Return of the Cmonmacques: Interesting article to run prior to a weekend where we expect a devastating heat wave and label it as “climate solutions”

Interesting article to run prior to a weekend where we expect a devastating heat wave and label it as “climate solutions”

I've heard the opposite is actually true. Better to keep the house a steady temp then continually let it heat back up and cool it back down (Also A/Cs have an auto setting.... So that they don't run all day???)

Molly that doesn’t sound very solution minded

Ur right sitting down,listening, and learning From the news people who would never lie 😞

Right. If you're not suffering and going to a lot of extra effort you're not trying.

Yes but have you considered the cost savings of killing vulnerable elderly people

Depends on type of system, insulation in the house, and how long you’ll be gone. General rule: an hour or two, let it ride. Much more than that, you’re better off setting the thermostat warmer while you’re gone. This assumes average to good health/heat tolerance, of course.

Source: people asking me this question every workday for 15 years.

bsky.app/profile/catf...

Had an AC technician explain why to keep it on at a reasonable level instead of just turning it on when it gets super hot: Your furniture holds heat. Your books hold heat. Your closets and cupboards hold heat. By the time it is dangerously hot and you turn the AC on, you’re too late

Have you tried privatizing residential cooling more? Buy stock of a cold-sharing company? Get a subscription for NFTs of cold places delivered right to your mailbox? Or perhaps buy some gourmet Greenland glacial ice cubes?

Someone told me they run the a/c super cold at night and then let the ambient cold cool the house during the day. Don't know if they were insane or a genius.

Probably not the worst idea. There are HVAC systems that run at night to make ice and use it to cool during peak demand.

That's genius! I had no idea that existed

it’s good (usually - depending on details). here’s a video about it youtu.be/0f9GpMWdvWI?...

Batteries aren't the only way to store energy. Here's another.youtu.be "Reduce emissions and save the grid with this one weird trick!!!"-ConfuciusLinks 'n StuffTechnology Connextras (the second channel that stuff goes on sometim...

That's cool maybe I'll try that in the winter. It's 111 here so I think would have to set my nightly to like 40 degrees.

I might need better insulation

Insulation is really key. It’s wild, I lived in an old building with cheap windows and old/none/barely existent insulation (walls were plaster). We could barely cool it to acceptable levels in the summer and burned out a couple window units…

It’s wild how much cooler my house stays in the summer since we turned the attic into a place to store clothes. 🫠

This is what we do. We have a heat pump, and it's my understanding it's more efficient when the outside air is cooler too. When we switched to this vs the same (warmer!) temp all day our electric bill went down a noticeable difference (average $160-170/mo in summer to about $110-120/mo)

AZ, this is so true even if you go on vacation. I raise mine from 74 to 76-78 if I’m going to the office, vacation, etc. Older AC’s may strain so you may be forced to raise the temp to mitigate potential damage.

Not only is it better efficiency-wise, it’s easy on the system (which hopefully results in less need for fixing and replacement).

Most air conditioners are constant output so they are constantly turning on and off throughout the day. So on a normal 70 night to 95 day the AC trying to keep your house at 72 may only run 5 minutes between 8-9AM but may be running 55 between 4 and 5PM.

If you let your house warm up to 80 at say noon and then tried to cool it back down to 72 it might run constantly from 12-4 catching up.

Right? Has this writer never heard of a thermostat?

I got a long talking too by an HVAC guy who told me this exactly. He even removed (after strongly suggesting) the scheduling feature from the thermostat.

Raising the temp when you're away definitely uses less electricity. But- lots of places have time of use rates now, so if you get home right when it switches you could end up cooling with more expensive electricity. Many systems are *way* oversized and can lead to uneven cooling/longer to comfort.

I think it depends on your definition of “better” - better for what? It uses less energy to put a bigger “swing” in your thermostats, and this can be thought of as the ultimate “swing”. But if everybody does it, the system will be more taxed at (say) 6pm than otherwise.

reading this in The Data Center State is amusing

Having lived in Texas this strikes me as “You don’t need to run your air conditioner all the time especially when your power goes out in July”

ERCOT: Wow you assholes trying to stay alive in August are gonna cause rolling blackouts!

“You all acting like this grid is gonna get an upgrade? I don’t THINK SO!”

Anything to avoid SoCiALiSm.

C’mon man, you don’t want to slow down bitcoin mining, do you? I mean, ERCOT just pays them to slow down their operations and then adds it your bill, so you pay for it anyway.

To be more accurate, it’s not just bitcoin, it’s a variety of cryptocurrencies, but you know what I mean.

Here’s a story from the Austin Chronicle with details: www.austinchronicle.com/daily/news/2...

ERCOT Says Texas Power Demand to Double by 2030, With Bitcoin to Blamewww.austinchronicle.com Gas demand also increasing with electrification

Seriously, how does that compare to the needs of Bitcoin miners? How insensitive. It’s like the 1990s again, when all the small town losers were whining about desert shrimp farmers, who of course should have had priority.

And they are magnanimous! For a small 8-figure fee, they’ll reduce their consumption! ERCOT has the biggest brains! www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin...

Texas paid bitcoin miner more than $31 million to cut energy usage during heat wavewww.cbsnews.com To ease load on aging grid, state program offers energy credits to bitcoin miners to curtail their power consumption.

The Texas government is clearly insane.

“The Texas Legislature is the national laboratory for bad ideas.” - Molly Ivins (And she said that like 30 years ago, when a Republican candidate could still lose a gubernatorial election for telling a sexist joke.)

Cutting the defense budget would be a more effective solution than cutting off home AC.

You mean daily bombing isn’t good for the ecosystem? Whoda thunk it.

That’s the tip of the iceberg. It’s the fuel guzzled by military machinery and vehicles. It’s the dump of chemicals into oceans. It’s the burn pits. It’s the fouling of ground water. It’s weapons testing. Etc. Etc. But yeah, daily bombing is the obvious threat.

The point, for me is, the bosses want to put all the responsibility for ending the climate crisis on us, instead of where it belongs. So we all have to save these articles & show them when they try to gas light us.

I'd save these articles to put it by the Pyre they're gonna burn to death on.

Much of the budget goes towards private mercenary companies, which are not only more expensive than our actual military personnel, but whose environmental records are even worse and often much less transparent.

Did not realize that.

No one ever discusses this.

🤷‍♂️

Hey, it’s one of my local jets! If I stand under the flight path maybe I can catch a little breeze, which would be nice since I don’t have AC at all. [it’s not hot here currently but hot days are coming & I dread them]

The reason the US defense budget keep ballooning like it does is because it's used as a slush fund by various cronies, and doesn't even have to reveal how it it all spent.

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