While we all love the feeling of walking into a cold air-conditioned building on a hot summer day, it’s important to realize that air conditioning is a major contributor to global warming in the first place. Many A/C systems are built on old technology that are inefficient and are huge polluters.
Air-conditioning has a large carbon footprint
Many cheap air-conditioning systems and other hydronic cooling devices utilize and emit hydro fluorocarbons, which we all know have been shown to have adverse effects on our climate by depleting the ozone in our atmosphere.
Air conditioning is powered by electricity which is mostly produced by burning fossil fuels. Ironically, people are turning up their air conditioners to protect themselves from global warming, which in turn makes the global warming problem even worse - it’s a vicious cycle that we can only break through better knowledge and understanding of the problem. It’s bad for the wallet as well - more than half of a typical U.S. household’s summer energy bill is devoted to air conditioning.
Bad for your health
Air-conditioning reduce air exchange with the outdoors which can substantially increase the level of mold spores and off-gassed chemicals that you breathe. Air conditioning has been shown to aggravate problems like, arthritis, neuritis, and sinus problems. People who live and work in constant air-conditioned environments are more susceptible to upper-respiratory illnesses, because of significant stress a body experiences while moving through extremes of temperature often and to the air-borne virus transmission that air conditioners promote.
Another ptoblem is that our bodies become habituated to the artificial cooling effects, and it becomes more difficult to cope with real outdoor summer temperatures - our bodies lose their natural immunity tohigher temperatures. As our bodies become more reluctant to go outside, and avoid outdoor activity and exercise, it becomes a vicous cycle that’s hard to break.
Social costs
Sometimes its easy to forget that we often live life sealed behind glass and covered walls under air-conditioning which insulate us from the outdoors. We even choose not to walk to nearby places ony to drive instead, due to the heat. We live cocooned up in bulidings and vehicles, because it’s more comfortable. This creates an imbalance in how we live our lives, interact with our environment, and interact with other people.
Understanding how air-conditioning works
To better understand how we can live comfortably indoors while minimizing the electric inputs we use, it’s important to understand how heating and cooling devices work and how they can prove detrimental to both your house and you. First, let’s look at how air conditioning works at a physical level. Heat is transferred through mainly three different processes such as:
- Conduction process - the passing of heat through a solid, such as your home’s roof, walls, and windows
- Radiation process - heat traveling in the form of light, both visible-spectrum sunlight and invisible, low-wavelength infrared
- Convection process - heat being carried in the air as it naturally rises and circulates.
Keeping the sun’s heat out of your home by insulating your roof is an example of controlling conducted heat. Installing awnings on your porch so that direct sunlight doesn’t shine in your windows is a way of reducing radiated heat. Installing attic vents and fans so that heat rises and leaves your house through the roof is a way of minimizing convected heat.
You can look at it from the opposite side too. You are cooled by convection when air moves over your skin as the warmer air rises and is replaced by cooler air from below. Good ventilation creates convection currents: the faster this air moves, the more refreshing it is. If your surroundings are cooler than you are, you will radiate your own heat to them, cooling yourself. The cooler your environment, the more heat you will radiate.
Hydronic cooling
With the innovation and development in hydronic cooling systems, consumers have more choices inair-conditioning, fans and coolers at affordable prices. Hydronic cooling or radiant hydronic cooling is a cooling process which utilizes water pipes carrying chilled water rather than chilled air. It is “radiant” because the ambient heat in the room is absorbed and carried away by the cool water system.
The most common such systems designed for residences are constructed of aluminum panels carrying concealed tubing mounted on the ceiling. Existing hydronic heating systems consist of tubes embedded in the floor, and sometimes these same tubes can be used for both heating and cooling. The water is mixed with glycol and cooled by a heat pump, a cooling tower (in commercial buildings).
Hydronic cooling may be difficult to install and maintain in humid climates, as the interior air must be dry in order to prevent condensation problems. Combining them with an auxiliary air conditioning system, which helps to dehumidifies air, can be a workable approach.
Dehumidifying advancements
Dehumidification is important because most of the energy used in air conditioning in humid climates is used to dehumidify air. There are many innovative ways of dehumidifying air which are creating interest among consumers and businesses alike. Technology using desiccants, improved condensers and compressors, and electro statically-induced precipitation of water vapor are being developed and researched by various companies. Green house roofs save energy by shielding building tops from the sun, while providing cooling via the water given off by plants.
While these ideas are exciting, most of our home cooling needs can be addressed by simple, common-sense changes in the way we build houses and live in them, and a bit of adjustment to the expectations we have for our personal comfort. Just think twice before switching on that A/C unit and try to use any alternatives to this energy-wasting technology!
