[justinc-md]

It uses a lot less energy for people to live in a warm climate with air conditioning than a cold climate with heat. The US spends four times more on heating than cooling, primarily because of greater temperature differences.

Responsible environmentalists should set an example for everyone else and move to an area where heat isn’t required, then they can also choose to live without air conditioning.

The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer.

[NegativeLatency]

I think the Texas grid has some other problems, possibly not the best example to prove your point

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-power-use-breaks-reco...

[porknubbins]

It took me a long time to realize this I think because heating your house by 40 degrees F in the winter feels cozy and normal, while AC is loud and drippy and somehow feels unnatural even though mostly it only needs to drop 15 degrees.

[fuzzfactor]

>The Texas power grid failed in the winter, not the summer.

It could fail this summer due to insufficient capacity relative to demand. Alerts and calls for conservation have been provided starting last week, this time the lion's share of the increased risk can be attributed to air conditioning alone.

This occurred for a different reason in the winter because it got so unusually cold that the nominal water content of the natural gas froze in critical places within the delivery system and the gas could not be provided to the gas-fired electrical power plants. Unprecedented electrical climate-control demand was also a factor then.

When we were freezing in the dark with nothing but electrical heaters and no electricity, I didn't know how the traditional homes having natural gas connections fared. Nobody has gas lights any more but plenty still have gas heating & cooking. Natural gas is also often supposed to fuel household emergency generators, maybe they were OK to some extent. Liquified propane is a much more expensive alternative fuel gas and that's stored on site, but it could also possibly become obstructed by ice if it gets cold enough.

One thing about the way natural gas burns and electricity is made.

Traditionally it takes enough gas to heat 3 homes in order to produce the electricity to heat one home.

Regardless of price.

Not all of the energy from the gas is recovered either way, and after the electricity is delivered to the residence it is converted to heat more efficiently than gas but it's too late then to say there is a favorable comparison overall.

This leaves gas heat still less environmentally detrimental compared to electrical heat when the electricity is from a gas fired plant.

Pricing between these options when available can be expected to exaggerate uncertainties when comparing apples to oranges so there is that. Your pricing may vary, greatly.

Then there's the traditional thing about the way electricity heats and the way it cools.

Once you've got the electricity and you want to use it for temperature control, then it takes about 4 times as much electricity for an air-conditioner to make it one degree cooler than it takes for an elecric heater to make it one degree hotter.

Those electric heaters are wicked efficient on an electrical kWh basis.

But if you're on batteries you could easily conclude that any electric climate control is out-of-the question.

The remaining math can be derived from your own personal situation, and most often it can reveal why air-conditioning was considered nothing but a luxury item for so many generations until consumption got completely out-of-control.