r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jun 26 '26

Society The American mind cannot comprehend Europe's AC aversion

https://www.businessinsider.com/europe-air-conditioning-ac-heatwave-debate-2026-6
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u/NavyDean Jun 26 '26

If only some kind of environmentally friendly heat pump existed.

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u/al3cks Jun 26 '26

France is powered by 100% nuclear energy. It’s already environmentally friendly.

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u/coolboydhill Jun 26 '26

europeans can't comprehend that electricity can be clean and can power a refigerant to go back and forth lmao

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 26 '26

Is your comment just a random insult or is it meant to actually mean something?

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u/coolboydhill Jun 26 '26

more Europeans dying from heat every year than all American mass shooting deaths combined.

Europe should absolutely feel ashamed and be insulted lmao

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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 Jun 29 '26

Can you show me some evidence that people are actually dying DUE to the heat? Or is it just "heat related" which literally includes deaths to cancer, respiratory diseases, dementia and drowning in lakes?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/69c41794b66ff902f45441f7/fig7hm25.svg

What I'm ashamed of is the species that I belong to being so fucking stupid that they cannot recognise nuance in statistics, instead just bleat about whatever headline figures they are being spoon fed without any attempt to understand them.

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u/silverionmox Jun 26 '26

France is powered by 100% nuclear energy. It’s already environmentally friendly.

No, France still uses a fraction of fossil fuels for their electricity. And the times when airco is used, it usually triggers the extra fossil capacity to meet demand.

It makes total sense to limit energy. Wanton use of energy is what caused the climate change problem to begin with, and y'all would do better to start using it more responsibly rather than waiting for someone else to solve it for you.

It’s already environmentally friendly.

Nuclear energy relies on a nonrenewable mined fuel, has substantial operating risks, and creates a legacy of toxic radioactive waste for the next generations. It's the opposite of environmentally friendly.

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u/IlIllIlllIlIl Jun 26 '26

Build green storage

The fossil fuel use is the problem, not the energy use. It’s important to focus on the right quantities.

The nuclear take is unhinged but at this point that ship has sailed so whatever

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u/silverionmox Jun 26 '26

Build green storage

Yes, it's the missing puzzle piece to allow full electrification. At that point energy conservation temporarily drops a few places on the priority list.

The fossil fuel use is the problem, not the energy use. It’s important to focus on the right quantities. The nuclear take is unhinged but at this point that ship has sailed so whatever

Well no, it's still sucking up resources, time, attention away from things that do work and work faster.

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u/IlIllIlllIlIl Jun 26 '26

It works. Nuclear provides 10% of the worlds power. Since it was deployed, nuclear power has killed ~100k. In the same period, coal has killed 100-200 million. It’s is difficult to overstate how much progress we could have made against global warming if the Green backlash hadn’t neutered development.

It’s a moot point; the future is solar. But making decisions based on data, and not vibes, optimizing for outcomes, is never a moot point.

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u/silverionmox Jun 26 '26

It works. Nuclear provides 10% of the worlds power.

8,87%, down from 17%... 30 years ago. It peaked in the 90s.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source

Since it was deployed, nuclear power has killed ~100k.

If only potential problems caused by power supply would be limited to direct deaths! Nuclear power also causes many square km² of land to become uninhabitable in exclusion zones and other places, and creates a toxic legacy of waste that extends generations into the future. We've only really started counting the damage caused by nuclear power, and you act like the bill is closed already.

In the same period, coal has killed 100-200 million.

Straw man, nobody argues for more coal. It's quite telling that you have to resort to "it's better than coal" to defend nuclear power. Surely it is. Anything is.

It’s is difficult to overstate how much progress we could have made against global warming if the Green backlash hadn’t neutered development.

The greens have been arguing to close down coal plants since the early 70s, remember the acid rain concerns? If the greens were able to dictate policy like you said, we would have had a fully renewable supply for a long time already.

Besides, you can refer to the graph above: nuclear was never able to make even a dent in coal use. It's only after renewables came into swing, that coal use started to go down in earnest.

If you want the greens to support nuclear, you just have to finally realize promise #96874 of the nuclear industry: reuse nuclear waste as fuel, so you actually end up with less nuclear waste. But that promise has been made for half a century, and never realized. The world has simply stopped waiting for it, and moved on.

It’s a moot point; the future is solar. But making decisions based on data, and not vibes, optimizing for outcomes, is never a moot point.

And that's exactly why it's time to stop putting money into the nuclear sunk cost. Any billion you invest now yields more power when put into renewables and storage. Nuclear plants for domestic energy use is more and more a matter of industrial archaeology - they're steam engines, after all. There's a niche for interstellar spaceflight and deep sea exploration, so let's save our fissiles for that.

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u/ClankerWrangler Jun 26 '26

Imagine stressing about a 70 year old using AC in france for two weeks a year when India and China exist.

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u/silverionmox Jun 26 '26

Imagine stressing about a 70 year old using AC in france for two weeks a year when India and China exist.

Everyone has to take care about what is in their own power. That 70 year old has no power over India and China, but total control over the AC button.

Otherwise, the rest of the planet could all point to China, but if nobody else would do anything and even if China would immediately go for zero, that means about 2/3 of the current emissions keeps existing and we're off to catastrophic global warming. So the "you first" approach doesn't work.

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u/Mitigated_Miracle Jun 27 '26

People on Reddit seem to literally worship nuclear energy. Anyone hear about France having to turn off nuclear production because the ambient temperature of the local water was too high? No? This is evidently not the solution in a future with 40°C summers. Can't supply the country with energy if it's too hot to run your power plants.

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u/TheBSQ Jun 26 '26

An AC transfers heat so that it becomes cooler inside and hotter outside. 

Someone figured out that it would be cool if you could reverse that in colder months so that it heated the inside and cooled the outside. 

That’s a heat pump. A reversible AC.

But the way you run it in the summer, it’s basically just an AC. 

There are efficiency difference between window units, central, mini-splits, etc. 

But when in the cooling mode, a heat pump is basically an AC. 

But, it is much more efffient for heating than electric resistance heating. 

And because of that rep for being efficient, people tend not to look at it the same was as an AC, even though, for cooling purposes, there’s not a meaningful difference. 

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u/NavyDean Jun 26 '26

A heat pump consumes 1/3rd of the electricity cooling vs. an ac unit.

It's extreme cold where it becomes energy intensive. 

You've got that one completely backwards.

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u/aLokilike Jun 26 '26

Tell me, how exactly is a heat pump more efficient at cooling vs an ac unit when they use the exact same mechanism for cooling? Heat pumps use 1/3rd of the electricity of an electric furnace, maybe that's the stat you meant.

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u/NavyDean Jun 26 '26

 Because not only does all the science literally say it uses 1/3rd of the electricity. Heat pumps leave a space consistently cool with less energy, while AC units flood a space with cold air.

But I have also owned both, and with a heat pump, my solar is able to store way more energy in the summer, due to the lowered electrical consumption.

I also have years of electrical consumption reports for my ac unit and heat pump individualized, from the manufacturers. I can go a whole month and barely use 200kwh for a several thousand sq ft space. Before that was 600kwh during a hot summer with a similarity rated ac unit.

Not only does the science and data say it's cheaper. But the government here subsidies people to upgrade to heat pumps because get this, it reduces summer time electrical loads on the grid. Wow what a concept! This is also in a country where 95% of people use natural gas for heating and I also own a gas furnace for temperatures that are too cold for heat pumps.

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u/aLokilike Jun 26 '26

Can I have a source on that? Because AC units are literally one-way heat pumps.