https://apnews.com/article/olympics-air-conditioning-paris-0f753df91956f3fe61ad4febaff0ebb9
The U.S. Olympic team is one of a handful that will supply air conditioners for their athletes at the Paris Games in a move that undercuts organizers’ plans to cut carbon emissions.
US Olympics is probably being overly cautious ever since Taliyah Brooks collapsed from exhaustion when they refused to delay a US Olympic trials a couple years back due to extreme heat.
Taliyah was on pace to make it to the Olympics until that happened.
The organizers could have done it themselves and kept things equal instead of trying to greenwash the Olympics, they probably just chose to not do AC to reduce costs.
Just because US fuckers can't live with a climate they helped create doesn't mean the rest of the world has to follow them.
AC is very unusual in France, maybe a bit more in the south but even there it's rare, the houses are just built with good natural insulation and temperature regulation, stone walls, concrete walls with air gaps, etc.
As far as Paris is concerned, we're actually extremely ill-prepared for high heats. Parisians have the highest risk of heat-related death in Europe. Hardware stores are packed with AC units every summer now because people are forced to start using them. Luckily we've had terrible weather so far this summer, fingers crossed it stays that way.
Right, cities in general fucking suck at dealing with heat because they're concrete jungles with little greenery, and Paris in particular as pointed out in your article in parts due to the Zinc roofs. Doesn't change the fact few have AC (which also increases death risks during heatwaves) and that building techniques in general were made to more naturally keep houses cool, but yes that's more true with country houses and especially the more south you go. I didn't mean to imply cities didn't suffer from heat.
Give it a few years and a few more heat waves, all the people living in old buildings which are too expensive to insulate will be getting ac. There's no getting around the basic need for fresh air, no matter old habits and environmental costs. I'm sticking to ice packs and cold showers for now, don't know for how much longer though.
Heat is actually surprisingly easy to moderate with green spaces, water, shade, and wind.
Unfortunately, roads, roofs, and buildings fuck that all up.
Plant trees along every road. Line every building roof with greenery. Water that greenery, and centrally control how it's watered to create temperature/humidity differentials and thus wind throughout the entire city.
I wouldn't say it's surprisingly easy. It's possible, but it comes with substantial costs. Paris is throwing a ton of money at some of the solutions you've mentioned and the results are meager at best. Hopefully they'll improve as time goes on.
Not just "US fuckers". These countries have also announced plans to bring AC units: Great Britain, Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, Greece, Denmark and Australia
The ability to rest in climate control is going to give them an unfair advantage.
FTFY
This is the best summary I could come up with:
EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — The U.S. Olympic team is one of a handful that will supply air conditioners for their athletes at the Paris Games in a move that undercuts organizers’ plans to cut carbon emissions.
U.S. Olympic and Paralympic CEO Sarah Hirshland said Friday that while the U.S. team appreciates efforts aimed at sustainability, the federation would be supplying AC units for what is typically the largest contingent of athletes at the Summer Games.
“As you can imagine, this is a period of time in which consistency and predictability is critical for Team USA’s performance,” Hirshland said.
The Washington Post reported earlier this month that Germany, Australia, Italy, Canada and Britain were among the other countries with plans to bring air conditioners to France.
According to the International Energy Agency, fewer than 1 in 10 households in Europe has air conditioning, and the numbers in Paris are lower than that.
“It’s a high-performance environment,” Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Strath Gordon explained to The Post.
The original article contains 367 words, the summary contains 165 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
The organisers should just cut their power supply. Or disqualify the team for trying to gain an unfair advantage.
ACs are not being provided to reduce emissions. Most teams seem to be respecting this decision.
No, it's just posturing. The emissions from AC at the Olympic Village would have zero impact on climate change. This is just green washing for public perception points.
The emissions saved from removing a few hundred ACs are negligible. But the message it sends to the millions watching the Olympics is significant. Which, again, is why I am hoping there will be at least some symbolic action against rule-breakers - it will start a conversation about the need to regulate / ban ACs.
If living areas of the Olympics are getting hot enough that AC gives an advantage. They're too damn hot, and that's on France...
ACs are not being provided to reduce emissions. Everyone is being asked to accept an equal handicap, so that the world does not become even hotter in the coming years. It's largely symbolic, I agree, but I suppose kicking out a team that prioritises its medal tally over the climate crisis would send an even stronger signal.
AP again has a shit take: Olympic Village is real estate and will likely be sold off as real estate when the Olympics end. Installing AC, even if it makes sense in the short term, makes zero sense for the long term utility of the building.
This is a shit take that completely ignores the laws of thermodynamics. Where do you think all that heat goes?
I’m not sure what you think is happening here, but energy is just being moved around. Air conditioners aren’t just belching out extra heat. If air conditioners were 100% efficient then they’d break even on heating, but in reality they’re much better than that, pretty much all air conditioners are at least 200% but most are more than that. This is achieved by using the same effect that your refrigerator uses - the radiator behind the freezer isn’t mega hot, right? You could look into vapor-compression refrigeration to learn more.
I don't think you understand thermodynamics.
ACs are heat pumps that use temperature differentials to move heat from one side to another. There are inherent losses there (e.g., moving 1000kJ of heat out of a room might take 500kJ, for 200% efficiency). That excess 500kJ is dumped outside into the world along with the 1000kJvof heat, creating a local heat island effect. That's why ACs consume electricity, and that's where the energy goes.
The radiator behind the freezer isn't mega hot because of advances in insulation that limit the amount of heat that needs to be moved and advances in efficiency when operating in specific temperature regimes. A modern fridge consumes 400kWh a year, which averages out to 1.1kWh/day, or 45W continuous draw. That's about the same as a laptop charger. But, well, obviously your house is much larger than your fridge. A fridge might average 400L in volume, but your house averages more like 600000L (1500x more).
If you could move heat around without incurring losses, you could use that to construct a perpetual motion machine. Conservation of energy is a thing and entropy always increases.
Realistically the heat added via electricity is likely going to be added to the compressor itself not the radiator so ofcourse the radiator will be cooler. Also, a laptop charger has to convert from AC to DC so they will always consume more than the listed power output.
If we want to really dive into the depth of the subject though, more thermal energy is created, stored, and radiated in heat islands from cars than air conditioning. You'd be hard-pressed to heat the planet via electricity when the sun is really the thing doing all the work here. If the AC is powered via solar it's a big nothing burger really, especially if the solar panels are in the same geographical area as there would be no exporting energy to different locations.
Now, let's consider all the cars, planes, and asphalt that will be used for the olympics. Seems to me the best way to reduce the effects of climate change in this scenario is to not have the olympics unless it is walked to.
AC/DC converter losses are on the order of 10%. Negligible, and don't change the point. Your pedantry is noted and ignored.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: Breaks Community Rules
Community rules against the laws of thermodynamics 😂
France's energy supply is almost entirely nuclear, which isn't the easiest to ramp up and down on a minute-by-minute basis.
All electricity has some GHG footprint, and not using that electricity by definition has a lower GHG footprint. Plus, AC creates a heat island effect that forces other city occupants to also install AC, making the outside increasingly miserable over time.
I didn't see the /s, so In case you're being serious, here's the wiki for Germany renewable energy. There's a lot more than hydrocarbons going on.
Sure!
"Cooling is a big contributor to global warming. Much of the existing cooling equipment uses hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants, which are potent greenhouse gases, and use a lot of energy, making them a double burden for climate change. Even with the phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons required by the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, business as usual means emissions from refrigeration and air conditioning are expected to double by 2030 and triple by 2050, rising from 7 per cent of global GHG emissions today. Right now, the more we cool, the more we heat the planet."
This is a bit like complaining that electric heaters are a big problem because they use a lot of energy and may contain greenhouse gas products inside them.
There are entire industries belching thick black smoke into the atmosphere because it’s slightly cheaper than the clean alternative. That’s where climate change efforts should be focused, not on the small creature comforts provided for humans so that they don’t suffer in the heat.
Where do you think the energy for electric heating and cooling comes from? Thin air?
AC still makes up like 7% of global GHG emissions. That's more than aviation and computing... Combined. That's on par with the entire iron and steel industries. In fact, it's almost on par with the GHG emissions of all agriculture output and is expected to exceed the entire agriculture industry's GHG emissions before 2050.
Except when we have 100% renewable low emission electricity and transition away from CFC refrigerants, they’ll essentially drop to zero emissions. There’s nothing particularly bad about air conditioning. It is more and more becoming a necessity for survival due to climate change. If you don’t like that, your target is the fossil fuel industry, not the working class people who use air conditioning to avoid suffering.
Meanwhile, animal agriculture will always be extremely harmful to the environment due to methane, nitrous oxide, and various other issues. I’m happy for you to criticise people for using air conditioning if you’ll commit to going vegan.
I'm just stating the facts. But as a European I have to say I'm pretty surprised by the attitudes in this thread. Almost no one I know has AC and we do just fine, seems folks are awfully protective of their AC. Obviously there are worse offenders in other industries but the source I gave you shows that by 2050 AC could be over 20% of GHG emissions, from 7% today which is still nothing to sneeze at.
Here are some more facts (though the source kinda sucks, Quora):
Indirect Environmental Impact: Even if the electricity powering your air conditioner comes from renewable sources like solar or wind power, there are still environmental impacts associated with the production and installation of the air conditioning unit itself. Manufacturing the units, transporting them, and disposing of them at the end of their life cycle all have environmental consequences.
Energy Efficiency: The energy efficiency of the air conditioning unit is crucial. Even if the electricity comes from renewable sources, using an inefficient air conditioner will still consume more energy than necessary, putting strain on the grid and potentially increasing demand for non-renewable energy sources during peak times.
Heat Island Effect: Air conditioning can contribute to the urban heat island effect, where cities are significantly warmer than rural areas due to human activities. This can have various environmental impacts, such as increased energy consumption, air pollution, and health risks.
Refrigerants: Air conditioners use refrigerants that can be potent greenhouse gases if leaked into the atmosphere. Some older refrigerants like hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) have a high global warming potential. Using air conditioners with environmentally friendly refrigerants can help mitigate this impact.
And here is some more information on what European countries are doing to reduce the use of them, even to the point of dictating how low you can set the temperature and banning it in shops that leave the door open.
My point is that the anti air conditioner stuff is just greenwashing, that’s all. The facts are that air conditioning isn’t a particularly bad technology in any way.
Sure, of course, air conditioners have environmental impacts, that’s obvious - but so does building solar panels or electric cars.
Inverter heat pumps are one of the obvious solutions to mitigate climate change because they’re much, much more efficient than other forms of heating and cooling, we should be pushing for them to become common in Europe, not jumping on some bandwagon we don’t really understand because traditionally Europe hasn’t been hot enough to need it.
"small creature comforts" like air conditioning and the refrigerants used in them make up 7% of global GHG emissions. How about you take your air conditioning apologism and fuck off?