The politics of air conditioning in Switzerland

arealaccount

Seems like these folks won’t be enjoying fat piles of data center tax revenues any time soon

comrade1234

I'm in Zurich in modern construction - all cement with stressed cement panel cladding too on the outside. 8 apartments. Triple pane windows. Heat-pump with ground temp heating/cooling that is practically free in price. The ground temp is too cold and we'd get condensation if the brine wasn't warmed up a bit. The apartment is 24c to 26c depending on the room. A bit chilly to me. My neighborhood (wollishofen) is a bit infamous for all of the old construction being torn down and being replaced with buildings like ours. But those old places are heated with oil, they're leaky wood construction, they have no option for cooling because there are no vents. Think buildings from the 1800s to early 1950s. I didn't read the article - tired of all the American articles in the press promoting ac for some reason.

erelong

seems like the wrong thing to target for the good of the environment as this gets in the way of people's possible legitimate health needs

Kim_Bruning

So, I'm really surprised this is still a debate (other than how quickly to subsidize the changeover). I thought the old heat pump/air conditioner myths had been busted long ago. In e.g. the Netherlands and Germany people buy heat pumps (of which air conditioners are a subset) to save money and the environment. It's all about Coefficient Of Performance. A modern reversible unit heats and cools two to five times as efficiently as comparable (resistive; COP=1) electrical heating. In most of Europe, it's efficient enough to run on rooftop solar energy for half to three quarters of the year. Combined with decent insulation your net power usage can be very low indeed. Some of the newest ambitious house designs being built today even hit net zero. That wouldn't be possible without an aircon/heat pump as part of the design. There's also a strategic angle. Do you want to heat your home with gas that's ever more tricky to come by, or would you prefer efficient electric heating that can come from any source including preferably renewables? And of course the summer bonus: If you do have solar panels, you get to cool your home almost for free in summer, since summer solar production happens to coincide with summer heat.

yanhangyhy

.. if over a billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now then all of us are in for a very miserable time. The planet just can't sustain it" -- Barack Obama so the same words for people in EU: "If hundreds of millions of European citizens have the same summer air-conditioning habits as Americans and Asians do right now, then all of us are in for a very miserable time. The planet—and its power grids—just can't sustain it."