this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2023
1888 points (98.7% liked)
Mildly Interesting
17323 readers
11 users here now
This is for strictly mildly interesting material. If it's too interesting, it doesn't belong. If it's not interesting, it doesn't belong.
This is obviously an objective criteria, so the mods are always right. Or maybe mildly right? Ahh.. what do we know?
Just post some stuff and don't spam.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
400% efficiency is good, but it's not better than the ∞% efficiency you get from something that doesn't require fuel input to begin with. (I'm pretty sure the Technology Connections guy would agree on that point.)
If nothing else, think of it this way: even if you still want to use air conditioning to make sure you get all the way down to comfortable room temperature or whatever your target is (which a Qanat, although able to achieve a >15°C ΔT, might or might not be able to do reliably), it'll still give you a big head start and greatly reduce the amount of energy needed. It's a lot like using a ground-source heat pump instead of an air-source one. What's not to like‽
Sorry my point wasn't that we shouldn't explore other options to use instead of/in tandem with A/C. I was entirely pointing out that the use of an AC/heatpump is by itself, in absence of the context of what is used to power it, a non issue as its one of the most efficient electric heating/cooling technologies we have.
Wind catchers could be, and likely are a great technology to adapt for wider use, though I can't speak to that, I'm not an HVAC engineer.