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by mnw21cam 748 days ago
So basically, next time there's a heatwave and everyone cranks up their aircon, the system will still collapse.
1 comments

(Warning this is a tangent). Cooling/air conditioning actually uses a relatively small amount of energy compared to heating. As we transition away from fossil fuels for heating over to electricity the real existential crisis will happen in cold periods.

This can be understood intuitively: air conditioning is used when it’s 85° outside to make it 70° inside. Heating is regularly used to make it 65° inside when it is 20° outside. It turns out fossil fuels contain a truly remarkable amount of energy that happens to be really easy to release into a living space.

At least it's easy to turn sunlight into heat, so that may help somewhat. Absorb sun during the day and release it during the night.

The coldest nights tend to be clear (clouds reflect IR back to the earth).