74°. You've got to lower it to say 72 or even 70 in order to wring out the humidity in the air. Better air tight houses and A/C designed for humidity removal would help (like slower fan speeds or better yet, variable displacement A/C that can run from 100% duty cycle all the way down to 30% duty cycle in 1% increments. You end up with a very efficient system that never shuts off, but runs at very low capacity when minimal cooling/maximum humidity removal is needed. Evaporator coil is always cold. Humidity removal is very good). You can leave the thermostat turns up with a system like this.
Hawaii houses tend to have jalousie windows that let gargantuan amounts of wind into the room. The wind never stops blowing there. And the humidity isn't as bad as the southern states. I've often joked that I'd like to go to Hawaii in the summertime for a vacation, since it's cooler and drier in Hawaii than Texas is during the summer months. Their 40 cents per kwh electricity rates (about triple what we pay) mean that A/C is unaffordable to most people in Hawaii. Jalousie windows don't work that well in the southern states as they leak air even when they're closed.....But they're never closed in Hawaii.
Ground source heat pumps are the kings of performance efficiency. Unfortunately, in Texas the ground subsides and sinks, which makes the pipes on a ground source system break. I'd love to have the low cost cooling, not to mention silence that a ground source system has. But can't with the ground surface being what it is. It's the same reason that basements are not built in Texas climate.
As for why malls are so cold. You have to remember that malls bring in a lot of outdoor air due to the large amount of people inside. This extra air needs to be cooled in order for dehumidification. Thus the air tends to be cooler than it would normally need to be.
My home in Texas has central A/C. But it's not a heat pump. The heater is a traditional electric furnace. The extra cost of installing a heat pump is not worth it for the short few weeks or days that heating is needed. Winter weather is odd here. It can be 24°C (75°F) or -10°C (14°F) all in the same week. Usually it stays above freezing during the occasional cold snap. I think it's snowed 3 times during the 15 years I've lived here. The first time it snowed, it was 15°C/60°F the next day.
As someone from San Antonio I can agree with everything. The summers are exhausting
This is by far the most interesting, well written and relevant comment I have ever seen under a UA-cam video.
Also, I would like to point out that it's interesting how different countries have vastly different problems, for example where I live (Germany), we don't think much about air conditioning, since there is only like 6 to 8 weeks in the summer where it would be great to have, but we absolutely need heating in the winter months, since it gets quite cold quite often, so living without heating is out of the question. Since we want to move away from buying Russian gas, and not make climate change more severe than it already is, we currently discuss making heat pumps mandatory in the future, instead of burning oil, gas or wood to stay warm in the winter. I think heat pumps are probably a great choice for other countries as well, since if I understand it correctly, they can be built in a way where the exact same system can cool the house in the summer and heat it in the winter, which, combined with really good thermal insulation can be a cost efficient way to always have a healthy room temperature year-round, and if the electricity is generated in a green way, it can be OK-ish for the environment. So we will see what comes out of this discussion, maybe this will become the new normal for many countries in the next years.
The main problems with this approach are that we don't yet have enough electricity that is generated in a green way, and we may have to improve the electric grid to handle the extra load, since we also want to move to electric cars at the same time.
So the whole world should take a look at what happens here and how well it works, and whether it makes sense to do the same elsewhere.
My favourite part of these kind of videos is reading the comments because i get to learn how governments see and solve the problem and what the citizens think about them. This is a really heplful comment on understanding the general problem based on different regions in the world, i also think that to reduce this problem we must consider the country's different living conditions (the weather, humidity, climate, country's level of developedness etc)
@@rolfviehmann6240 Thank you very much for your comment. It made my day!..... When I lived in Canada, I used to work for a German couple that owned a German bakery. (German rye bread is the best tasting bread anywhere.) One time while visiting their house, they showed me the German windows that they'd imported from Germany. They tilted inwards or outwards at the top of the window. As well as inwards or outwards at the bottom of the window. I had never seen anything like that before. Most Canadian windows simply open outwards in one spot and that's it. But the German windows could be locked in an open position with no theft worries. They could let fresh air in without a cold draft. They could be open while raining and not let the water in. I was impressed. German homes look to have very thick insulated walls and radiator heat that allows each room to be a different temperature. With typical Canadian/American forced air systems, the houses tend to have the same temperature in every room. This is nice for comfort, though it can also lead to overheating or overcooling rooms that don't need it. Germans tend to have slightly smaller houses, which is obviously good for energy use.
Wood is a rarely mentioned part of efficiency conversations. Germans have wood pellet burning systems for hot water. Pellets burn very cleanly. Fireplaces are terrible for efficiency. They exhaust about 400 cfm (cubic feet/minute) of air up the chimney. It exhausts the hot air from the room. That means 400 cfm of air is getting pulled into the house from somewhere else to balance the airflow. That air will be cold and drafty. Fireplaces are 20% efficient down to as low as -20% efficient. Vancouver banned fireplaces from all new homes in 1990......Now wood stoves on the other hand can be very efficient. About the same as pellet efficiency (85%). My Dad heats his home in Canada with a wood stove. It's his only source of heat. But it has a catalyst inside the wood stove that burns the smoke before it goes up the chimney and releases that burnt heat back into the wood. The longer the fire goes, the more the flames slow down, the more smoke is generated. But that smoke then repeatedly ignites and keeps heating the wood temperature up higher......The result is that there is no visible smoke coming out his chimney. There is no wood smell coming from his chimney. The chimney pipe is warm but not enough to burn your hand (no hot smoke going up the chimney). And the wood stove can run for 30-40 hours before he needs to add more wood. A wood stove only exhausts about 25 cfm of air up the chimney compared to an open fireplace's 400 cfm. His chimney is very clean since there isn't much smoke going up it. He uses 1/3rd as much wood per winter as he used to use with a traditional wood stove. There is very little ash left over, since the wood is fully burnt. Put simply, wood smoke is unburnt wasted fuel. He doesn't have that....... I like that wood heat is locally sourced. You're paying a local person to cut it and purchase from. There is no utility company bill. No foreign country to buy it from. And it's renewable.
The video mentioned white roofs. This depends on where you live. Not particularly useful in Canada or Germany. You'd want the heat absorption that a black roof has for winter heat. In a place like Saudi Arabia, a white roof makes perfect sense. And they know it. Because every car you see in Saudi Arabia (or anywhere else in the middle east) is a white car. Nobody wants to own a black car when it's 50°C outside.
Nobody uses pellets for hot water in the US. But heat pump technology has appeared in new hot water tanks. The typical 40-50 gallon hot water tank will have a small heat pump on the top of the tank, that when it operates, will blow cool dehumidified air into the room. (the hot air heats up the tank) This can make a garage slightly cooler during the hot summer months. It can cool the attic if the hot water tank is up there. My favourite design would be to duct that cool dehumidified air into a kitchen or living room. Giving you a tiny amount of "free" air conditioning every time the hot water tank is on. This is very useful in a hot-humid climate like Texas. There are also on-demand natural gas hot water systems that only run when the hot water faucet is on. I'm sure Germany has these already.
I think air conditioning unfairly gets a bad reputation during heat waves because it does pump hot air into the sky. And it causes utility companies to run full power during extreme heat. But that's because A/C is 100% electrical use. There are no natural gas air conditioners or wood powered air conditioners. The efficiency of air conditioning is very high though. About 250% efficient. (1 watt of energy gives 2.5 watts of cooling.) Much better than an electric furnace (100% efficient.....1 watt of energy = 1 watt of heat). Air conditioning or heat pump use in the summer is also more efficient than a heat pump in the wintertime because a heat pump will go into "defrost cycle" from time to time during winter. Air conditioning in the summer has no defrost cycle. What does the defrost cycle do? It runs backwards. It turns the air conditioning on during the winter time (sending warm heat from your home to the outside condenser to thaw it out). It also turns on a secondary heat system (electric furnace or natural gas) at the same time so that you don't feel too cold inside your house. None of that happens during summertime.
How do central air conditioners get to be 250% efficient? Central air conditioners are "transferring" heat from one place to another. From inside the house to outside the house. A heat pump is the same as a central air conditioner, except that it has a reversing valve that lets this happen in reverse (transferring heat from outside the house in wintertime to inside the house)...... An electric furnace or a natural gas furnace is "generating" heat. It's much easier to transfer heat than it is to generate heat. Your fridge is an air conditioner. It transfers the heat from inside the fridge to your kitchen. It's very cheap to use.
The 250% efficiency number is from the most common air conditioner. That being "air source" that have a large condenser fan box outside the house. A "ground source" air conditioner that uses pipes under ground to send heat to/from the Earth run about 500% efficient.
I mentioned that most people in Texas have central A/C and regular electric furnaces. Heat pumps are rare here. My heating bill for the year is probably $50. It's not worth it to spend the extra money to buy a heat pump for the short winter season. People in Canada or Germany have to pay extra to get the full heat pump system. Primarily for the efficient heating operation. Though the A/C that comes with it can be nice for the occasional heatwave summer day. This is why heat pumps have been rare to see in Canada. Although with electric costs going up and climate change being an issue, they're starting to appear more and more in new homes.
Thanks for your excellent info. I learned. I used to live in northern NM & northern AZ. "Swamp Coolers" and cement block / stone houses worked very well. Ancient Pueblos kept cool in summer and easier heating in winter with their sandstone buildings or cliff dwellings. (In winter it can fall below zero F in the low humidity). Amarillo, TX, I-40 corridor was/is low humidity. But most of TX...
We still dont have central aircons in private homes in central europe btw.. Ppl started buying these portable ones some years ago but its still not a normal thing to own one.
One more important impact is that we need to prohibit free release of refrigerant and fully enforce that. Most maintenance technician still releasing it freely without using recovery machines.
we definitely need to work on the greener refrigeration methods. As to power use, that's not really an issue as long as your power source is green. We're shifting to that already. 🙂
I'm Indonesian. And I'm so grateful to live in this city (Batu City, you can look it up on gmaps) unlike any big city like Surabaya or Jakarta (the temperature is extreme there for me). The temperature here is just right (it's the middle of the noon and peaking about 28⁰C or around 83⁰F, at night it goes down to 18⁰C or around 65⁰F), the air is so fresh because Batu City is in the foot of mount Arjuna. Also we are surrounded by mountains. It's so rare here to see private house have an AC unit. Mostly we just need a fans.
It sounds like you live in paradise. Im quite jealous to be honest
Most of your citizens live in the coastal area, ofc the temperature goes extreme there. Rampant use of private vehicles, coal power plants, too many factories, etc contribute more to the problem.
Hey, I'm not far from there! The area around Bogor always seems nice and cool. I've thought of buying a home down there for when I retire. $70,000 USD is sure a lot more reasonable than getting a home in my home country :')
@@Nukepositive as a citizen of Bogor myself, I never ever installed an air conditioning system in my house for over 9 years (since 2014) and to be honest, it wasn't that bad. The key is to plant shady trees near your house. The average temperature is around 30°C at 12 PM - 3 PM and it goes down to 23°C at night. It saves the environment and my electricity bills, too!
How’s the humidity? Indonesian is prone to high humidity.
As a Hvac tech located in Europe i got to say there are so many laws and systems in place that the refrigerant loss to the environment is already close to 0. Also on the power consumption: u need aircon the most when the sun is shining so I think it would be smart to require people to run their ACs on solar. With some exceptions ofc
We are in the US and have solar. Unfortunately, in the past couple of years, electric providers have started disincentivizing solar if you're patched into the grid for backup. They used to do net metering and stopped that, resulting in my power bill being multiple times what it used to be. There isn't a lot of reason for people considering adopting solar to do so, unless they're willing to go all out to stay off-grid, which is still pretty prohibitively expensive.
No that's not the case here in India. For comfort, you need AC 24x7. But during the day, one can survive without AC even when temps are above 40°c. But at night, not sure what happens, it is unbearable to stay indoor without AC.
Personally, I know I bear a fair share of responsibility contributing to climate change, so sometimes I hold my breath for as long as I can, as many times as I can. No joke!
No mention of heat exchange systems some hotels are using, heat hot water for showers and the hot tub with the heat that comes from A/C. Some skating arenas have a heat exchange system that partially keeps the ice frozen while keeping the arena heated for the public sitting in the stands, the rest of the energy needed comes from electricity.
One statement made in this video is rather profound, and it applies on such a general level- "What was once a luxury is now a necessity."
I have long had the thought that a higher standard of living then becomes the standard. This lends itself to unsustainability. We're doomed! lol
I do a couple things to keep my house cool in the summer that helps me save some money on electricity and stay cool.
1. For days below 40C, I only use window fans. I have light blocking curtains that stay closed from 8am till about 9pm. Then at night I open up everything and turn on the window fans to pull in air, and it actually gets quite drafty and then night will drop to low-mid 20Cs so this works well for 90% of summer.
2. When it's 40C-50C is when I'll finally use my window AC, but only in my bedroom and only when I'm in my bedroom. I keep doing the steps above though to make it less hard for my AC.
Personally as long as it's below 30C I can sleep, but for my husband he needs it 25C or cooler to sleep. Usually he'll just take a quick cold shower before heading to bed which keeps him cool with all the window fans blowing air through the house.
Also don't underestimate drinking ice waters to cool down! Gets those insides cold too.
During the hot Texas summer, my thermostat is usually set at 81 degrees. I keep fans in my primary rooms. Effective as setting the 'stat another four or five degrees down.
Contrary to popular belief, drinking ice water will only serve to trap heat in your body. It's best to drink hot liquids in summer. You'll find you cool off way faster than you will with anything cold. The same goes for winter. Drink and eat cold things. You'll warm up in no time (internally, where it matters, at least) :)
@@kyokoyumi Said nicely, you're nuts. If you drink something cold, your body has uses heat to bring that liquid up to body temp. Vice versa in the winter. The hot chocolate will give up heat to the body.
Light blockers should be installed on the outside if you want to limit heat. Anything that gets through the window will heat up the room and get trapped.
@@Llortnerof Do you mean high technology like.....drapes? Everyone knows that.
A lot of great points in other comments on passive houses, earth materials, basements, insulation, etc. Also re-learning that a comfortable temperature is not one where you wear long pants and long sleeves necessarily.
I've seen where some folks have installed "Heat-pumps" in underground chambers, like a basement or maybe a root cellar. The net benefit is that both in winter, when temperatures were well below freezing, the heat-pump was working within a 60F temperature environment, so had LOTS more heat access than it would've outside, even in the direct sunlight... AND in summer, when the temperatures were well into the 90's and frequently bumping the triple digits, again, the heat pump was down in it's constant 60F environment, pumping away... much more efficiently than it could've been otherwise.
This started me thinking, and I've been muddling over a design idea, where I'd probably install TWO (2) dedicated units, if it was up to me (and money wasn't an issue, haha)... A dedicated "low temp" unit, would be in the subterranean "root cellar"... AND I'd likely run a LONG duct-work underground, to the lower portion of the house, whether that be the basement or (as I don't have a basement at the moment) through the crawl-space to several ducts around the floor of the house, itself... to let in directly 60F air "on fan alone"... AND engage the heat-pump only when that simply wasn't enough...
A second unit, the "dedicated high temperature" unit, would be either on the roof in a box, or in the attic-space... OR perhaps, I'd find a way to dedicate a set of coils through a sizeable portion of the attic, to take advantage of "heat rises" principle, to catch the heat directly leaving the house before it actually "got out"... This could then be tapped in the coldest parts of winter, where it could boost the "low temp unit" for efficacy or efficiency, but hopefully a pleasant BOTH (I remarkably dislike the cold, if I'm honest)...
Obviously, for the best results, there would NEED to be sensors and at least some algorithmic functions to compare the two units function for function, and create the patterns by which either one or both are engaged for the best results on the least investment of power over time... Depending on how far one wanted to "push" and in what "direction", efficiency or even efficacy could be enhanced further, based on sacrificing precision to the "setting" in the thermostat... MEANING, where the computer found that it was more cost effective to raise the temperature a few degrees so the machines ran less often, then it should be allowed to do so... AND where it found it significantly more effective to only cool to within a degree or two of the directly dialed temperature, that should be considered (at least) as well... along with the balance of being able to cool a few more degrees for longer shut-off times, just in case that became a possibility...
Of course, it takes study times on things I don't exactly have at hand just now, myself... BUT the basic plan is do-able... we have the tech' for it now... SO I'll park this one here (at least for the time being)... I don't have to be greedy with every silly thing that pops into my head...
Since I do have access to a proper spring, and well-box... I can also use the incoming water supply for some cooling... That stuff's BONE-ACHING cold, even in the summer... Not sure how I'll tap the resource just yet, but I DO have both ideas and a few options... ;o)
Terms like "potentially'", "could", "might", etc are a narrators best friend.
The US is in the process of switching residential refrigerators to r600 refrigerant, which has zero climate effects, but it is flammable. It's basically the same chemical as butane from a bic lighter. If you've bought a fridge recently it was probably r600. But you don't need to worry cause there is a very low amount of this flammable gas inside. Like an ounce or two.
Lol i always wanted to make a butane refrigerator
So roughly the equivalent of around 5 to 10 Bic lighters. That really isn't a whole lot.
Sadly we are in the process of switching away from R600 and R290 now, thanks to the Biden administration. They say it's for 'environmental reasons', but I think it's more so that Chemours and Arkema can have an oligopolistic license to print money with HFOs like R-1234yf...
You didn't mention ventilation of hot air with naturally cool air. Eg air passively pulled from underground by venting hot air above. There are lots more helpful design options than just the colour of roofs and window design. Shading houses in summer too...
Great video. This topic deserves more attention in the world. I also will make an assumption that nearly all refrigerant will eventually escape. We need another solution.
I agree with this message 100%. During 2022 i worked with a company in STL that serviced power plant equipment. It was a massive machine shop the size of a football field with dual gantry cranes spanning the entire shop floor. And every office in the building, had a personal AC unit in the window for the management people, which resulted in about 15 AC units EXHAUSTING HEAT AND WATER INTO THE SHOP. Missouri was already humid, but i could walk into that building in the morning and immediately be slammed with 100+f temps inside and moisture so thick it was sweltering. Puddles of water on the floor from the AC machines inside the building, and not one vent in the building(low energy natural heat convection, and no AC for the hard working men on the floor). Management was not interested in opening the vents on the roof of the building that was 100+ years old. Abysmal. I very happily quit that job and i refuse to tolerate such incompetent management.
Another thing i want to cite is the poor architecture in America. We should simply build things differently and use the STEM available and build more sustainable architecture.
As an HVAC technician I enjoyed this video and I agree it's a necessity at least where I live but it's makes our near by surrounding hotter. Air conditioning works by moving heat from an unwanted space to a space that makes little to no affect, but I would argue that it definitely makes an affect.
whatever the wattage of the unit is gets dumped as heat as well, and that number is usually very similar to the amount of heat it moves so it basically doubles the heat and hands it to the next guy.
@@Fine_i_set_the_handle That is bunk. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed. It's Scientific Law.
@@gamewizardks yea genius from electrical energy to heat, did you not even read what I said? Do you think the motors run on sunshine and daisies. Do you think all the mechanical energy the compressor generates in a closed loop system converts into light or electricity?? Or MAYBE does it turn into heat.
@@Fine_i_set_the_handle You are failing to understand that heat generated from the process does not contribute to climate change. It is only a process of moving heat that already existed from one place to another and the energy required in the process has also only been converted and moved. Energy is a zero-sum game in Science. LOL. You have much to learn.
@@gamewizardks I understand thermodynamics just fine. They used oil they dug up out of the earth to spin a generator to send power to peoples houses where it gets turned into heat(to move a different source of heat from inside to outside), the crude oil in the ground wasn't affecting the climate until someone used it in their ac, that's simple common sense.
The only time you would be correct is if the entire planet ran on solar power, then the light coming from the sun would have been turned into electricity instead of heat and used to power the ac resulting in net zero heat.
A correction for the early part of the video - where you try to explain where the heating and cooling come from in liquids. As you put heat energy into a substance, whether a liquid, solid, or gas, the temperature rises according to the material's heat capacity. Some materials heat up easily (low heat capacity), others not so easily. But, the the temperature reaches the point where a solid turns into a liquid, to a liquid into a gas, extra heat is required to affect that change. When you cool these substances again, extra heat must be absorbed to affect the reverse of the previous change. That heat, liberated or absorbed, is what air conditioners, and heat pumps, take advantage of.
Wouldn't the heat needed to be discharged away from the substance, in order to return it to a a liquid or solid state? I don't know any substances that require absorbing heat in order to go down to a denser state of matter...
@@phoenixthedragon6798
I think he wanted to write something like this:
"When you cool these substances again, the extra heat must be LIBERATED to affect the reverse of the previous change."
or to make it easier:
Vaporizing needs energy and changing back to a liquid releases this energy as heat.
There are some different systems like the high and low pressure systems.
You use power to get your substance (gas) into a state of high pressure. The substance gets a liquid releasing energy (heat an air conditoner/freezer/.. is releasing to the outside with a fan). Then the liquids pressure is lowered again (in another place so another fan can bring the cool air in the inside for example). Because of lower pressure the liquid vaporizes and needs energy for that and that's why it absorbs heat to vaporize and so it is an cooling effect for the surrounding air.
Physically not the best wording but i wanted it to be understandable.
@@phoenixthedragon6798 yes
that happens on the condensor side
when you are cooling the building (and the same happens in a fridge), you remove heat from the building to evaporate the fluid, which then condenses on the ouside and releases heat
when you are heating the building, you remove heat from the outside to evaporate the fluid, which then condenses on the inside and releases heat
You're absolutely correct, but I wouldn't call that a correction. It's more of completing his incomplete explanation.
he actually wasnt wrong. I disliked his explanation, but I thought about it. he was talking about heat when he said "jiggliness," not temperature. saying that it takes additional heat from the liquid for particles to evaporate when theyre at their boiling temperature is completely correct.
I don't think most people will really comprehend how effective good insulation and windows truly are until they are in a home that has had it done right. We had a home that was built in 1890 damaged by fire. The entire home was smoke and heat damaged to the point that the whole home need new window and wall covering/plaster/drywall. We opted to have all the exterior and interior walls insulated along with the attic and double pane windows at the suggestion of the contractor doing the repairs. And OMG I am in awe at how well the home stays cool in the summer. If you open windows at night and close them during the day that's all the cooling it'll ever need. Now granted not every region will be able to do that with no AC at all but it really showed how much it helps. Unfortunately doing those upgrades to existing homes are a huge upfront cost and not a small project.
Things like adobe or cobb home structures are superior in terms of specific heat capacity. They are very well insulated and even fire proof. I can’t wait to make one myself
I used to be an AC tech. There are units that already work on CO² as a refrigerant. They're just expensive and must work at extremely high pressures.
And those CO2 systems are far, far less efficient than those based on HFCs. We should be using good old fashioned hydrocarbons (propane, isobutane, etc.) but people have irrational fears about the level of fire danger it would entail.
@@tetrabromobisphenol oh, I totally agree. I've never even heard of one causing issues. I'm sure it's happened, but clearly not often enough to be considered an issue. As the laws change, it just means more money for the techs who get to replace them.
@@tetrabromobisphenol its not really irrational. Those are highly flammable explosive vapors that can leak into a confined space like ductwork. Those gases are also dense so they tend to settle on the ground and not dissipate easily. They also would not have that common sulfur smell that consumer level gas would have. So there could be a pool of flammable gases and nobody has any indication that its there until it starts on fire.
There are some heat pumps that use carbon dioxide as the refrigerant (R744). They tend to be used to heat water because the high-temperature side runs at about 160 degrees C.
Interesting! I wouldn't want that blasting out onto the street though!
What pressures do CO2 heat pumps run at?
@@SteelJM1 Incredibly high pressures. And the critical point and triple point make CO2 difficult to work with as a refrigerant.
@@gregorymalchuk272 Yeah that's what I guessed, otherwise it would be in widespread use already.
5:00 Con-Air clip is the most replayed part, I LOVE IT! 😆
Thanks for the video!
using solid material as the refrigerant is really exciting, I especially like the idea of where air conditioning design can go.
I have no knowledge on solid refrigerant, but I also have some questions. You need to train people to use refrigerant (In the United States) and I've never seen solid refrigerant used in a home before so if they were to phase out liquid/vapor refrigerant for solids then there would probably need to be new regulations. Also, would it be more expensive than current refrigerants? How much more effective would they be than liquid?
Would you need to actually replace solid Freon? As it stands liquid (unless there's a leak) never needs to be replaced.
1:24 "to stay healthy and productive"
We live in a society of overproduction where we throw away a lot of things without even using them.
We should slow down et produce only what we need, not what we believe we want.
"Supply and demand" need to become "Demand and supply"... if we want to survive.
It should be "Demand, then supply" in order to produce (almost) only what we need (less stress, no waste and so much less trash).
Blame capitalism. Economy must grow exponentially. Sales must higher than last year. If everyone is frugal and things were build to last, will the economy still running?
@@farikkun1841 I do. I'am not for total communism, because like absolut capitalism, it seems impossible to realise.
BUT, when you have socialized budgets of military and police, but not socialized budgets of water, food, education, healthcare, etc. I can't help myself to think that it's kind of an autoritarian way to protect the wealthiest people from the majority that were not as lucky the day of their birth.
And to answer your question, yes, I think the economy could go on, because we produce goods, but services too.
I am glad this video addresses the problem without preaching to stop with current air conditioning. As we all know, A/C is essential for many places and environmentalists need to acknowledge that just stopping usage is not going to happen. Advocates for better systems without sacrificing current usage is the only realistic and reasonable pathway to getting a more environmentally sound solution. Thanks for the video.
I mean it does get absurd sometimes where people cool down with ACs so much that they practically wear a jacket to not freeze
This is my pet peeve. Thanks for taking this on.
5:10 I don't think what makes the refrigerant to evaporate is the heat in the room. I think what happens is the refrigerant is at a high pressure, where it's liquid, and then they drop the pressure (more space in the tubes I guess), changing to a gas. In that process, the refrigerant absorbs heat when it changes the state so it cools down the room. It's the same process as any other pressured liquid, like deodorant or air fresheners, when you use them, the tip of the canisters freezes because of this phenomenon.
if the refrigerant is absorbing heat then would it not be the heat in the room that's causing it to evaporate? (more effectively)?
@@ImHeadshotSniper I think what causes to change state, from liquid to gas, is the pressure drop. The temperature change is a "side effect" of that change of state
@@RecoveryHacker Of course not. I didn't.
From wikipedia: "The cooler high-pressure liquid next passes through the expansion valve (throttle valve) which reduces the pressure abruptly causing the temperature to drop dramatically". It states the drop in pressure CAUSES the temperature change.
From the scientific paper called "THERMODYNAMIC ANALYSIS OF A REFRIGERATION CYCLE USING
REGENERATIVE HEAT EXCHANGER": " The cycle has two pressure levels well defined: the condensation
pressure (high pressure) and evaporation pressure (low pressure). This gradient provides the change of physical state of the refrigerant, allowing it to reject or absorb heat". Both sources state the pressure change causes the thermal change. Do you have any proper sources that state I've said something wrong? If you do, I'll be happy to learn more!
@@javiTests refrigerants have really low boiling points though, like near or below zero degrees.
if i'm not mistaken, this would be the heat causing the pressure increase as it changes state, because if it weren't for the heat boiling the low boiling point refrigerant, the pressure would remain the same.
you seem to know of the pressure-temperature correlation, but then tell me, what causes this change in pressure?
pressure doesn't just randomly increase, it is a result of internal exertion, and in this case the exertion is caused by refrigerant liquid boiling in a contained system.
that was such a stupid mistake. Either this guy doesn't verifies the physics or genuinely doesn't know
I've actually seen someone make a hand-crank rubber band powered refrigerator if I remember right. They took advantage of exactly what you'd mentioned the stretching and releasing of the rubber bands to store and release energy
It was Applied Science. The concept is interesting but has a long way to go.
All of these technologies that are brought up have been known about for well over a century (they are NOT new despite the hype), and forever will be inferior to vapor compression refrigeration. They're interesting and may have some niche applications, but they will never be able to compete economically. If you take the time to understand the physics from a QUANTITATIVE standpoint, you will learn why.
@@tetrabromobisphenol well said
Here in Belgium is getting popular the ground source heat pump, specially for new houses. And for old ones I know a lot of people replacing their heater and AC by this system which apparently saves energy and keep your house at a good temperature all over the seasons.
4:40 That is a good explanation as to why sweating helps us cool down effectively. The sweat evaporates and takes some of that "jiggling" energy along with it.
Our ancestors used hand fans! Open windows during night, let the cooler air in, close the windows at the morning and block the sun light. Use paving to cool the room, no carpets.
Here in Delhi summers can be as hot as 45°C. Poor labour class people have to suffer the most as they have to work outside in sunlight.
i was born and raised in jamaica and we don't have central air. I grew up with money so we had AC units in the bedrooms but only ever turned them on when it was REALLY hot, and never left them on for more than a few hours. I definitely notice that when I'm in the heat i feel more sluggish, my energy levels are low, and i'm just overall more miserable. being uncomfortably cold obviously isnt great either but now that i live in the US theres no way id go back to no AC
alien: did they solve global warming?
alien2: no but it'd be cool if they did
Here in the UK, most homes don't have air conditioning. Our houses are built to keep in heat. It can really suck over the summer when you get over a week or more of super hot temperatures, but in hot periods of time when the nights are an okay temperature, we're generally okay without air conditioning. I can't say if in these days, homes in USA or other places with lots of heat, automatically turn on air conditioning in the day. But a big thing of naturally cooling your houses is opening windows in early morning and late evening, and closing the curtains during the day. When it got to 39C (102f) over here for a few days, I followed those exact rules, and the house continued to stay cool. I think people need to practice methods like those, too, to reduce air conditioning usage if possible.
This is a stereotypical dumb American moment but at least here in the southern US most people born after the widespread adoption of AC have absolutely no idea about anything you just said. Every building down here is fitted with AC. I never once found a building without it. Just my personal experience but I think it applies to most of us down here.
The idea of not using AC is super foreign that I don't know if you could understand.
Now most buildings need central AC for winters and summers.
The most you will find here with passive temperature control would be special windows.
I have tried not using AC and just opened up a few windows in summer. It was mostly fine. But I did start sweating if I sat down.
My house was built without AC before it was retrofitted. It has this huge ceiling fan in the hallway that was apparently used in the summer back in the day. It extracted heat. But we haven't used it for a very long time.
@@baronvonjo1929 I think it's important people learn about natural cooling methods then. Sure, I understand you need AC if the night temperature is still high. But a lot of places have cooler nights, only warm days - and they really don't need AC for that in your typical home.
@@p0neh1I'm just gonna use AC. You can do what you like but don't tell me what to do bribong. Also your average summer temp is wayyy less than our average temp
@@dogguy8603 I'm not telling you to do, I was giving advice for some people that may not need to use AC. If you live somewhere where you have hot nights and hot days that's understandable. It's just easy to cut back on energy usage by reducing AC if you have cold nights.
I love how at 04:56 we have Con Air vs Air Con :D
Very nicely done and also a very good explainer video... Thanks Joe :)
We have a ground source heat pump with passive cooling (primarily for heating the house and getting warm water). No compressor is needed when cooling, very energy efficient.
Good information in here to be sharing. Scary too
Another issue to look into is the problem of increased humidity into the home. Refrigerants used in homes and a lot of commercial applications are supposed to be removing some water from the air as well. The evaporator coil needs to be below dew point to do this. When we use unfiltered fresh air, it will add to the humidity in a space. So this will need to be addressed as well in the future.
a properly designed ac system with fresh air makeup solves the fresh air problem.
Air conditioning conditions the air and takes humidity out of the home...
High efficiency windows (Alpen Zenith 6) plus opening my windows on cool nights combined to reduce my cooling load by 70%. Switching from a 10 SEER A/C unit to a 24 SEER heat pump reduced the electricity used for the remaining cooling by another 60%. One of my 20 solar panels produced more electricity (650kWh) than my entire cooling demand (534kWh) last year. Before these improvements, I could use as much as 4,000kWh in a single year for cooling.
Great job very impressive
So… spend over $20,000 now to break even in 30 years, at which point you need to replace the panels and a/c at least once.
If you got $20,000 to spend, then ok. Meanwhile, many are hurting from the $8.00 cost of eggs.
@@rebchizelbeak5392 man, you just hit the nail square on the head. The biggest hurdle is that prohibitive cost to clean, renewable energy for the poor and middle class. If renewables become available for a practical cost to the lower and middle class, then we’d be taking.
@Reb Chizelbeak Break even in the heat pump is 40 months, on the solar it's 6 and a half years.
@@ljfinger you’re still looking at this from the wrong angle. $20k isn’t that bad of a round number estimate for the cost of a solar system. If I dropped that much on my house, the solar system was able to supply for all my electrical needs, and I calculate the cost savings, then my break even point is 13-14 years. That’s a prohibitively long investment period before it actually becomes cost efficient. But even then, that’s not the real problem you aren’t seeing.
Do you really think that a poor or middle class person has $15k-$20k to throw at a solar panel array? Honestly? Because in reality their only option would be to mortgage one against the value of their home, adding interest to the cost and making the purchase untenable. This isn’t theoretical; it’s happening now in places like Hawaii where the poor and middle class are being taken advantage by predatory companies promising big savings while costing families more than their old electric bill. They’re getting multi-decade loans that’ll end up costing $40k-$60k over the life of the mortgage. Dismissing the cost of renewable energy and wondering why poor people don’t just stop being poor is asinine.
Hi Joe, interesting as always, thanks for your channel. One remark: please take into consideration the audience who does not use the (odd) Fahrenheit scale, but rather the Celsius or the kelvin, this account for a very large number of people who have no idea what 116F means :) (116°F/ 46.7°C)
Didnt know its that bad, thank you for sharing:)!
SkyCool Systems' panels are pretty awesome. They reject heat to space instead of the outside air, which basically solves the heat island problem. They can be retrofitted to improve the efficiency of an AC system by 20-30%, and could do even better with a purpose-built system. What's even more impressive is that SkyCool's panels are just the first generation of commercial daytime radiative cooling systems.
I can't remember me ever needing an air condition throughout my childhood, but ever since we had a heat wave in 2018 where we had several weeksof 35 C (95 F) I NEED a portable AC at home. It's really scary that this is happening in Sweden where we normally joke around about having such cool summers that it's the same weather as on christmas.
Point of correction with the intro.
You talked about harmful emissions while showing a nuclear power plant. They only produce steam. Not the harmful gas the animation tried to convey
I think that it might be better to use more fans because fans don't cause global warming. Fans can also help conserve your money in light bills, also conserve electricity in many places.
Fans become hot to touch so in reality they are mini-heaters. The only reason they cool people is they sweat and fans allow water to evaporate more quickly and the body cools down. In a humid environment, sweat cannot evaporate. If you use an electrical fan in the most humid areas, those people will continue to warm until they die of heatstroke
I really wished you would talk more about new passive cooling technologies, but still a great video about the problems.
Despite often reaching 30-40 degrees Celsius (86-104 F) in England, having air conditioning in your home is unheard of and really foreign to us. Even though we’d all love to have it secretly…
you can always get a window unit and cool one room on your occasional hot nights 🙂
@@Mike1614b window units are basically unheard of here, i tried looking for one some time back and couldn't find anything
@@Isgolo huh that's kinda wild, do you guys at least have swamp coolers over there?
@@100GTAGUY Nobody sensible does as it is far too humid for them.
@@Isgolo How about on the continent, can you get them from there? In NYC you have a lot of buildings that were made before A/C existed, and people often have a window A/C in the bed room, and another in the living room and only use the one in the room they are using in order to stay cool but not drive up energy costs to insane proportions.
This a great video on the history of CFDs and some intro to Biomaterials and Material Science, as well as thermodynamics. Anyway, we have developed new strategies and systems to combat these issues. In fact, since you are in Austin, I recommend for you to visit the Whisper Valley Community where Geothermal and Solar energy were coupled to provide a more sustainable solution for the environment, and thus, are more energy efficient.
I try to keep my house cool by common means (keeping windows closed and blinds drawn or using a cross breeze through the house, turning off electronics I don’t need on, wearing shorts and tank top inside). But living in a hotter climate means there are a few days that I have to turn on my AC. I try to keep the ac at 82° or so. Keeping the inside slightly warm means that going outside doesn’t feel as hot as it would be if you try to keep the home cold.
I would die. I can't sleep in hot weather.
@@brandoncoleman3240 I turn it down to 78 at night lol
But when I’ve had a whole month of nearly 110° weather, 78 feels cold
Saaame. Im just energy conscious and my hone has terrible insulation so i keep my ac at 84 on hot days with a constant fan
The reason why some places are hot is because of the lack of any breeze. Wearing less clothes helps when weather is not humid. Thanks for trying
@@Goodzillla1066 you're going to walk around naked? Thank you for the view.
About 11:55: You forgot a potent method: Make buildings literally green by plants at their walls and maybe even in front of their windows. Plants provide the building with shadow and evaporate water which cools.
And on top of flat roofs
My old house was surrounded by gardens and trees and it was the hottest and most humid house ive ever lived in so yeah doesnt work like that
That’s great for places that have money for the water, and have access to the water for them first. In my country there are small communities in the desert that use the gray waters of laundry and showers to water the few plants that grow, but is not an standardized practice yet
@@Jacobtheunwise because you also need air movement in that equation.
Because evaporation without movement of air just creates humidity.
I worked in place with thousands of plants it was humid and hot inside the greenhouses and beautiful and fresh outside.
@Raxel Ruiz I can tell you've never lived in a humid place, like anywhere on the gulf of Mexico. I'm from New Orleans. You have no idea what you're talking about.
My grandparents lived in adobe homes. Not a solution everywhere and by no means a complete replacement for a secondary cooling system, but a partial step in the right direction. Their homes were naturally cool in summer due to their thick walls and 12 foot high ceilings. The roof was also covered in sod. Windows were few and considered a luxury. Doors were massive and often had a small shuttered hatch to let light in when the doors were closed. Vents let hot air out. Cool air was drawn inside from cisterns underground. Not perfect but very livable. Code-wise would need reinforcement to meet earthquake standards. In winter? The kitchen was the warmest room in the house with a shuttered picture window and a wood burning stove. Burning wood not being the best for the environment.
I read a really interesting article a while ago about chinese skywells. ancient chinese houses used to be built with something between a skylight and a courtyard, with all the floors open to it on the inside. the house would thermoregulate naturally due to convection, lowering the temperature by up to 4℃ and increasing airflow. its so effective its been added to several new skyscrapers and museums
There are many good solutions today. For example there is white paint for rooftops that radiate heat to outer space and become signifficantly colder than ambient air, even in direct sunlight.
As for HFCs, I don't see an issue with propane. My geothermal unit is running on propane, which is quite safe for environment. Flammable, yes, but so are gas stoves, and amount of gas in it is low.
If you have a solar plant on your roof, it is completely climate neutral.
Joe: hey, smart people!
Me: *closes video*
You're a smart person, too! Not everyone is smart in the same way. ❤️
Bless your heart, have a lollipop 🍭
Relatable
Great work as usual - very well articulated and happy you are bringing this global issue to attention! Thanks!
One thing that nobody ever seems to talk about is the fact that every AC unit is dumping heat into the environment. Rather than temperature being in equilibrium both within the structure and outside of it, the structure is cooled and the heat exchanged into the atmosphere. A single unit will have no measurable effect, but then extrapolate this to an entire population. I'm glad that it was touched on in this video if only just in passing. It deserves more discussion.
it's in the video
I never had air conditioning but I'm considering installing it in my home. I live in Italy, last year I had 34°C inside the home for over 2 months, it drove me crazy.
Its not possible to sleep at 34C, at least as far as I know.
An electric fan will lower the temperature by at least 4-5 degrees if pointed at your body. The problem is the noise which bothers me when trying to sleep.
@@udishomer5852 It was very hard to fall asleep, we would open all the windows in the evening and the house would cool to about 30°C by morning, but that's still hot. Strangely I would sleep a lot during the day, the fan noise didn't bother me (couldn't use that during the night cause it did bother my husband).
You can also try to sleep on the floor, some of your heat will go to it. If it's uncomfortable you can use a very thin mattress
There's much bigger problems to climate change than air conditioners, but I do agree the coolant is quite a problem since the ozone layer is very important.
People should repair their air conditioners, not throw away. I actually have one that's over ten years old and usually I just use it twice or three times a year.
The big problem is that the filters are not completely intact, And I have struggled to find replacements for it!
They should easily have these replacements readily available !
Like you said, the coolant is a problem. It is why you practically HAVE to throw the older systems away. Regulations for the coolant mean it's almost impossible and is definitely cost prohibitive to simply maintain and repair the older systems as their coolant is phased out. The coolant that can run in them but meets regulations is ridiculously expensive, and the cost of updating the older systems is close to that of a new system. Those of us in the South find need for ours more than a handful of times a year.
Modern refrigerants have no potential for harming the ozone layer. They are still powerful greenhouse gases and shouldn’t be vented for that reason but by now everything made is using HFC or hydrocarbon refrigerants. There are still lots of legacy R22 systems out there but fewer and fewer every year.
It's actually not that good to keep using old air conditioners for long time. First, they're inefficient, consuming much larger amount of energy when they run compared to the new models. Second, old ACs frequently leak the refrigerant. You may need to recharge the refrigerant every few months, and all that lost refrigerant ends up in the atmosphere.
Great video! Was wondering that myself
Well, there's a solution. You can "pump" heat while is pure heat, ie radiation. Thermodynamic A\C pumps heat to the air, heating it, but you can pump it elsewhere... Space!
The problem of sending heat into space, is that most wavelengths will "bounce back" in the atmosphere. There is, however, what is called a "sky window" or "infrared window" at which it will go thru the atmosphere. This happens between 8 and 13um aprox.
Nowadays, there are panels that will receive heat, then raise their temperature, and re-emit the energy received in the sky window wavelength. This causes what is called an inverse greenhouse effect, and could be a very viable solution
When I was stationed in Phoenix AZ, I was very thankful for AC especially when it was 115°F (46°C) plus every day!! And saying it was a "dry heat" means nothing when it's that hot. I mean, you wouldn't open your hot oven and stick your face into the opening! Anything over 110 degrees F (43 degrees C) is just plain HOT!!!
Boohoo
I’ll take 120F dry heat any day.
Hot tropical areas with 100% humidity are unbearable. You feel like you’re drowning just breathing the air
@@SoulxWeaver You have a very valid point! I have to agree with you on that -- 100% humid, hot tropical weather is brutal 😫
The best solution might be IR emissive paint made from Barium sulfate powder. Under sunlight, it emits more energy than it absorbs, keeping the temperature of the building below ambient. "Tech Imgredients" has a great video on how it works.
“That kind of boring Home Depot stuff”
A true man right here…
In the desert Southwest (AZ, NM...) lower cost Evaporative Cooling works effectively to cool houses, apartments... Known as "Swamp Coolers," they don't make spaces as cold as regular AC does/ can. But quite comfortable. They only work tho in low humidity places. They'd be useless in NY, GA, Michigan, Mass, Florida... But in AZ, NM, NV...
I've been following this issue for some time now, mostly because I want to build something absurd to solve the problem on a personal level, for the sake of the absurdity and the possibilities.
I've noticed various people and places have different solutions for AC efficiency. Some use buried refrigerant circuits, to reduce the temperature changes with the season that the AC will have to face. Some actually employ radiant cooling panels to both make the AC more energy efficient and send a chunk of the heat out into space.
It might be worth trying to combine these, especially if one can be used for AC and the other for heat.
One thing I've actually thought about is a double roof where the top surface of the upper layer is painted with a radiant cooling paint, and the lower layer can be just about anything, tin, asphalt, whatever, and what'd happen in theory is the radiant cooling would increase the cooling you'd already get from the convection of the sandwiched air, especially since that harsher temperature gradient inside the air channel should make it convect faster. I've even considered painting the underside of the upper layer a really dark black so any blackbody radiation coming from the lower layer could be absorbed and re-emitted by the upper layer. Texas would be a good place to try this out, as opposed to Tennessee where I am. Landlocked weather is just too variable to play too recklessly with passive cooling without knowing if it'll have an adverse affect on heating in the winter.
I think it's important to note that, this isn't just black and white situation. As in, we need this new refrigerant to change how much we pollute the atmosphere. It's actually really gray, and that's a great thing! That means we can combine lots of methods and strategies and different things to get the same result, if not a better one. Everything works cohesively together for the greater good.
You should have talked about reverse greenhouse coverings. There's a lot of promise in passively cooling with a special glass or plastic that can be installed over any building.
It doesn't solve the problem of precisely regulating temperature, but for a home or a factory or as part of a larger solution it could help a lot, and it works by directly lowering the temperature, not moving it, so it would even be helpful in combating global warming.
Using geothermal to augment the cooling systems could be a step in the right direction.
they're called geothermal heat pumps which are cool 😎
Very Good ! John Kidwell
Drilling cost thousands of dollars. Usually need hundreds of feet of boring per ton
Can elastics get below dew point for dehumidification?
Give me AC in August in Alabama and I’ll accept a few inches of sea level rise