Hacker News Reader

Comment by probably_wrong | Hacker News Reader

I'm not convinced by the author's point that ACs do not impose a burden on the electrical grid. They write that ACs have gotten more efficient, which may be true, but that's the same Windows developers have been saying over years and yet boot times and hardware requirements have gone way up. One million efficient units still require more energy than no units. And while I definitely believe that European hospitals and retirement homes sadly need ACs now (thanks global warming), I'm not sure everyone and their dog needs one.

I also have reservations about why an American libertarian think tank writes about what Europeans should do, but that's probably on me.

View on HN

The reason why they aren't much of a problem for the grid is solar. Right now we already have the issue, that in some areas we're throwing away the majority of the produced electricity. Very common in e.g. southern germany.

Conveniently, cooling is especially needed when the energy production from solar is at its maximum.

I've been part of projects building 20-40 MW solar installations in southern germany and on average we throw away >50% of what we generate.

There is SO MUCH SOLAR now, we don't know what to do with all the energy.

>while I definitely believe that European hospitals and retirement homes sadly need ACs now (thanks global warming), I'm not sure everyone and their dog needs one.

If a 10-day heat wave cuts work productivity by 10% (which is optimistic IMO, it's probably worse in countries where people aren't used to it), that's equivalent to a 1-day general strike. If the workers actually managed to pull off a general strike in modern times, you can be sure the state wouldn't be happy with business as usual.

Most of the grid is built for winter. Summer has huge overcapacity. That's also why France exported every single day and hour this summer despite all the stories of shut down nuclear plants

Europe had tens of thousands of excess deaths from heatwaves this year. It's not about american think tank but basic will to avoid suffering

> I also have reservations about why an American libertarian think tank writes about what Europeans should do, but that's probably on me.

My thoughts exactly, except in my mind it's pretty clear that it's about influencing the climate change discourse... The less people are bothered by the rising temperatures, the more they will acquiesce to environmentally unfriendly policy.

European citizens should have obstacles put into their path to access one of the great life-enhancing technologies of the last century … so they will vote for the “right” policies as implemented by the politicians setting up those obstacles?

Good luck with that.

I'm still brothered by climate change every time i get out of my apartment. I still don't want to feel miserable during heatwave. This argument is utter nonsense considering most of Europe has summer clean electric overcapacity. It's even more nonsensical in case of hvacs because it leads to pollution reduction by replacing gas heating

Reply on news.ycombinator.com