2020-03-02

_posts/2020-03-01-ac-climate-change.md

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+---
+layout: post
+title: AC Use Due To Climate Change
+date: 2020-03-01 16:28:05.000000000 +01:00
+type: post
+published: true
+status: publish
+categories: [General]
+image:
+image2:
+author: Valentino Urbano
+---
+
+In the last few years summer in Italy (and most of southern Europe) have become too hot to be able to live comfortably without air conditioning. We have seen peaks of more than 40 degrees with a really high humidity and from every trend it looks likely to keep rising.
+
+People here are used to the hot climate and just a few years ago when temperatures were already becoming dangerous in the summer months (for old people and people with existing conditions) it was still hard to convince them of the need for AC.
+
+I went back on the topic recently and almost everyone in the family is now adamant that they're going to need it in the next few years, with few already having plans to install it before the summer. I expect this to be a sentiment shared among most southern European residents.
+
+This brings us to the problem. Demand for electricity will surely increase as most people will soon start turning on their AC during the summer months as it is the norm in the US. There is no alternative, this is going to happen. It is simply too dangerous to live without, especially for old people.
+
+This will require even more work from the various governments to migrate to sustainable ways of generating electricity to be able to both sustain the increased demand during peak hours as to cope with the increased overall energy footprint.
+
+Using solar is not a viable strategy without a way to store the generated energy. Solar is very inconsistent and the energy generation peaks at a time when most people do not need it and stops when people need it the most. Tesla has solved it using batteries and in the UK they have solved it by using the cheap energy during off peak hours to pump back uphill water to be later used during peak hours to generate more electricity to keep up with the demand. Nuclear is also a good idea to use in this transition period before we can switch completely to renewables, but after Chernobyl and now Fukushima most EU countries are migrating off it excerbaceting the problem.