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Comment by Sharlin | Hacker News Reader

Always fun, having to fight a problem caused by X by doing more X. At least there’s the silver lining that solar production and the need for AC go hand in hand.

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The problem wasn't caused by air conditioning, it was caused by burning fossil fuels. Perhaps we could find a way to have air conditioning without burning fossil fuels?

Obviously. But as of now, AC means burning carbon (~50% of Europe's electricity production). Demand for even more electricity may accelerate the transition, hopefully, but right now the projection is that all the extra capacity and much more will be taken by data centers and consumer electricity bills are going to double or triple. Hopefully that will never actually happen but who knows.

Obviously consuming even more should never be the solution to problems caused by overconsumption. We should be figuring out ways to keep electricity use in check rather than consuming more and more, but that's a fact that people would rather not accept.

> But as of now, AC means burning carbon

Source? Where I live (NL) the electricity prices are very low on the days/times you’d need AC because of all the solar power generated then. I think you gotta back up your claim that 50% of electricity consumed by ACs comes from burning carbon. It strikes me as very counterintuitive (or dated)

Yes, all that CO2 generated by nuclear power plants and renewable energy is terrible. But I guess if enough people die then Europe's carbon emissions will also go down so it's a win! And thank you for proving my point.

~50% share (in some countries much higher) fossil-based electricity is still 50% fossil-based electricity.

Then don't do that.

That tends to happen when you spend a couple decades shutting down the non-fossil fuel energy sources. Germany used to be 30% nuclear up to 2005 so well past climate change is real times. Now it's around 1%.

I know. But it is what it is now.

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