Europe's Resistance To Air Conditioning is Softening Due To Climate Change and Recent Heat Waves (msn.com) 140
A record-breaking heat wave across Western Europe in June and July has triggered a political battle over air conditioning installation, with right-wing parties demanding widespread adoption while government officials warn of environmental consequences. More than 1,000 French schools closed partially or completely due to lack of air conditioning during the heat wave.
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party proposed a major campaign to install air conditioning in schools, hospitals and other institutions. UK Conservatives urged London's Labour mayor to eliminate restrictions on air conditioning in new housing, while Spain's Vox party highlighted air-conditioning breakdowns to criticize establishment parties. French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher countered that large-scale air conditioning would heat streets with exhaust, worsening heat waves.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent, heating twice the global average since the 1980s. One study predicts air conditioning will increase Italy's annual power demand by 10% by 2050.
Marine Le Pen's far-right National Rally party proposed a major campaign to install air conditioning in schools, hospitals and other institutions. UK Conservatives urged London's Labour mayor to eliminate restrictions on air conditioning in new housing, while Spain's Vox party highlighted air-conditioning breakdowns to criticize establishment parties. French Energy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher countered that large-scale air conditioning would heat streets with exhaust, worsening heat waves.
Europe is the fastest-warming continent, heating twice the global average since the 1980s. One study predicts air conditioning will increase Italy's annual power demand by 10% by 2050.
Wait, what? (Score:3)
Europe doesn't have AC?
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It's weird that I can't remember the AC status of the places on the mainland. I can say that here in Iceland AC is rarely used, usually only ventilation systems (if that) on large buildings, while homes and apartments usually just open windows.
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** Of the places I've visited on the mainland. Ireland, England, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Austria, Czechia... wait, I do remember that my hotel in Paris didn't have AC, and I was utterly miserable there. Czechia and Austria were in the winter / early spring so one wouldn't notice. But I'd think I'd remember if the others had it or didn't...
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Iceland is in Europe?
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Yes.
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It's considered part of Europe https://share.google/ZEK0n3aa0... [share.google]
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Physically- very much no.
It has a clear continental shelf in between Europe and it.
It's much better connected to Greenland, and ergo North America.
From your link:
Iceland is closer to continental Europe than to mainland North America, although it is closest to Greenland (290 kilometres; 155 nautical miles), an island of North America. Iceland is generally included in Europe for geographical, historical, political, cultural, linguistic, and practical reasons.
It is considered part of Europe geopolitically. If someone considers it physically part of Europe- then they're, well, wrong.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
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When I left Britain quarter of a decade ago, yes, very few had air conditioning, and I suspect that's still the case. Air conditioning is expensive, and people are far more frugal in Europe than in the US.
I'm wondering though if the rise in popularity of heat pumps might introduce Europeans to air conditioning indirectly. Given they're supposedly far more efficient than regular electric heaters, which people do buy (because they're cheap!), it seems like a win against heat stroke deaths which are alas commo
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Air conditioning is expensive, and people are far more frugal in Europe than in the US.
Central air conditioning is expensive - air conditioning with whatever you can get your hands on, is not. This time of year, Walmart has a stack of window air conditioners in the middle of the aisle for about $150 (for 5k BTU models that are roughly enough to cool a single bedroom in the deep south). So it's not really an issue of frugality, at least not in the USA.
Though, I'm guessing hanging a big, ugly, somewhat noisy appliance's ass out your window is probably frowned upon in Europe for reasons.
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That's not nothing.
My 5k BTU unit that I replaced with the mini-split couldn't even keep my bedroom cool up here in the Pacific Northwest (well, for the maybe 5-10 days a summer where we really needed it)
I lived in Oklahoma for a year. It wouldn't have done a fucking thing except make noise in Oklahoma.
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When I left Britain quarter of a decade ago, yes, very few had air conditioning, and I suspect that's still the case. Air conditioning is expensive, and people are far more frugal in Europe than in the US.
Also the vast majority of homes in Europe would be older and not designed for central AC. So adding central AC units would not be easy. Mini-split units and heat pumps are newer and easier to retrofit into older homes.
Re: Wait, what? (Score:2)
You can see this happening in New England states, mini-split heat pumps are everywhere. Look at home listings, street view, etc. despite having the highest electric rates in the country. You can't tell me it has nothing to do with being AC-curious.
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I'm in eastern Washington and have a mini-split heat pump. It spends most of its time in heating mode, but since it can get over 100F here the cooling mode is appreciated. So far this year AC mode has been used 9 days. Last year it was used for 22 days.
Heating mode is from mid October to the end of April. It definitely saves money compared to the baseboard electric heaters. There is no natural gas service here.
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can confirm the frugality. On the other end of the spectrum, some Dutch families I stayed with, literally only heated a few rooms. The bathroom was not one of them lol
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, it's another American invention, so they will probably want to tax and fine anyone providing it.
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What we call "heat pumps" today are air conditioners that can pump heat in both directions- which is a natural ability of any heat pump, including air conditions.
Things called air conditioners simply weren't made to do it- they lack one thing- a reversing valve.
There are several advantages to simply having a central furnace that people who weren't efficiency minded decided was better than having a reversing valve.
These days, with efficiency mattering
Re: Wait, what? (Score:4, Interesting)
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The thread is about AC, not "mini split heat pump and cooling".
You do understand that some mini-split heat pumps are AC units, right? In the US they are becoming more popular as they fit a need like for older homes that were not designed with central AC in mind. Mini-split pumps require as less work/renovation to install.
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Uh, I hate to break it to you, but Mini-split IS air conditioning.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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My mini split heats and cools. It's very relevant to anywhere in Europe north of the Alps.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)
More like AC is not needed because generally speaking Europe doesn't get that hot for most of its history. It can get cold, but, it rarely gets very hot.
Indeed, the southermost points of Europe like Spain are really only as far south as Northern California - most of Europe is to the north and thus it doesn't get very hot.
Indeed, air conditioning is needed in the US south, but no equivalent place really exists for Europe, for those latitudes are occupied by Africa and Middle East. And with the Mediterranean Sea helping moderate the southern temperatures means high temperatures in Europe are the exception, not the rule.
Even in North America the Pacific North West region traditionally has never needed air conditioning simply because heatwaves are rare and the region is very temperate. Even reaching the mid-80s during the peak of summer was something that happened for maybe a few days in the past.
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"Even in North America the Pacific North West region traditionally has never needed air conditioning simply because heatwaves are rare and the region is very temperate. Even reaching the mid-80s during the peak of summer was something that happened for maybe a few days in the past."
That is true for the coast, but definitely not true for the areas east of the Cascades.
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There's nothing fucking temperate about that place.
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Eventually, the planet will get so hot that AC technology currently in use will not be able keep up
Even at 120-130F AC can cool inside just fine.
it won't be the AC that can't handle the heat....it will be the people.
Wet Bulb danger events are going to be come almost routine in humid areas. 102 and you can die if you don't have access to cooling.
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Even at 120-130F AC can cool inside just fine.
A heat pump (AC) can move as much heat as it has power to move.
And therein lies the problem.
If your solution to moving the heat exacerbates the condition causing the need to move heat, when does it run-away from your ability to keep up?
I think this is what the parent meant.. but maybe not.
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European summers are (amoung) the hottest on the planet. And with only 6 hours night: it does not cool down.
This is perhaps one of the stupidest things you have ever said, and you have a history of making pretty stupid assertions.
The overwhelming majority of the world's population experiences hotter summers than Europe. [pinimg.com]
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They were not necessary until now in most areas.
But recent heat waves in southern Europe show that they may become much more common.
On top of that the current crop of split AC units can serve for very efficient heating as well (AC is a heat pump after all) so even in the northern parts of Europe it might make sense to install them.
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Romanian here. Can confirm.
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It helps to explain this, when you realize that Europe is farther north than the US. Lisbon, Portugal, in southern Europe, is at a similar latitude as Washington, DC. So most of the continent is in what we in the US would consider colder climate areas. https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPo... [reddit.com]
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Yeah why would we? Most of the continent battles cold not heat. Heatwaves are a recent issue, and countries used to heat have homes designed to combat heat. AC is the low effort way out of a problem that is better resolved with culture and home design in the first place.
Hint: There's a reason for siesta culture in Spain and why people go out after 10pm: It's fucking hot in the afternoon, why not sleep through the bad part of the day and then go out at night.
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mid 90s in Munich...the city trains didn't have AC at all.
Even ones that have it....large parts of housing stock can't be retrofitted easily so it's much more room to room units/mini-splits vs US style whole home HVAC systems
Morbo Voice: (Score:5, Informative)
"HEAT FLOW DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
(For anyone who's unclear: all the heat that you're pumping out of houses is basically perfectly offbalanced by the heat penetrating into them. Only the energy to run the AC creates new heat, same as running any electrical appliance, but vs. the sun which - when overhead on a clear day - deposits about 1kW of energy per square meter, it's an utter irrelevance)
Re:Morbo Voice: (Score:4, Informative)
"HEAT FLOW DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY!"
(For anyone who's unclear: all the heat that you're pumping out of houses is basically perfectly offbalanced by the heat penetrating into them.
It does work that way. Even if the AC would have infinite efficiency (instead of typical values of 2-3), you are increasing temperature out-of-the-house by reducing temperature in-house. But I agree in general that most of the time it will not matter and Agnes is wrong in practice. The reason being that the heat capacity of all the in-house areas is too small compared to heat capacity of all the outside areas. Therefore outside temperature increase will be negligible almost always. Maybe something will be measurable in narrow streets where air flow is low and which are full of AC radiators from the apartments around.
Re:Morbo Voice: (Score:4, Interesting)
Cities are already microclimates and mass AC adoption is absolutely going to cause an aggregate, and almost certainly measurable, temperature increase across that microclimate, and especially so in narrow streets where there is limited airflow to disperse that extra heat. If the heatwave is already making outside temperatures unhealthy then adding another degree or whatever on top of it to help keep interiors cool via AC is going to really suck for those who are forced to go outside in it for whatever reason.
A better solution, given climate change has been a thing for decades, would have been to look at how pre-AC civilizations in equatorial regions built very efficient ways of keeping interiors cool passively in extreme heat and adopted those techniques in anticipation of hotter summers for any new builds over (realistically) the last 20-30 years. Hindsight, and naive optimism the Paris Agreement et al would work, is a wonderful thing though and here we are - putting a band aid in place that will actually make the overall problem slightly worse.
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Well insulated/shaded homes need such a tiny AC, that messing around with ground source cooling isn't worth the effort.
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Now obviously, housing units aren't industrial units, and they're not cooling the space of a data center like we are- however, if everyone has an AC, the street effectively becomes an exhaust row in datacenter terminology. They are, after all, cooling as much space as we are, just less efficiently (more discrete units)
I think the Frenchman is probably spot-on.
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That's why you put the compressors on the roof and not "on the street". Sheesh.
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You seem to be envisioning one- or two-storey houses rather than six-storey blocks of flats. Here in Spain each flat has its own compressor(s) mounted on an outside wall of the flat, not a bunch of tubes going past all the other stories to the roof.
Re:Morbo Voice: (Score:5, Informative)
That comes from this study: https://iopscience.iop.org/art... [iop.org]
Assumptions: 2003 equivalent heatwave, all buildings in Paris-equivalent use AC to maintain 23C inside. After 9 days of that, the city would be 2C hotter than without all that AC.
Living in Europe, in a city, but in an old brick building (100+ years, but insulated), I have no need for AC. Even during this year's heat wave, inside temperature never climbed above 26C (I have home. That's just fine. I did get a ceiling fan though.
New buildings (1960s and newer) are a big problem though, those become ovens fast.
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Also reading Ministry for the Future really has put me off adaptations that rely on electricity availability.
Ovens? (Score:2)
Will they cook pizzas?
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Even during this year's heat wave, inside temperature never climbed above 26C
You'd even have Floridians complaining about that. Here, most folks keep their homes cooled to at least 75F (24C). 26C is definitely getting into "crank up the air conditioning" territory, and would be pretty miserable to sleep in unless you're somehow used to sleeping in a pool of sweat.
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Looking 26C up..that's about 78.8F...that's too fucking hot for indoors to me...
Hell, I keep it about 72F at night to sleep.....about 74-75F during the day when home....
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With proper ventilation it usually falls to 23C (73F) in the night.
Don't forget it also depends on the humidity. During the hottest days I had a stable 50-55% range.
You're wrong, we have studies (Score:4, Informative)
We actually have studies on this. Air conditioning in Tokyo raises the temperature by 1 or 2 degrees Celsius: https://journals.ametsoc.org/v... [ametsoc.org]
Apparently 3% of heat-related deaths are caused by extra heating caused by air conditioning: https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com]
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So what you're saying is you're distributing the same heat into a smaller area? Sounds like the logical conclusion of your "unclear" point is that streets get warmer since somewhere else is getting colder but we have the same heat in the combined area overall. Think about what you write. You may be correct, but certainly it doesn't follow as a logical conclusion of your point.
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You are moving a volume of heat into a tiny fraction of that volume. The area trying to dissipate the exhaust outflow is going to be much hotter than ambient. This is a normal consideration in industrial cooling (which I think the model of a street bordered by homes with smaller units is roughly analogous to), and there are even municipal codes governing how we handle our A/C exhaust (we're not allowed to dump it onto a sidewalk)
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Our datacenters have many very large AC units.
While it's true that the only heat generated is from the power used to move the heat, the exhaust also concentrates all the heat that would be coming into the space from the totality of its external surface area.
The side of the building where our A/C exhausts is about 20F hotter than external ambient temperature.
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Murder (Score:5, Interesting)
Europe heat stroke deaths were around 50,000 in 2023. Reference: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/envi... [lemonde.fr] , with a number as high as 175,000 when you include heat-related deaths (reference: https://news.un.org/en/story/2... [un.org] ).
50,000 is way more that US traffic accident deaths.
50,000 is well over DOUBLE the number of murders in the USA annually.
In the US the number of heat stroke deaths is between below 2500 (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/27/climate/heat-deaths.html ). Europe lost that amount in just 10 days: https://www.aljazeera.com/news... [aljazeera.com]
Re: Murder (Score:3)
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Every year the US kills about 30,000 of it's citizens because of gun policies. Every year, Europe kills about 50,000 of it's citizens because of lack of AC. What a weird world we live in.
Re: Murder (Score:3)
Less than 20k die in the US from guns when you do not count suicides. The heat deaths in Europe is always a staggering statistic to see, especially given the rhetoric that European politicians like to spout.
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Less than 20k die in the US from guns when you do not count suicides.
Is that supposed to make me feel better?
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Re: Murder (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is preparedness for heat. Europe culturally crave the sun. On a hot summers day many people go bask in the heat. Compare that to actual hot countries where people actively avoid the heat and sun. In Europe everyone flocks to the beach. In Australia everyone flocks to the shopping mall. In Europe people have garden parties. In Australia people have pool parties or seek shade. In Europe water costs per the bottle. In Australia water taps are everywhere in the street and free in every restaurant, you never take a second guess.
Oh ... and heat acclimatisation. People are ill-equipped to cope with extremes rather than norms. If your body is used to the cold it will suffer in the the heat. Your body can be used to the heat if continuously exposed to it. Many people in Europe suffer in temperatures that many people in warmer climates go "WTF? you a pussy!"
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it's mostly old people, figures start to get really off the charts at about 80. without the prior sweep from covid i guess they would have been considerably worse.
Re: Murder (Score:2)
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That's just how heat-related death is measured.
This shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone, air conditioning prevalence in the US is universal in its hot climates.
It's rare even in the hot climates of Europe.
There are simply going to be a lot more heat-related death. Putting a number on it is sobering, but it's important to remember that Europe has over twice as many people as the US. While I'm sure their heat-deaths per capita are still pretty fucking large compared to the
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The issue isn't AC the issue is cultural inability to adapt. Here's a fun story explaining this: I worked at a chemical plant in Australia and a chemical plant in Germany from the same company. Temperatures in Australia regularly were above 35C, temperatures in Germany occasionally went above 25C - far low. Yet number of heat stroke / dehydration related hospitalisations of workers in Australia over the past 5 years = 0. The number at the German facility is about 4-6 per year.
Now why would that be? German p
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Cultural problems are definitely a part of the problem- but it's also just lacking AC, because some of those cultural problems are never going to be surmounted, and aren't, even in warmer climates.
What about reversible heat pumps? (Score:2)
Re: What about reversible heat pumps? (Score:2)
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We use earth-water or air-water heat pumps, to circulate warm water in our radiators/floor heating.
I don't know how to use radiators to cool a room.
We'd need to create a whole new infrastructure (air vents) in the homes, and somehow fit that onto the heatpump.
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You can run cool water through a radiator loop, but you have to keep it safely above the dewpoint temperature. Net effect is you don't get much cooling... but it is something.
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FCUs are pretty affordable and catch condensation, depending on the building insulating (part of) the waterloop and using FCUs doesn't have to be very expensive. You can still have radiators and/or floor heating too, just need to turn them off during cooling.
Unfortunately most installers in my country have got no clue how to use FCUs.
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Those buildings that use heat pumps for heating also use heat pumps for cooling. I have never heard of a 'heat pump' that is not reversible.
UK regulations ban reversible heat pumps (Score:2)
An early adopter friend of mine has a air heat pump but was not allowed to install A/C as part of the deal which gave him a tax payer subsidy.
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The only difference between an A/C and a heat pump is the existence of a reverser valve.
If you don't have a reverser valve, you're only as much of a heat pump as an A/C is- and in fact what you describe is just an A/C hooked up backwards.
It's hard to imagine such a thing would be called a heat pump, but who knows.
Mindblowing (Score:2, Insightful)
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How do air conditioners help cause global warming? From the electricity use? The solution there is to shift electricity production to cleaner sources, not to kill people with air conditioner bans.
Europe's electricity is already relatively clean anyway. Less than a third comes from fossil fuels, shrinking over time.
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It's that widespread adoption of AC would increase electricity needs significantly which means new renewable installations would go towards powering AC rather than eliminating more fossil fuel sources.
Even Europe is quite a ways away from net zero and anything that slows getting to that kind of sucks given that it's already clear as a planet we're going to go well beyond the goal of keeping temperature changes below 1.5C. Not that I'm throwing stones mind you, Europe is doing tons better than us here in the
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That someone could be against air conditioning.
Back in the day, buildings ended up using fans, which cooled people off by evaporating their sweat.
Air conditioning does a much better job, especially when computers are in the mix. As far as money spent
My own experience at home is that all the trees keep things cooler by respiration, and we just moved air around with fans. But I have a lot of computers in my home office, so I had to install AC to keep it livable.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/... [sciencedirect.com].
It improves productivity in males by about 10 percen
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The latest low power CPUs have impressive performance for their 15-40W full system power budget in mini PCs. I saw a drop in my power bill and I'm not as hot by switching out some old systems for new power efficient ones.
Of course anything that's doing large compute, video encoding, 3D rendering, AI, will still need more powerful systems. But 10-15 year old enterprise servers being VM hosts for normal homelab stuff can be swapped with much more power, noise, and space friendly options.
Kind of related (Score:2)
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Perhaps a chilled water system? (Score:3)
I have seen college campuses served well by chilled water systems. They are redundant, and instead of having A/C units in every building, there are just heat exchangers that put heat into the chilled water for it to be returned. Europe has a lot of water (relatively), so availability isn't a concern.
This might be the way to solve things, because done right, it ensures that A/C is available without the need for tons and tons of mini-split systems.
For retrofits, it might be the best thing are mini-splits, just because they don't take much ductwork other than connecting the inside and outside units.
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Was in a few hotels without AC past week... (Score:2)
Not having air conditioning in hospitals is idiotic. It really doesn't have t be much-- cooling the hallways and creating airflow is likely enough to make it comfortable for sleeping.
I was in twogenerally cold climate hotels though this past week, and boy without air conditioning it was rough. There is no air circulation, and since it is designed for a heating dominated climate it does a very good job of holding onto the heat at night.
Just focus on efficient ways of adding air conditioning-- not the porta
Air conditioning is great (Score:3)
I wish this wasn't behind a paywall but Arthur Miller (yes from your high school reading) wrote an essay about life before AC was common in NYC. Life was more miserable. It improves education outcomes, I would bet it reduces crime and generally people are just gonna be nicer if they're not sweating everywhere. Truly man overcoming nature.
https://www.bunkhistory.org/re... [bunkhistory.org]
"I've bested you again you cretinous ball of gas" -Avery Bullock
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In childhood I spent parts of summers at grandparents' place in NE Texas. There was an attic fan and no air conditioning. The house had been retrofitted from a wood stove to gas, then from gas lighting to electric, and still had a small back cabinet door from days where ice was delivered into the icebox. Sleeping was miserable. On the worst evenings we'd go to a next door neighbor who had a screened-in (mosquitos, and my mom had malaria while growing up there) sleeping porch.
A great uncle worked in Houst
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The problem with past vs present is one of correlation vs causation. There's many parts of the world where AC isn't the norm. The issue in Europe is people simply do not understand how to cope with the heat. AC is the idiots solution to warm weather. The problem is one of house design, it's cultural (try get a glass of water in Europe without paying a euro for it). It's one of behaviours, and house design - our neighbour has huge windows, no awnings, sun streams into his house turning his entire place into
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The issue in Europe is people simply do not understand how to cope with the heat.
What are you talking about? Hot summers have always been an issue everywhere. The problem is the intensity of high heat is now a more common occurrence every year instead of every decade.
AC is the idiots solution to warm weather.
And your solution to cool a house in the record summer heat is what?
The problem is one of house design, it's cultural (try get a glass of water in Europe without paying a euro for it).
WTF are you talking about? The problem is many homes are older in Europe and designed before central AC. As such adding central AC in the last 50 years was not easy for the average home in Europe. That has nothing to do with paying for water especially bot
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No, seeing A/C as a solution to climate change is.
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Do you live in every area of every country in Europe, or just one that happens to not be hit by a heat wave? Because I'm in Norway, and the place has been melting for a while now. Here, heat wave is defined as five consecutive days with temperatures above 27 degrees, we've been getting 35 at times. Today's peak where I live was 30. The forecast currently indicates it might drop to 25-26 next week (which is still above normal for anything but a day or two across all of summer). Making it extra special, it ha
Re: Heat wave? (Score:2)
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Ever heard of Athens? Madrid? Rome? These are in Europe too.
And apparently even some Scandinavian Countries currently experience quite a heat wave.
https://www.weatheronline.co.u... [weatheronline.co.uk]
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I see. As long as you can think of cities that are not affected by a heat wave, heat wave does not exist? Looking at the weather map, it seems to affect about half the continent. Just because you're not in that half, does not mean it doesn't exist.
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You are right that there were alarmist predictions for a very hot and long heat wave even for the northern countries of Europe that so far have not materialized. But it has definitely been unusually hot in Greece, Italy and Spain.
So depending on where in Europe you live, you might want AC or not. (Seems to be Switzerland, so probably not)
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Sure, the climate alarmists predicted a massively hot summer. Problem is: this is the heat wave that wasn't. Sure, June was warm, but not unusually so. May was cool. July is very cool, with frequent showers.
Both Spain and England had their hottest June since records began. Spain's weather service, Aemet, said last month's average temperature of 23.6C (74.5F) "pulverised records", surpassing the normal average for July and August. https://www.bbc.com/news/artic... [bbc.com]