Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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.

4 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 Solandri · · Score: 5, Informative

      The best insulator is air (actually it's vacuum, but that's prohibitively expensive aside from thermoses). Brick is actually a worse insulator than standard wood-frame construction with fiberglass insulation in the gaps.

      Brick (and masonry) just feels cooler because it takes longer to heat up in the morning due to its greater mass. The larger mass means after absorbing the same amount of sunlight, its temperature increases less. But likewise it takes longer to cool down in the evening. This may not be an undesirable trait if you're in a desert-like area where the days are hot but the nights are cold. But in climates which are consistently cold or hot (i.e. most of the world), brick and masonry are about the worst possible building materials. Their greater mass increases the amount of energy you need to use on heating or cooling (because you need to heat or cool the bricks along with the interior air space).

    2. 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. Re:AC is not necessary... by Dasher42 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The original poster is correct. Before air conditioning, passive thermal building design was de facto. You put up awnings to keep out summer sun, but the winter sun comes in at lower angles and you make sure it goes through the window and heats up some dense mass - masonry, tile, a brick hearth, etc. Likewise, highly reflective roofs, southern walls ribbed like a saguaro cactus to prevent the sun from hitting much of the wall at once, geothermal ducting combined with windcatcher chimneys and convection - these have been known tricks for thousands of years.

    I'm just shaking my head at the know-it-alls calling all this magical. It's been concrete knowledge for longer than there's even been concrete.