Keeping cool in a warming world.
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- Опубликовано: 24 окт 2020
- As our world grows warmer, the need to provide ourselves with cool comfortable living and working spaces becomes an ever bigger challenge. Existing cooling systems cause the atmosphere to warm even faster through CO2 emissions and refrigerant chemicals that are thousands of times more powerful as greenhouse gases. So what can we do to square the circle?
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Research Links
International Energy Agency Reports
www.iea.org/reports/the-futur...
www.iea.org/reports/cooling-e...
Super white paint
newatlas.com/materials/super-...
Hydrofluorolefins
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofl...
www.fluorocarbons.org/publica...
Not in Kind Cooling Technologies
www.sciencedirect.com/science...
Magetocaloric Refrigeration
accelerate24.news/regions/eur...
Absorption cooling
www.sciencedirect.com/topics/...
Evaporative Cooling
www.designingbuildings.co.uk/...
Montreal Project
www.unenvironment.org/ozonact...
Biarritz Pledge
www.ccacoalition.org/en/news/...
Cool Coalition
coolcoalition.org/
#futureofcooling #climateemergency #actnow
Personally I'm a huge supporter of "greenification" of urban areas. Reduces heat since plants absorb sunlight as well as reduced CO2. Not to mention it has a positive effect on us humans as well.
Plenty of research that shows that humans feel better(something with evolution I bet) in greener environments.
Definitely a good one to put on roofs and along streets (space permitting for access etc). Also solar panels help reduce heat absorbed into the building too. Which, combined, make me think of solarpunk art.
Our local water/electric company gave people a rebate for tearing out lawns , but allowed gravel and other substances that retain heat. Really sad (They did change this later) but they should give free lie water ground cover instead
There’s also the very quick solution of requiring commercial buildings in warm areas to cool less. I live in Florida and most large commercial buildings are frigid inside, even those carrying non-perishable goods. It seems absurd.
Restaurants will often be very cool to make turnover time quicker, you're less likely to stay for a long time if you're freezing.
Be careful. Walking indoors after being outdoors in a hot humid environment will make even 78F feel frigid.
I'd love that! I live in Osaka, and hardly use cooling at my own place, but when I go to the office I have to bring a sweater in summer because they cool it down so much. (Ironically, in winter they heat it up so much that I can work in a t-shirt).
@@sebastianganovich8865 maybe mention to hierarchy management that we find strataferic cooling far more efficient, low flow floor vents, means cool air ponds under desks, exactly where you need it.
I always take the opinion of "dress for the weather"; i expect to wear multiple layers inside and outside in winter; if I'm in a T-shirt indoors in winter, then there is energy being wasted. We don't really have cooling in the UK as much. Hopefully any expansions there will be moderate.
also recommend, for those who can, trellis on the wall facing the afternoon sun, the leaves provide shade and the evaporation carry additional heat up into the air over the top of the house with just a little wind. in autumn the leaves fall off and the sun can heat the house in the cold half year.
Oh...and Dave..
Can you tell me where u got the info for stating Corona Virus is damaging Building's Energy Efficiency measures & investment, in over 10%.
That worries me very much.
Is it a result of general budgets...of has it got anything to do with building's ventilation..?
Thank you again !
Cheers from Portugal
Yes indeedy on the trellis idea. I use 200 mm steel mesh sheet and can highly recommend Parthenocissus henryana for the eastern wall face and P. tricuspidata for all but the shaded face. Commonly known as Boston ivy. Gorgeous things.
Hi there, It's on page 6 of this report from the International Energy Agency...
www.iea.org/reports/cooling-emissions-and-policy-synthesis-report
Old skool example would be ,the hanging gardens of Babylon. Futures so bright 😎
This is genius.
For those who can, I recommend outdoor shutters as energy saving measures
And underground shelters when needed.
@@irri3191 or just some pantry in the house is kept cool with the air from an outdoor root cellar
@Adymn Sani yes very simple and smart, people from earthship houses, use it firmly in hot climate, they love to show and explain it
@@johnninielsen7840 That what the council houses built in the 1960's had. My Granny had one. She didn't get a fridge until the 1980's as the pantry kept things cool enough, and the habit of shopping every few days (every day for meat) kept the supply of fresh produce.
As seen in France and Spain.
Shutters.
Really detailed and informative regarding the needs, pros, cons, and solutions for cooling and problems related. Great content once again.
Love my geothermal....cool in the summer, warm in the winter, quiet and inexpensive to operate.
Yep, got one. Not easy for a retrofit tho, perfect for a new build with a bit of space around.
No one should ever talk about HVAC without strongly focusing on INSULATION. How can the world ignore the obvious for so long?
With many ICF systems (like Rastra), heating and cooling systems can be eliminated altogether in some cases.
@@PistonAvatarGuy Insulation is king!
Insulation _and airtightness_. You need both for an efficient building. I've just finished insulating my (boring brick 1960s UK) house and now it never gets below 18C without turning the heating on. It remains to be seen how things go on the coldest days but we just had the first frosts and still no need for heating beyond 2 occupants+fridge, TV and laptops. This should be normal in new-build, but it still isn't.
@@xxwookey I have always assumed that sealing a building envelope was part of insulation and not a separate thing but you are completely right that you need both. Perhaps there are many people who do not understand that.
@@ReevansElectro I find that airtightness almost never gets mentioned/considered, even though most people know about insulation. Public understanding is extremely limited, at least in the UK. In physical terms the insulation layer and the airtightness layer are usually separate, but they can be the same (e.g in a SIPs building).
AC used to be out of the financial reach of many, with the reduction in price more people are able to purchase them.
Then there is the perceived heat. I’m not saying summers aren’t hot. I live in Australia, they’re hot!
But the problem is you live in a cooled house, drive in a air conditioned car to your air conditioned workplace, or take air conditioned public transport (which I find is way too cool), you go to an air conditioned shopping centre.
Likewise in winter but reversed. Everything is warmed too much. Some years ago I visited family in Vancouver. Not the coldest place in Canada. The house was overly warm to me, since I was dressed for an Australian winter in my (then) typically uninsulated house with no central heating, and I was wearing a merino wool top. I stood on the snowy front doorstep to cool off after washing the dishes. Everyone else was dressed lightly, because the furnace was on.
It’s called comfort creep.
all the cheap houses going up near me, could be so much more efficient. Even heat pumps would surely be more efficient.
It gets worse... my daughter's friend just built a house and apparently it has black brick and dark roof... why do housing companies support this trend? So frustrating
EDIT: for context. I live in a place that has weather like California
Bruh, air conditioner IS a heat pump.
@@koghs yeah. Sorry I was thinking about the underground heat exchangers.
@@TheMarrethiel in the lingo that’s a ground source heat pump! But honestly I hate having to specify too. They’re all heat pumps, they all use the same cycle in the heat exchanger
Swamp coolers are great in low humidity areas, but not elsewhere. Years ago, I lived in a house built in the '40s that had an incorporated attic fan. Vents leading to the outside in each room ( with screens). The fan was driven by a single quarter horsepower motor. You turned it on about May and off in October. Other than the hottest summer days , the house stayed comfortable.
A simple design that worked ..
In a cool area.
8:52 or one can introduce a desiccant into the system
ruclips.net/video/7w4rg3UcsgI/видео.html&t
The energy reflective paint seems like a relatively cheap way to improve existing buildings as well as new ones. Maybe a rebate that makes this paint cost the same or even cheaper than regular roof paint. Hopefully now that we have a president (in 3 months) that believes in science we can make some significant progress. Maybe hire Al Gore to be head of the climate change task force...or Bernie to be in charge of the Green New Deal. Without a loon in the white house, anything seems possible.
I think there's enough PFAS in our bodies and drinking water already.
Ooo dark Brandon is not helping us as much as we might have wished
I love the white roof! Such a great idea.
All new buildings should use very aggressive insulation, ventilation and design standards to minimize energy consumption.
Similar standards should be applied to retrofits and historic building. It is one thing to preserve a building but restoration efforts should not require 400 year old materials and methods except on very special circumstances.
Plant trees around your house, if you have one, their shade will keep your house cool.
Plant trees that drop their leaves in autumn, to let the winter sun in.
@Donald McCarthy Let me guess. You are a conservative, right?
Enjoy your week off, thanks for sharing your research and knowledge every week!
Living in a city with shops opened all the time and their refrigerators running, when I moved in an apartment without fridge, I found that it was ok for me not to buy one more.
I admit I never buy meat nor milk, unless I consume them immediately. This way, I turn my general switch off when I exit.
I think this is a good example of how heating and cooling needs can be highly variable depending upon where you live. It sounds like you live in a city where you can easily buy food and don't need to store it at home. Many people (including me) live in cities where stores are more unequally distributed and you have to store food at home in fridges and freezers if you want to avoid spending a huge amount of your week travelling on roads.
@@Kevin_Street
Absolutely, Kevin. Being able to find an open shop in a short walk makes the difference.
Just insulate your fridge with 10$ worth of whatever you like from a hardware store. Polystyrene foam pannels are excelent. Less energy cost = less energy heating your appartment.
@@dragoscoco2173 Most fridges these days use the outside panels to remove the heat, so that wouldn't work, but make your fridge work harder.
@@richardpickersgill3434 There still are common type fridges that have one big heat sink in the back and all the rest are just insulated panels of styro and plastic..
The only person on here that broadcasts clear factual information and keeps me sane. Thank you.
I just love your content omg!!! I want to be an Architectural Engineer when I grow up so I can integrate these technologies in our buildings.
The other day I saw a video on RUclips about paint adding calcium carbonate as a reflector. The surface of the painted area was 2 degrees cooler than the ambient air.
Lime paint is fantastic stuff and weirdly under-utilised. Cheap as chips, easy to apply, make your own with some cement coloured oxides and away you go. Acrylic paint is a dismal thing and a total con.
I remember a story where snail eat calcium carbonate paint.
I saw that in my newsfeed; the calcium carbonate-based white paint resulted in surfaces being 1.7 degrees C lower than ambient at high noon, and 10 degrees lower at night. That is pretty impressive for a material that cheap. The only question mark is how would it perform over time? If it gets dirty or discolored, that seems like something that would have a major impact. Here is the paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386420302368
Except its lifespan is currently very short.
Our western mode of thinking works for tech fixes. Go look at Village Homes in Davis California. We did it differently years ago. Our problem is always trying to grow GDP which is stupid to do on a finite planet. Ditch the World Bank. And, do depaving too!
Mr. Borlace, Enjoy your time off, and thank you for your thought provoking series.
Cheers Mack.
Oh nice, got here early! This is a wonderful channel!
In the 1980's, I painted my tin roof with a silver coat of Rustolium paint, and along with the boron treated shredded newspaper blown in the walls, reduced my air conditioning costs considerably.
The good thing about the newspaper stuff over the Polyurethanes is how it does not create a vapor barrier in the same way PUR/PIR does. Your walls better retain their ability to shed humidity. With PUR/PIR you might need to up your ventilation, which might defeat your insulation.
@@astranger448 good old paper
Teflon paint? I think there’s enough Teflon in the world already :/
If you get fresh eggs that haven't been washed, they don't need refrigeration.
Same with root cellars.
You can preserve your seasonal garden vegetables through the winter this way without a refrigerator.
It's particularly good for safely storing potatoes, yams, onions, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, apples.
You just create a room in your basement with a small window or vent that is kept open to the cold air in winter to have it colder than the rest of the house.
You are true Environmentalist,and your articles are super informative ,to the point and show people how and where they can get involved,kudos for your great work,may the Universe keep you and your followers safe and healthy,for a long time we need you.!!!!!!
Brilliant presentation as usual Dave, you have a fabulous channel.
I have had an absorption, for absorption refrigeration since the day I laid eyes on our first kerosene fridge; as 4 year old back in 1968, it fascinated me how deliberately lighting a tiny fire under the corner of a white box could cause it, cause it to make ice.
It was that very fridge that got me into refrigeration, now people think it’s a brand new thing.
I read a couple studies that stated that while white roofs would increase reflectivity of that roof, it also reduces cloud cover, which is more reflective than roofs, making the whole exercise a net loss.
Wow, really? Do you have a link?
@@incognitotorpedo42 www.researchgate.net/publication/258660012_Effects_of_Urban_Surfaces_and_White_Roofs_on_Global_and_Regional_Climate
There are also a bunch of news articles from ... actually no, there's not a single right-leaning news site on the first page of search, but it is google, so that's just how it is. Several years ago there were.
www.google.com/search?q=white+roofs+reduce+cloud+coverage+study+shows&oq=white+roofs+reduce+cloud+coverage+study+shows&aqs=chrome..69i57.7031j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I added a misting system (ac mister) to my outside coils. On very hot days, the mist cools the air and reduces work load of the compressor (reduced the head pressure/energy consumption of the ac unit). Also, moved the ac unit to the EAST side of the house so that it has a little share during the hottest hours. And insulation. And double-pane windows. And... and... I'm hoping the US rejoins the Paris Accords. Thanks for the great info. Excellent share.
I'm in a relatively cool (but not cold) environment (Tasmania). The single best investment we have made is a basic 6kW heat pump/AC unit. It retired 5 bedroom space heaters, solved summer heat (we had no cooling capability prior to this) and made us capable of controlling our comfort regardless of the cost. After two years, our electricity bill is about a third less than using ad-hoc solutions for winter and zero help in summer. Also, we live on an island that produces 200% renewable energy, exporting half to mainland Oz, so I don't feel guilty using electricity, we already paid for the infrastructure. $0.02
Good on you Matthew. Is that an Air Source Heat Pump you've got installed?
@@JustHaveaThink I don't know what Matthew has, but the vast majority of Australian heat pumps are air to air. I've never seen any other sort advertised and the installers are seriously inexperienced in anything else.
For instance in our local area the council built a new performance space. They installed a seawater to air heat pump, touting the increased efficiency and cost savings. However rather than having fresh water pipes going out into the sea in a loop as you'd expect, they actually pumped raw sea water into the building. Of course they encountered the obvious biofouling and corrosion problems that you'd expect and the system required constant expensive repairs until being scrapped and replaced with a less efficient air to air system after just 5 years.
So the issues are not just technical. There's a huge knowledge gap for people on the ground that results in expensive and inefficient solutions.
@@JustHaveaThink yep, a split system, best investment we've made.
painting roofs in white and getting as much greenery in the cities as possible must be the first step worldwide!
As I watch this video I'm sitting on my sailboat waiting out the pandemic in the tropics. I'm running Air Conditioning that is powered by solar panels and batteries. No generator on this boat.
I've built a system based on a military equipment cooling compressor that is about 3 times more effeciency then what is generally used for ac.
There are better ways to solve problems. I'm a bleeding edge kinda engineer but what I'm doing now will be generally available in a few years. -C
Oh Emily, you're living the dream. Good for you.
Hopefully it will hit the market soon. I would love to have one if it's not water cooled as I suspect yours would be. Standard air conditioners are rough on off grid systems.
@@blaydCA I'm not planning on developing it as a product. But there will be a DIY video on our channel soon. Bop over and subscribe.
Yes my installation is sea water cooled but making one air cooled is just as easy.
@@EmilyAndClark sounds interesting. On lockdown here riding out the pandemic as well. Thankfully off grid, so at least I don't have ye old 'lectric bill to worry about, but every year Southern California is hotter. What was installed years ago no longer handles to additional heat.
I have spent years in school and 15years in the work force of HVAC engineers. These seemingly simple concepts you have talked about here are hotly contested by so called experts like you wouldn't believe. School taught me this 15years ago... trying convince people particularly trades people of this is like trying to pull teeth without anesthetic. I have even meet supposedly university educated environmentalist who argue against almost every point you made here. I TRULY am happy to see how well you layed out the facts. I would like to add Ammonia refrigeration has also got very low Global Warming Potential, very efficient in terms of minimal pressure change to operate and if it is spilled in small amounts is plant food. Sadly large release can kill people and animals but you need trained people to work with it to minimize that. Keep up the great videos.
Why was ammonia ever dropped as a refrigerant? I'm guessing because of the potential to be deadly as you said. Also I remember reading that you would need stainless steel hardware which is more expensive. Thanks.
@@gengkiskhan2871 Sadly, Ammonia chemically reacts with copper and that created leaks. There were 3 types of refrigeration chemicals that were popular back in the day. Sulfur, Ammonia and cfc. Two were prone to leaks, break downs, had a nasty odor and wound up being harm full to health. Cfc were just as cheap so for 60 to 80 years they became the go to refrigerant till the Montreal Protocol took hold.
Ammonia is cheaper and more efficient then any of R replacements but the improper handling by managers/techs have still aloud the deadly reputation of Ammonia to hold back the development of the industry. Currently they have Ammonia based indirect chiller system that are amazing and sit 100% outside were the chances of causing harm are much lower but few want to consider it.
Thank you!
For regions that alternate between heating and cooling seasons, ground source (aka geothermal) heating and cooling could be helpful. Not only is it easier to transfer the heat to the cool ground than the hot air, but you are storing the heat from the cooling in the summer for use for heating in the winter. For example here in Ottawa, Canada we go from an average low temperature of about -15C in January to an average high of about 26C in July (those are averages so obviously it gets much colder and hotter than that).
Thank you for this video.
Very Interesting.
Plant tees in cities, to cool them during the day. It can make up to a ten degree difference in lowering heat.
Fund recovery systems that remove the coolant from discarded cooling units.
Thank You!
I needed to replace my aging roofs some years ago. White roofing material was already commercially available then for a reasonable price. Now all my south facing roofs are white (they look out over a wooded area so not really standing out/eye sore) with the north facing roof is traditional black. Temperatures under the roof are now reasonable where before the space was unusable in summer.
I get a blindingly-white roof free of charge but it's a backwardsy method. It's non-stop blindingly-white November 1st to May 1st and then it's jet black May 1st to November 1st (in northern hemisphere). I must have used the wrong "adjustable roofing contractor".
I went into Intensive Care overnight for a watering Jun 16, 2002. I only had 85 km left at 3 pm when it happened. I was going alright too until I went a bit unconscious, kept my heart at 135 bpm for 10 hours not letting it race & cause exhaustion. It was 35 degrees though & humid & the southwest air from Ohio & Illinois had a pollution alert index of "avoid breathing when possible" so I sweated 13-14 litres since 6 am and my heart stopped a little bit occasionally. Great nostalgia memories.
Ouch.
Thanks for another great video!
This is a really hard one to "fix" because excessive heat is a large and growing problem all over the world. Here in the West it's only a problem for two or three months in the year, but in countries closer to the equator heat is a never ending source of misery that's responsible for who knows how much inefficiency and an uncountable number of premature deaths. And with global warming causing climate change, the problem is only getting worse as weather patterns persist for longer periods. Heat waves last for a month instead of a week.
I think that cooling systems like A/C are a tremendous force for good worldwide. But as you say in your video, they've collectively become a positive feedback loop that's making the problem they were intended to solve even worse. The best solution (especially in warmer climates) is to design buildings (and cities) that don't need to be cooled as much in the first place. Then they could use systems like evaporative cooling to make up the difference. And this is a good idea for new construction. But most of us already live somewhere, and we're most likely going to keep on living in places that are already built. So any comprehensive solution to the problem of the feedback loop has to address cooling systems that are added to older structures.
Most architects treat HVAC as a separate system that gets plugged into their designs after the structure is already built, and whole industries depend upon the idea that you can take heating and cooling systems in and out of a building the same way you might change a hard drive on a computer. I think truly comprehensive solutions to the problem of the positive feedback loop have to work within that reality.
I've been designing and building passive solar homes since 1981 that do not need air conditioning. This is in Southern British Columbia where summer temperatures can reach 40 degrees C. The house I'm building now did not get above 20C last summer when it was 35C outside. The Architecture profession needs to do more as buildings consume 20% of our energy and produce 39% of CO2 emissions
Very good point. I'm planning to make a program about Passivhaus in the New Year so if you have any direct insight (sounds like you have) then that would be most welcome. Email address is
daveb@justhaveathink.com
Cheers. Dave
morninboy, I'd be very interested in hearing about Passivhaus economics. I hope you're able to contribute to Dave's video on it.
@morninboy
BCs climate isn't very hard to design for.
I congratulate on your solar passive homes, but it's hardly a problem for that region to manage this.
More like a walk in the park.
Try further north or some hot humid region and see how you go then.
@@JustHaveaThink
Hit up the guys at Building Science Corporation (US) and their 'perfect wall' for how to do insulation, aircontrol and weatherprotection correctly for any climate zone - the knowledge of that dove tails directly with any passive/plus-energy-house design (www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-001-the-perfect-wall).
It's as compact and to the point as possible.
And for air-conditioning of a building like that (which usually is air-tight) you might want to look into a system I only know about from Germany.. it's called Gegenstrom-Schicht-Wärmeaustauscher (Crossflow-Layer-Heatexchanger). It sounds like those air cross flow recuperation systems they build and use in the US, but it's more advanced and slick than those.
It's using water as a heat transfer medium and is capable of much more than simple heat recuperation, by allowing several different sinks and sources of heat and cold to take part in the process of heat/cold generation while exchanging air with the outside world. Currently they do that stuff only for big buildings (hospitals, gov, etc.) but on paper it should work for single home dwellings as well (at least that's my personal goal.. but still years away ;-).
Website with the schematic of the full blown system (I can only see German there): www.sew-kempen.de/produkte/m-systeme/aufbau-funktion?lang=de, but with Google translate you should get somewhere and maybe mail them and see if they have some English material for you to parse?
The only other thing I know about passive-house designs is that they rely on some big thermal mass (soil, large water tank, big pile of stones, etc.) to enable annual heat/cold transfer and lately they use solar to create more energy than they use (which turns them into plus-energy).
Plenty examples all over the world.
Oh, and one more thing.. in northern Europe they insulate the buildings from the ground, as the average temp of that is below what one wants inside. The material considered perfect for that seems to be foam-glass. Either as a sort of gravel or in cut blocks/plates (more expensive).
Doesn't rot, doesn't compact, does not get attacked by insects/etc. and is fire proof.
Part of the problem are architects and building contractors stuck in the past. Why should I use/do this, we did not do this for the last 300 years and look, it still stands. But times (and architects)are changing. In a good part of the European union houses for rent/sale now must come with an energy efficiency label provided by an independent surveyor. Inefficient houses now drop in value, stay on the market longer and are a bad investment altogether. Efficient houses command better prices and are good investments.
Supermarkets changing to a delivery based system with closed and energy-efficient coolers serving households from central warehouses would make a great difference not just because of the smaller carbon footprint of the warehouse but by having one delivery truck serving twenty households in one optimized route instead of twenty vehicles driving back and forth for individual shopping trips. Of course, this mostly makes sense for the United States where farmers' markets are few and far between and individual food stores like butchers, bakers, and green grocers almost exotic.
excellent video, thanks
Anyone got a figure at 2:30, how much of transport energy is cooling energy percentage ?
It's said that car AC uses about 10% more fuel when on..
Now this is a cool video for such a hot topic nowadays!
Excellent reporting Dave.
High humidity great waves are one crazy future problem that water based chilling won't be able to solve.
Compression based chilling does 2 things, remove humidity, and cool air.
Also recommend reading "Ministry for the Future"
i don't know much about the subject, but i saw a dutch team made a cooling system for bigger factories that uses sound for cooling. i don't remember if it uses any chemicals that would be bad for the environment but i when i saw it to me it looked like a great solution
I worked in Qatar for a year and I was struck by the amazing contrasts. One of these was air conditioning. There are huge shopping malls up to 5 stories high and including at least two full size ice rinks. These huge buildings are totally air conditioned so that you step out of almost 40deg C in the middle of summer into a cool 20 age C or so in the shopping mall. There are many huge office blocks and schools - again totally air conditioned. The power come mainly from natural gas so I used to refer not to the carbon footprint so much as the carbon gumboot. These buildings have almost all been built in the past twenty years. Alongside these building are much older buildings which use a clever system of passive cooling. On the roof is a high chimney like structure which opens into the inside of the building. This chimney is heated by the sun causing an updraft of air which sucks cooler air into the lower parts of the building. In many of these older buildings there are pools of water placed so that the incoming air passes over the surface causing evaporation of the water. This has two effects. One is that the air inside is moistened which is pleasant after the drying air of the desert and also the forced evaporation cools the air further. Fuel input is zero (apart from water costs).
One of the cheaper options is ground sourced cooling (and heating)!
Obviously the use of an "earth battery" is only good towards the ambient yearly temp! If you cool your house with one you are heating the catchment area ..... but that is heat you can recoup in the winter! Most of these rely on a Glycol heat transfer liquid rather than CFC. Although this may be negated by the inclusion of refrigerant heat exchangers coupled to the ground source heat pump ;0)
It may be an idea to incorporate some of the Earthship ethos into modern architecture! After all we are not just talking about an energy problem in isolation but also water management and waste disposal!
There is an air variant, called a Canadian Well. Involves a burried pipe, and a modest fan. Oh yes, an quite a bit of digging (that is how the heat gets in the ground ;-)
If a house is properly build with thick brick walls and good isolation, it might never need an air conditioning installation, just some heating and a heat reclaiming ventilation system.. Or just deal with the heat, like we do in The Netherlands.. Only large buildings have air conditioning here, family housing, virtually none.
But sales of portable AC units has been going up sice we have one after the other record warm summers.. This summer we had an heatwave with 30degrees Celcius temperatures for more than two weeks, that are the times these portable AC units get sold out.
Can't wait for your video on trucks' emission and materials demand. Ppl think about their cars' toll on the GHG emissions....but forget that what they eat, wear and consume is WAY..WAY more relevant on those numbers.
In the mean time..thank you for THIS video.
As an architect and System's Sustainability specialist..I believe the construction industry is the one , of the major industries with higher stakes in these matters, that is lagging behind the most.
I truly believe that if we had better performing buildings & urban plans, AND we had better Diets, most emissions would significantly lower.
Pack that with a reforestation approach.. and the main problems will fade away..
Completely agree! Thanks for your feedback.
Great job on this video
Thank you for the informative video clip. I was wondering if anybody had done the maths on how much the atmosphere has been heating from the direct transfer of heat into the atmosphere from all cooling apparatus. For any cooling to happen the heat has to be transferred somewhere and it is nearly always to the atmosphere. We are using the atmosphere a a giant heat sink. Vehicle radiators, refrigeration and city landscapes all contribute.
I've not separated that out but I've calculated all the human energy portion. For the last decade it's ~5.8% (give or take 1%) like this:
735,000 gigawatts (94.2%) The solar warming excess to energy that Earth sent to space
(energy to space reduced by +H2O, +CO2, +CH4, +N2O, net of
"global dimming" atmospheric aerosols air pollution effect and with
a few very small other factors also
45,000 gigawatts
(5.8%) The warming caused by human nuclear fission (matter ---> energy) &
human exothermic chemical reactions (almost
entirely CH+O --->CO2 + H2O )
So it's atmosphere heating from ALL direct human energy production is 0.20 * 5.8% = 0.012 degrees / decade. You'd need to assign HVAC portion yourself to get its portion of the 0.012 degrees.
I have a vague memory - from 30 or more years ago - so probably wrong - but wasn't there an issue with legionella in the cooling towers of water evapourating to atmosphere type cooling systems?
Yes ..... Unfortunately you need to clean them well!
Allowing laying water (in an urn for example) can cause legionnaire disease. The simple solution is to empty it and clean it.
@@totherarf Also why they are no longer made of wood products- the damp wood will ultimately always introduce mold and other unknown biologicals into the environment.
Legionella is in issue for all cooling towers and evaporative condensers (and any body of standing water). In Australia all CTs must be registered with a local authority and have water treatment with biocides to prevent this. I think this would be the same in most developed countries.
@@oliverharder9057 It is true in the US. I've need envolved in "replanking " (replacing the wood slats on the side and rebuilding the internal water pond) some.
I expected that you would have something about convection cooling as used in Earthships or something similar. We can't all have a south facing greenhouse attached to our homes, but I think it could be adapted somehow?
Love your videos, sad as the state of the world currently is. Technologies like these restore hope, and are an inspiration to budding engineers like me to contribute to solutions.
Keep going Sebastian. The world is going to need as many people like you as possible!
We'll see. I think there's a fair chance of Trump being defeated in a blow-out. That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. The amount of chaos he could create is substantial, though. I'll be glad when it's over.
I've got Evaporative aircon in house. It's awesome, uses hardly any electricity and keeps our whole house cool. The issue is that it only really works in a dry heat, so absolutely no use in an even remotely humid environment.
You also need to be careful if you have wooden floors or ceilings. Can make the wood warp when exposed to the unusual humidity.
And there you nailed it. Not everything works everywhere. Does Not Matter. Find out what does work where you live, and use it ;-)
You forgot to mention covering your roof on solar panels. If they are 20% effecient that means you get 20% less sunlight turned into heat (on the roof) additionally they put your roof in the shade with the gap between the panels and the roof acting as insulation. Perhaps a building code requiring all new houses to have solar panels installed may help. And having the extra electricity won't hurt.
And I am wondering of solar tiles. If I put them on I will lose the shading affect of the solar panels. I think I will go with the panels.
Also, integrating a water chiller in the underfloor heating system should be a thing. Cool your floor on solar during the day, use the floors thermal mass to last the night, and heat in winter
Adaptation vs mitigation. Let's face it, adaptation can work for the next 2-3 decades (more powerful cooling systems) versus mitigation which represents the "heavy lifting" required to actually confront the Global Warming problem. Better energy efficiency is desirable along with powering the adaptive approaches using clean, green energy sources.
Real mitigation instead requires a change of lifestyle so profound that it makes the worldwide responses to Covid-19 look like kid stuff in comparison. We must get very serious about the mitigating actions required - as much as I love Dave and his presentations, techno-fixes will likely result in a matter of too little, too late. Only serious and long-term sustained mitigation efforts (a century or so) can ultimately solve the Global Warming problem.
In Costa Rica, Central America, most houses are built of concrete blocks, with ceramic or tile floors, which are quite cool. No carpets. We have no air conditioning at home, just keep the windows and inner doors open. Fans are used in the hot weather. Also, there is a lot of green life in gardens and backyards. However, it is the climate of our country that allows us to live without insulation or inner heating and cooling systems in our houses. I understand the United States can reach extremely high temperatures, even higher than our beaches in summer. I lived there for a while and I remember the heat of August.
Refrigerators need to be made to use outside air when the outside is cooler than inside.
We have the technology to do this, and it's rather simple to do.
It's like how we vent our stove hood fans. Just add an outside temperature sensor and a switch to open and shut the vent.
Aerogel is a super insulator and it is cheap to make. Can now be made transparent to instal in the air gap in double glazing. Thoroughly tested in all temperature zones.
I thought it was very expensive. I can't believe it could compete with Argon on a price/performance metric as a window insulator.
@@incognitotorpedo42 we have developed techniques first used in France in 1981and whilst more than argon and glass it outperforms by a factor of 5.
@@steverichmond7142 How much more expensive is it than argon? When I put new windows in my house, the argon wasn't worth the money, given the nature of the house and climate. Aerogel is a remarkable insulator though; it would be great if the cost was low enough. How much impact does it have on the clarity of the window? I wouldn't want a cloudy window.
@@incognitotorpedo42 In real terms argon does little to improve thermal efficiency of glazing. Our version of aerogel is totally clear when put into a double glazed unit. If this is for a real world use (i.e. not experimental) what you want to know is the comparative cost of the dgu. A dgu is 23% more expensive than a glass and argon unit.
When replacing roofs, the roof could be made of a vacuum sealed window that not only acts as insulation and sound barrier but has an outer layer that become reflective in the summer and allows suns heat to enter in the winter.
With windows as roofs the upper level of buildings could also double as indoor farms. Food grown on site both in homes and office buildings would be nice.
A question to just have a think or anyone. Am I correct thinking the sooner the containers of cheap plastic and low grade metal item s being still shipped from the other side of the world,I'm in NZ . The sooner it stops being manufacturered. And could it be worked out the environmental or carbon footprint an average $1 store or the like s holds....
If manufactured product could not be shipped to consumers then the manufacturing would stop, go out of business, yes.
Great broadcasts, informative and well researched. I am catching up with these, and am pondering future state of energy from my position within the industry. I especially liked your comment that the current American election being highly impactful to all the climate change mitigations you talk about.
Nothing on "daytime radiative cooling systems?" From how it works, if used on a massive scale, we could start cooling the planet despite our current energy usage.
I was expecting it as well, but just got disappointed.
How does anything accomplished on the surface of the planet cool the planet?
@@TheMrCougarful black body
@@kirknay Maybe at the top of the atmosphere. Near the surface, the atmospheric content of CO2 and other GH gases is preventing heat from escaping into space. As a result, you cannot get rid of heat at the surface of the Earth, all you can hope to do is prevent it from entering the Earth system at all (LEO-based reflective solutions, high altitude aerosols, etc). Heat trapping is the entire problem, or perhaps you didn't realize that yet.
@@TheMrCougarful I'm well aware of that. The research in question is about passively converting heat into a light spectrum that is less easily trapped, if I recall correctly.
The office I work in has just saved 20% off the electricity bill by replacing fluorescent lights with LED. However, the vast majority of the power bill is air-conditioning. Since the building is leased, there's no incentive for the owner to replace the ancient existing AC systems with newer, efficient ones. Replicate this situation hundreds of times and you can see that there's the potential to save huge amounts of money and power if inefficient systems are replaced. The roof insulation is also poor, meaning that the AC has to work harder to heat or cool the office. The heat reaching the roof could also be reduced by installing rooftop solar, with the added benefit of offsetting the power used in the office, but again, the power bill isn't the owner's problem so there's little incentive to install solar panels or batteries. This issue of leased properties is huge in terms of addressing the consumption of power and energy efficiency. The same applies to rented homes and apartments. It needs government incentives to encourage property owners to improve the efficiency of their properties.
Great video!
Another good solution is an age old solution. Cutting ice from the lake in winter and storing it in cellars for spring, summer and fall. Then people can have ice boxes to keep the meat milk and other stuff cool without using any electricity at all.
Solar installations can be improved by cooling panels in the summer and storing the excess heat in heat batteries in the ground that can be used for geothermal heating in winter.
Heat Pumps for cooling and heating don't have to use HFCs with global warming potentials in the hundreds, you can use a gas with a global warming potential as small as 1 - CO2. My hot water cylinder (Sanden) has CO2 as the refrigerant and is very energy efficient. Some car air conditioners also use CO2. Why these other refrigerants are not simply banned, thus forcing the use of more benign gases seems completely crazy. Obviously they still require energy to make them work.
Don’t hfc decompose in the upper atmosphere pretty quickly though or is that already factored into the GWP
it takes about 14 years for hfc to decompose
Another excellent video. I love the comments too. An elite bunch you've collected here Dave. Why do I say that? I had several clever ideas to contribute I saw them all in in the comments here. Well, What about planting fruit trees in the parkways between street and sidewalk? In Chicago this is outlawed. United Fruit or Big apple probably.
i have done an experement with my mini solar panels in a dark room, with the lamp of my room and the can make some power at night , big citys can make some percent of the power the use at night just need to put solar panel in ground floor it is about 40% power at night, heat is energy no mater if it is day or night
@00:45. One point. When talking about abundance of something we should mention comparable numbers like AC units sell per 1000 people in that country.
They could use liquid air energy storage to provide district cooling and heating as required. Liquefying air to store electricity produces heat, boiling off the liquid air to generate electricity produces cooling.
Need to store a 6-month supply though. And no good in the tropics.
Quick question about white/reflective roofs. I live in a northern country but we still need AC about 4 months out of the year. Do you think that having a lighter colored roof in the cold months of winter would require more energy during those months so that this solution would only be interesting in warmer countries, or is the sun's energy during winter not enough to make a difference. Is AC more energy demanding then heating? Guess it depends how you cool or heat your house.
Your roof should have serious insulation for both hot and cold. I live in a northern country as well and have reflective roofs over 25cm/10" of insulation. Works just fine but the heavy lifting in winter is done by the insulation.
"I live in a northern country but we still need AC about 4 months out of the year". What you need is a machine that peels your grapes for you. I think there's one being designed using wind turbines.
what about using a thermochromic paint on your roof that is white when it is hot out and then black when its cold?
my thinking is, the white will reflect the light keeping your house cooler in the summer months and then in the winter months it will turn black, potentially heating your house when you need it? could be interesting I think.
This is a freaking awesome video!
Full of lies, GHG effect was proven wrong by me and many people.
@@WadcaWymiaru how so? Please convey.
You'd think they would make smart solar panels than not only point to the sun but also direct wind flow at a building for cooling in the summer, and close off airflow creating an additional lair of insulation in the winter, or at bare minimum make them attach in a way that an air pocket adds additional insulation below each panel making existing roofs more energy efficient.
So many people talk about passive housing but it would be even better if we invented ways to turn existing structures into passive housing just by adding layers to the outside. If those layers provide solar power as well then win win.
An environmentally friendly way to cool a building is to plant trees around it and to paint it white.
When people talk about heating and cooling they always think of air temperature instead of surface temperature. I live in the midwest US, and over the past 20 years that I have lived here there has been a decent push towards getting insulaiton levels up to spec. And as it is cheap and easy to do, and pays itself off in just a couple years it is one of those easy no-brainer moves that is easy to justify. So what you end up with are lots of homes with lots of inuslaiton on top of the ceilings, and injected in the walls, and with an air temp of ~70-74*f, but with floors and cabinets that are closer to 40-50*f during the winter and 80-85*f during the summer. This makes it feel colder than you expect during winter, and hotter than you expect during the summer months, and it is because basements are not 'lived in' or actively heated or cooled, so people don't address the air exchange going on there. Seal up that little gap between the basement walls and the house, and you prevent that air exchange which makes your basement an even 65*f year round, which evens out your floor temps on the main level, and all the sudden you can dramatically lower your air temp in winter, and raise your air temp during the summer and still feel very comfortable while saving a ton of money, and not needing to run the HVAC nearly as much. Sealing up my basement has helped the comfort level of my home far more than any amount of insulation that I have done in the house, and helps all of the insulation do what it is supposed to.
Where air conditioners are installed, white roofs ought to be mandated unless vegetation is installed. Also, a LOT more geothermal systems should be mandated. Finally, building codes should include higher insulation standards.
The problem with evaporative cooling is that water vapor is also an extremely powerful greenhouse gas. In fact, it is one of the most dangerous positive feedback loops in global warming. Warmer temperatures cause more evaporation from bodies of water (oceans, for example) which in turn increases the amount of warming due to water vapor. Its a vicious cycle.
It's not a problem because the amount of water vapour is limited in other ways and it doesn't accumulate.
Such an important topic
Not sure if anyone mentioned it, but you can also cool the air with sound waves with zero electrical input. Thus having a cooling device that requires no electricity. Furthermore "The THEAC system uses no mechanical moving parts, no refrigerants, no CO2, no precious metals or materials. Instead it uses Argon gas..." (newatlas.com/soundenergy-thermoacoustic-cooling/58169/).
Enschede (Netherlands) based company SoundEnergy is selling these cooling systems already.
Great content as usual always look forward to your postings. One thing I wonder about is how much data storage cooling is starting to add to the heating lists. I think it was Google or someone recently finished a test storing data storage pods in the sea to keep them cool, I think it worked out ok.
Hi Helen. It's an extremely good question. I think it was Microsoft who did the undersea data centre, and like you say, it does seem to have come through unscathed. I'm actually talking to a guy who works for a very big company that designs data centres. They are massively concerned about this problem, as well as their processing energy use of course. There are some interesting solutions in the pipeline so I'm hoping to look at these in the New Year. All the best. Dave
@@JustHaveaThink Thanks Dave. Yes your right it was Microsoft, I should never guess always going to go wrong. :)
Bitcoin and other electronic coinage has always made me bite my lip as everyone would say how great it is and all I saw massive power consumption that never really needed to happen. Not good timing.
Enjoy your rest and we'll see you on the other side.
Don't forget to build in sun shade in hot climate's. Some of these sunshades can be made of or combined with solar panels (PV).
solar panels (PV) are required to be black so not good for sun shade in hot climates.
@@grindupBaker many want black panels because they are pretty or good efficiency. They don't need to be black. They can be blue or red to blend in at a terracotta roof.
Even if the panel is black and attract heat - it also good at (shaddowing) stopping heat radiation hitting windows, roof or wall's if there is a gap/distance.
Elsewhere they can paint some or all of the building white. Add shading retractable fabric markis.
I’ve got to admit, I didn’t watch this one for ages because I didn’t want to think about those “what about global cooling, what happened to that?” people. Now I see it’s just a clever title for the energy costs of cooling our buildings.
On the actual video, I’m dubious about that direct evaporative heating. There have been standalone machines that do that for decades now and they’re a very poor cooler on a hot day. Even though the air may be a few degrees cooler, it feels more oppressive due to the humidity.
The indirect one looks like it has some potential though. Heat exchangers are good things. But the different refrigerants seems most important to me, as they’re used in heat pumps, fridges, freezers, as well as air conditioners. And it’s often more energy efficient to use these devices to make a cold side of a heat exchanger than to use water in such a system, if I’m not mistaken.
So it’s important to get this right, as if we don’t, heat pumps etc will suffer too. And when our carbon is low power anyway, and we’re using heat pumps in the winter without guilt, I don’t see the issue in using regular A/C, with appropriate refrigerants. Though of course measures like white paint and adding greenery to reduce the energy demand is useful no matter what your source of cooling is.
With regard to the paint, it’s been known for a long time, as that’s why the USA made many of its roads grey instead of black. They picked the grey as a balance between dazzling drivers and getting sizzling hot on sunny days. And that’s something to bear in mind with the white paint as well; reflecting 99% sounds good from an energy perspective but there’d be various health risks similar to white desert sand or snow to dazzling, long term damage, etc. if it were widespread enough. So it could be applied perhaps say to roofs but not to sidings, or perhaps we just choose a light grey instead of a white in practice? As always, there’s no outright solutions, just tradeoffs.
But, as always, thought provoking!
In premodern desert villages, there was a simple cooling system. Dwellings were dug below ground, with a chimney at the opposite end of the room to the door. Cool night air filled the lowered streets, and was then drawn into the dwellings by hotter daytime air rising up the chimney. Termites build impressive towers which do the same thing. How can this very simple technology be incorporated into modern design? Many tower blocks have below ground parking, often more than one level. This could be the night gathering cold store. Adding a passive heat gathering chimney is a simple addition. While the below ground car parks are still filled with toxic fumes, this colder air could be used like a reverse radiator, but once we are free of petrochemical vehicles, this could become a direct source of cool air. All power-free.
Our house is in the shade of a huge tree. We don't need A/C. I recommend it to everyone who can. And if you don't have time to grow it, or plan to sell your house before it'd be grown, plant it anyway for the next generation or for the next owner.
So you don't actually live somewhere hot then.
If you live somewhere hot and you have a huge tree next to your house you're stupid. And it's stupid advice to give.
Sorry to be so harsh, but I'm sick to death of people from cool climates explaining how people from hot climates should live to save the world. I don't tell people from Svalbard that they don't need to heat their house if they just wear a long sleeve tee-shirt in winter and that they're weak if they want to heat their house. Why would you think its OK to tell people who deal with bushfires that planting a tree right next to their house is a good idea? Or even that it would be sufficient? Personally if I could have no trees at all within 60m of my house I'd be much happier. When you've stood outside your house in the pitch black dark at midday wearing a respirator and goggles, with embers falling all around you, and a howling 50 C gale blowing while you hold a pissing garden hose, trying to put out spot fires, then come and talk about planting trees next to houses in hot climates.
@@gasdive It's true, if you live someplace truly hot, shade isn't enough. The blast-furnace breezes of my boyhood home are one of the main reasons I moved to a more temperate climate in the first place. But in a climate with 110 degree summers, we used an evaporative cooler that ran on about a tenth of the power that an A/C unit needs.
The way you're torqued about people who live in easier climates advising you to do the little things that work for them, I get torqued at my own neighbors who live in the same mellow climate, except they live in a dark-colored house in direct sunlight, with lots of white concrete paving outside to reflect heat up and into their house through their completely unshaded giant southern windows (I should say "glass wall", it's a set of enormous patio doors), and run their A/C 20 hours a day when a few passive changes make it completely unnecessary.
I know not everybody lives in a place where some simple measure works. But there are a great many measures that each help a bit. Heavy stucco walls help mediate temperature from day to night, even out on the blasted desert. Houses with planned airflow (basement windows to draw air in, upstairs hallway with windows at both ends to draw it through, etc) were what we used on the prairies when I was a kid, and it goes a LONG way toward making things livable. Wind towers were the thing further south, where the tiniest movement of air would have airflow looping underground to cool and then circulating through the house. And on and on. There are dozens of passive measures, and between about four of them, even in those 110 degree summers, our house could be about 25 degrees cooler than the air outside without even turning the A/C on.
But now I live on the coast, and yeah, I'm so spoiled. A shade tree is enough out here.
@@zrebbesh you're absolutely right.
I apologise for my rudeness. I'm a bit on edge. The fires got much too close for comfort last summer and I'm a bit unhinged as a result.
Plant a tree that drops it's leaves, to have the winter sun.
Energy reflective paint sounds like a great and simple way to aid cooling, but Teflon? Is there an alternative to Teflon, given its massive associated issues?
i wish you could look into the dedicated fire supression system in on ordova street in vanuover b..c. it is a 52 inch dia seawater pipe that delivers 4 degree seawater from below 60 feet m.s.l. the line extens from canada place to the emergency response center on main street. the cost was 15 million dollars with 200 miles of fire hose to hookup to fire hydrants in case of earth quack interuption of water supply when onected to all the exsisting buildi
The 30°C drop in temperature by using smooth white surface rather than dark colors is truly remarkable. 😊
It may be good to check the 300-600 nits HDR TV sets starting to sell a lot and probably consuming much more energy than normal 100 nits TVs. Best.
Where did that opening image of the geodesic dome come from?
It's from Changi Airport in Singapore. Here's a link to a BBC article.
www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-47907500
In pose the following statement: It might be not cooling that needed to be constable in tour home. In many cases it is the humidity not the temperature that we reduction from our houses.
Get a 300W dehumidifier (will dump 300W inside your house while dehumidfying).. then also needs AC in the warmer periods to cool a bit..
I live in OZ FNQ, tropical climate.. our DH runs in the bathroom for most of the time we're awake, keeping the RH around 65%.
Cool video.