More accurate climate change model reveals bleaker outlook on electricity, water
phys.org
phys.org
Chicago heats with gas, right? When the cold months become warmer, they will save so much gas that the net effect will be reduced energy use and reduced emissions.
Cooling in Chicago is through a lower temperature difference than heating. So heating will use more power. That's because the average temperature is below human comfort level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Chicago#Data
The core principle of a refrigerator is to use energy to move heat from one place to another. One classical source of energy in such thermodynamics context is to give oneself a hot spot and a cold spot. Heating gas can be used to make the hot spot.
I remember using on vacations in the 80's a model that could work with 220V, 12V or gas.
If you wanted to break the whole thing down into physics, I'm not sure exactly how it would go, but at least in terms of market prices I can assure you it is much cheaper to heat a home with gas from 40 degrees F to 70 than to cool one with A/C down to 70 from 100.
Cooling is more efficient for two reasons: Cooling is done with a heat pump, which typically has 300% to 500% energy efficiency, whereas gas heating has only 100% efficiency. And, in cooling situations, the temperature difference (indoors vs outdoors) is typically smaller than in heating situations.
The heat generated by the pump itself is always a gain when heating, always a loss when cooling.
Can anyone confirm?
Yes. But electrical heating with heat pumps is currently not common in the US.
What about Winter? The paper (see sci-hub) shows a winter decrease in electricity use and an increase in water use. Both are smaller in magnitude than the summer increases, but not broken down by city.
But does Chicago already use more electricity in Summer than Winter? If it's the other way around, this would actually improve the consistency of demand and reduce the peak. I would expect a northern city to have higher winter use than summer, due to heating, no?
Was Chicago cherry-picked? No. Indianapolis is worse. Chicago was the biggest city in a region they looked at so it's a fair one to focus on.
Is this a problem? No. The issue is more about planning it right in advance, not that needing more water and electricity is a problem. If we now know how to plan more accurately, then this is good news, not bad.