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People Living in the Hottest Places on the Planet Are the Least Likely To Have Air Conditioners (qz.com)

Posted by msmash on from the closer-look dept.

Zoe Schlanger, writing for Quartz: In 2016, roughly 10% of the planet's energy use went towards air conditioning. Figures vary wildly from country to country, though, and some of the hottest regions on Earth use the least A/C -- for now. A new report from the International Energy Agency says that's about to change. By 2050, the intergovernmental agency predicts, global energy use from A/Cs will triple, reaching a level equivalent to China's total electricity demand today. The African continent is home to some of the hottest places on Earth, but fewer than 5% of people in most African nations own an air conditioner, and energy used for cooling comes to just 35 kWh per person living in the continent, according to the IEA. In India, where large parts of the country are hot all year round, people use an average of 70 kWh for cooling. Compared to nations where having an A/C is the norm, that's almost nothing at all.

6 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Lack of insulation by MoarSauce123 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Air conditioning is not a luxury, crappy insulation is! Look at most of the buildings in the US and they are badly insulated if at all. Also does not help that even new construction is using popsicle sticks and office supplies. Brick fares much better to keep buildings cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.

    1. Re:Lack of insulation by CaptnCrud · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Was going to mention that this is a big reason why 3rd world countries don't "need" ac in homes, they are all made of concrete and typically have an atrium or some sort of natural means of cooling the home. Its not perfect, but its free.

      Also in lots of poor, hot countries people tend to live on the coast where they can get some wind rather than the interior.

    2. Re:Lack of insulation by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 4, Interesting

      or some sort of natural means of cooling the home.

      Architecture can be pretty cool!

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    3. Re:Lack of insulation by Dasher42 · · Score: 5, Interesting

      People who've lived in "one of these places" for millenia before there was such a thing as air conditioning knew how to do exactly that.

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

      One of the houses I've helped to build in Central Texas features large amounts of rammed earth and white, reflective domes, and they only run the AC in that house for three months out of the year. They haven't even used all the tricks a passive thermal architect knows in the classical or cutting edge senses, and it's already a success.

  2. "nations where having an A/C is the norm" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    That's mostly gas-guzzling norf 'murika, ie the yoosah and kanuckistan. Mostly the yoosah, at that.

    Me, I typically prefer no airo even if it's hot, because hot is just that, while airco dries me out and gets me headaches. But anyway, there are better ways than spending (fossil fuel-generated) 'leccy on cooling, especially if the climate is hot and dry. Use natural airflow, water vaporisation, and so on. But that requires actual engineering instead of just plunking a loud machine on the problem and done.

  3. Re:Why not use solar panels by ledow · · Score: 3, Interesting

    http://www.dry-it-out.com/cool...

    A 10m x 10m room x 2m ceiling requires 12KW to cool it. I made the numbers easy to simulate an entire house and give 100sq meters of panel.

    https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/201...

    A standard solar panel produces about 250-300W per square meter in such regions. Therefore you'd need about half your roof space to cool just one room, and nothing else. Call it a two-storey house (upstairs and downstairs) and you can *just* about cool the house if you do nothing else with it.

    https://news.energysage.com/12...

    "As of January 2018, the average cost of solar in the U.S. is $3.14 per watt ($37,680 for a 12 kilowatt system). That means that the total cost for a 12kW solar system would be $26,376 after the 30% Federal ITC discount"

    You would literally be spending something on the order of $35k just to cool your house. That's an annual wage. If you can't afford the air-con (notice that the article is just as much about "poorer countries can't afford air con, hotter countries cost even more to air con), $35k on top of the investment to power it is a huge amount.

    https://www.ovoenergy.com/guid...

    That would buy 437,500 KWh of electricity in India, for example, which would keep that same 12KW powered for.... 99 years.

    What you're asking is "Why can't people just spend 100 years of their cooling electricity usage in one hit so that they don't have to pay for any more cooling? On top of the price of the cooling system, and not including maintenance, replacement, fitting, etc. of either."