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Air Conditioning - A Vicious Circle

Posted: 25/08/2006

Over the past five summers, very high minimum daily temperatures (scoring in the top 10 per cent historically) have been far more widespread in the US than during any other five-year period. In the past, outdoor air used to cool at night, giving people a chance to recover. Now it doesn't, and as a result people are dying - in the summer of 2003,in Europe, 30 000 people died from effects of the heatwave.

Air-conditioning to control heat and humidity was first developed in the US, and has been around for more than 100 years, but did not become popular until after the Second World War. It works by ducting air across the colder, heat-absorbing side of a thermostatically controlled refrigeration system and directing it back into the living environment.

While this might stop us sweating on stifling summer days, it also adds around 50 per cent to the energy costs of a building and in cars increases fuel consumption by 10 to 14 per cent - a major concern when it comes to the environment.

Up until now, this hasn't been a big issue in Britain - unlike in the US, where roughly one-sixth of all electricity generated is used to cool buildings. But things are changing. Recent summers have seen record sales of air-conditioning systems, and 75 per cent of new cars in the UK now come with air-con (reducing fuel efficiency by up to four miles per gallon).

For the first time the National Grid is experiencing noticeable surges in power consumption on hot summer days - a situation previously confined to cold winter days when heating systems are turned to full.

But air conditionong simply contributes to a global warming vicious circle. As the world heats up, so does our reliance on cooling systems that consume large amounts of energy and result in further pollution of the planet. Worldwide most electricity is produced by burning coal. So, like winter heating, cars and other forms of transit, air-conditioning contributes to dirty air, acid rain and global warming.

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