
More accurate climate change model reveals bleaker outlook on electricity, water - pseudolus
https://phys.org/news/2020-03-accurate-climate-reveals-bleaker-outlook.html
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sampo
> By 2030, global warming alone could push Chicago to generate 12% more
> electricity per person each month of the summer.

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.

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gameswithgo
Cooling is innately less efficient, so the net effect is not necessarily going
to be reduced energy use for Chicago.

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lopmotr
What do you mean by less efficient? If they're both done electrically, they're
the same process, just moving heat in the opposite directions. If done with
gas, you can't cool anyway.

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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Chicago#Data)

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s_gourichon
Some refrigerator designs work by burning gas.

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.

More on
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator)

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lopmotr
I had some questions:

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.

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pcdoodle
Do we seriously need a daily climate change article on HN? Or should I rename
my favorite Climate Change News?

~~~
tsherr
Should we seriously ignore the most serious issue facing humanity?

