Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 02:45 PM

I haven't read the link yet but...
Underground tanks are naturally cooled and require only a small bit of electricity to run a pump such as from a vertical wind mill (They look like giant DNA sticking up and twirling).

The tanks require an expensive installation in only suitable areas.

Should they leak the enviornmental damage cost is greater than construction.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 02:19 PM

The Washington Post and their @Postclimate feature on Instagram ran a piece this morning about how heat pumps work. This is as close as I could come to reproducing that article online.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 01:10 PM

There is a success in recycling lithium batteries to be better than when they were first made.

Banking! Tell me about it.

Did Star Trek ever explain how they solved the money problem in our century?

There is hope, but in this dawn's early light I can not make out the details. Only a vague shape.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 10:18 AM

When lithium batteries are made they take a lot of resources that need special handling if you are going to reclaim any when the life of the battery is expired. When solar panels are discarded, they introduce a lot of problems to standard dumps that can be mitigated by special handling to recycle the materials, but there need to be people trained and resources aimed at this secondary part of the solar panel market. Until complete circuits can be established to build, establish, maintain, then recycle these products, there is a problem. And as long as planned obsolescence is featured in manufacturing, there is an even bigger problem. Monopolies in business, dark money in politics, rich politicians working against environmental causes (looking at you, Joe Manchion and your coal mines in West Virginia) there are problems. Citizens United is a problem. Modern banking is a problem. Lots of things to solve to get to a more environmentally stable planet. Stop the nonsense of crypto currency and you'll save a lot of power right away.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 10:15 AM

I have to look up degrees F to convert into degrees C - it's taken many years to get used to degrees C!!!

When we stayed in Scotsdale Arizona back in 1999, the daily temperature hit 120F but because it was so dry didn't feel excessively hot. We drove to Grand Canyon where it was snowing!

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 10:09 AM

Staying cool enough to save your life in this heat is what the thread is about. Steve lives in a house that is thick stone and no additional cooling needed so feels entitled to nag everyone else about the housing where they find themselves. If he lived in a city in a house that has heating and air, that would be different.

We do what we can for now. Don't lower the thermostat below the level that you can tolerate (so the house is always fairly warm, it just isn't 111^o like outside.) The other things to make a small difference around here? The vehicle I drive was calculated to be large enough to move things I want to move but it isn't a truck because they're too expensive now. It's an SUV and I can move people or stuff. I put gas in it on average one time a month. Any time I make a trip I make sure I have several stops and can make that trip as efficiently as possible (making a loop, not darting too and fro and using more gas.) If I lived somewhere that had trains and buses with any reliability I would use those instead. I don't. That's one thing I loved about New York City. Trains are more efficient.

I don't buy new things if I can buy something used, so I visit thrift stores. And if you consider that many people simply put what they don't need at the curb to go to the dump, there could be a much better system of reusing things in place. I repair things when I can so the resources don't have to be used to make a new device or object. I don't maintain a lawn, I garden vegetables in the front yard and water deeply and infrequently in that garden while the rest of the yard scorches because it isn't essential. The next air conditioner will be more efficient than the last, and it will be the newest and hopefully most benign coolant in use for now. I would like to put solar panels on the roof, but need to pace myself and pay for that when I can. There are companies that will do it and charge you a monthly fee equivalent to your current electric bill, but that enables them to take advantage of all of the rest of the power you're not using (they sell it back to the dominant power company on the local grid.) I'd prefer to do that myself.

It sounds like the heat and flames are moving east through the European continent, and like here in the US, homes are being lost to fire and lives are being lost to heat. The heat is what this thread is about. Sandman's posts were deleted when he tried to change the subject, I suggest Steve also try to stay on the subject. How about offering suggestions to all of those homeless who are sleeping rough in urban areas? Those tents don't keep out the heat. I saw a man at the edge of a parking lot yesterday in a car that was as close to junk yard quality as I've seen in a long time. His driver's door was propped open and he was leaning back against a pile of stuff in the passenger seat and was asleep. Except for the fact that I was alone, I considered what could be offered to this guy to keep him alive in the heat if he is reduced to sleeping in his car? For the time being I decided not to bother him, but if he had been awake or moving around I would have at least handed him a bottle of water and some cash to help with what was obviously a cashflow problem. Invite him home? No, I'm not that brave. Look up city and county services to see what is available? I can do that and maybe have a better answer next time.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 09:38 AM

I do not have the carbon footprint of jet fuel so my conservation efforts may be close especially with closing the pool. Steve does win with car fuel savings gas mileage wise.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 09:01 AM

Steve's conservation efforts exceed mine. I don't think Helen and I disagree but I am still impressed by the first responder simile.

There will be moments of tearful pride in our response to this ultimate crises be it a musical on stage or a multi government statement to end climate change. Window dressing is pretty but chaos lies within. I have maintained my cynacism that we will likey not succeed over the next thousand years of climate change reversal or even the next hundred years. I do not even blame our lizard brain or morality.

The Earth has its own plans. Its been red with rust when oxygen levels rose, its bee, white when the oceans froze to the equator, its been blue with our liquid oceans. Its even been an incandescent orange of molten rock.

"The problem today was not from heaven or the stars, it is us."
hmmm... it almost sounds Shakespearian.
We were created and made of star stuff so to a limited degree I suppose we could blame the stars. But blame is usually a waste of time.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 07:55 AM

I'm no greenie, Bonzo, I assure you. I've just this very morning taken delivery of a ton of smokeless fuel for my two stoves for the winter, as well as a dozen very large bags of kiln-dried wood. I drive a diesel Focus. The rude and uncalled-for post of 05.45 AM (from a person I try to avoid addressing here - oh, that she'd do the same...) completely misses the point of what I'm saying. Nowhere have I said that individual emergencies shouldn't be addressed, and I gave the example of hospital wards where AC technology is highly appropriate, and there will be lots of other examples. I'm talking about the widespread assumption in western countries, and increasingly, worryingly, in India and China, that AC is a valid convenience to be used routinely in homes and workplaces whenever the temperature goes up. And I'll make the point also that the projected number of AC units worldwide of six billion in a few years' time is going to make the temperature go up for everybody on the planet, irrespective of whether they can resort to convenient fast-chilling technology.

To question a tip for keeping cool that has been raised here is not hijacking the thread. It is very much on-topic, whether it goes down well with some people or not. I try to discuss these things in a general way without attacking individuals. Nobody says you have to agree, but we can discuss it civilly if we like.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 07:54 AM

Helen. If there is a bit of dangerous road where there are constant accidents, the first responders do provide a vital service. To discount the fact that the situation needs fixing is ridiculous. Cutting down the work of emergency services by rectifying the fault should alse be a priority.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 07:20 AM

That is absolutely right, the obsessions of the greenies with nothing to do do not help one bit!!

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 07:17 AM

No, what I said was that in an emergency, health, safety and saving lives is the priority.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 06:41 AM

My last post is my conclusion based on NPR broadcasts. The Bonzo post is eye opening. Steve is correct that air conditioning is beyond hypocrisy and is in the realm of last gasp denial. Helen artfully used first responders to illustrate the problem of addressing climate change in the 50 years of avoidance, denial and greed lieing. Like people trapped in an elevator, we face a threat of attacking each other. The challenge is cooperation on a scale greater than WWII to overcome a mutual foe.

We are at an interface between life and death where events move faster than expected and passions run high. Helen ended her post with mention that we will file away heat emergencies. Lets hope painful action will supercede the inclination to comfortably forget but I doubt it.

It looks like air conditioning and climate immigration will sadly be our first response.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 06:40 AM

I've been in a weather situation where I was extremely grateful for the kindness of a stranger. It was winter and I had to drive at night in a much colder, highland area near the Victorian border in Oz.

I live in a temperate/coastal area of NSW and we never experience icy roads here, and very rarely get frost overnight. A kind lady in the café where I had dinner warned me about ice on the roads, and about black ice. I appreciated her local knowledge and that she shared information with me which helped me to stay out of danger - a danger I would have been totally unaware of, due to growing up in and living in a very different type of weather area.

Note: It might interest you to know that I've only seen snow on the ground once in my life, and never seen snow falling.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stanron
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 06:23 AM

The fundamental impetus of this thread is kindness. Not everybody in the UK has missed that point. Thanks.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 05:45 AM

You make a lot of baseless assumptions, Steve.

Not even worth countering your comments with facts because you only hear or see what you want to hear or see, and you have proven over the years that facts are not your strong point.

A first responder, e.g. a paramedic or firefighter or police officer in an emergency will quickly take the appropriate actions to try to alleviate the problem to save lives or rescue people who are in danger.

First responders in emergencies don't take the moral high ground and waste valuable time lecturing the victims with shoulda-woulda-coulda's about actions which could have been taken years ago in the big picture. An emergency situation requires fast action to try to fix the problem or limit the damage, especially when people's health, safety or lives are in danger. That's what first aid is.

If you can't see that, then I thank God you are not a first responder.

Keep on saying what you want to say, over and over and over again. Keep on hijacking this thread, but you are missing the point.

Maybe the heatwave emergency is over and the tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat can be filed away for future reference.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 05:04 AM

The tip for beating the heat by ramping up the air conditioning is, in the bigger picture, incredibly misguided, and criticism of it is sharply on-topic. Donuel is right to say that we are failing to address the big issue, and there is absolutely no doubt that the resort to air conditioning, which consumes vast amounts of western nations' electricity generation, is one of the major contributors to that failure. It isn't even ironic that cooling your house or office makes the earth's atmosphere hotter. It's become bloody obvious, and your comfort is a dire threat to someone else, maybe someone a conveniently long way away, out of sight. Actually, thousands of air conditioners belching out hot air in a city makes that city considerably hotter, so it can even be bad on a local level.

An air-conditioned hospital ward can be vital and life-saving. That would be appropriate use of the technology. Routine use in homes and office blocks as soon as the temperature goes up is not appropriate. We occasionally stay at a hotel in London in which the rooms each have aircon - and non-opening windows. Insane.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 04:27 AM

They have idiotic ideas to beat climate change like electric cars - for which a charge uses up 20 times the power used by an AC unit and 50 times that of a fridge, political science gets it wrong.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Ebbie
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 03:42 AM

Helen, 20 Jul 22 - 05:45 AM
I know what you mean about not being used to chill. (I have a friend who retired from Juneau to Palm Springs, California a few years ago and he says that if it is "only" 80F, they don't go in the pool- it is too chilly. lol)

It helps me to remember, and thus feel less guilty, that it is an actual matter of thinner/thicker blood. I used to be able to tolerate more heat than I can now.

And in Alaska, temperatures are odd. Scientists have an explanation for our discomfort when it heats up. Thusly, as I understand it: our sun up here is never directly overhead and in late afternoon it is low enough that it hits our bodies lower in the torso so we heat up all over.

Even tourists in Juneau often complain about the heat.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 01:19 AM

With respect, beating the heat by way of global strategies in both Europe and the US are now falling back and failing. The immediate needs are considered paramount to the goal of reducing the imminent 1.5 increase of global temperature.

A child born today will have 5 times the extreme heat emergencies compared to someone born in the 1960's.
A term that is becoming important again is 'Climate Migrant'.
Our net global response, impotent.

We shall not see a successful solution. PEOPLE BORN TODAY may not see a solution. Perhaps one day we will after 100 years of whinging.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 22 Jul 22 - 01:11 AM

What's the title of this thread?

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 21 Jul 22 - 10:52 PM

I suggest that you start a separate thread specifically to discuss climate change and climate action.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jul 22 - 09:08 PM

And I'm talking about saving millions of lives via doing our damnedest to limit global heating, quite an emergency, I'd say. And I'm talking global, not advanced western-nation local. The millions of US/Oz/Canadian citizens (and Bonzo) who ramp up their air con at the drop of a hat are not doing it because there's a life-threatening emergency, on the whole. They're doing it because they're feeling a bit hot and sweaty. As I said, the denial here is staggering.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 21 Jul 22 - 08:54 PM

Health and safety in an emergency, saving lives in an emergency. That's what we are talking about.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jul 22 - 08:41 PM

It was Luton airport, actually. I know that you see us as a remote outpost, etc., but we do have more than one airport, you know...

The sheer denial of the adverse effects on global heating of air conditioning in this thread is staggering. The US and Australia were among the very worst when it came to poo-pooing the effects of carbon dioxide emissions. All that has now changed, of course, so it now comes down to excuses about how US/Oz lives are threatened, etc. (aka made uncomfortable). You need to seriously look up the vast increase in emissions that air conditioning causes, and to remember that the effects of those emissions are global. Actually, India and China's uptake of air conditioning is burgeoning, and they will say, with justification, if the US and Australia can do it, why shouldn't we? You guys in Oz and the US may talk about your aircon saving lives in your own neighbourhoods, etc., but you might just be forgetting that your aircon is a major contributor to the the future misery of hundreds of millions of people in countries far less well-equipped than your own to deal with the global warming that your convenient aircon is contributing to big time... Just sayin'...

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 04:14 PM

Asphalt runways at Heathrow melted?

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 04:00 PM

As the permafrost melts, CO2 will increase beyond existing predictions.

Air conditioning is good if only to dry out humidity.

"They laughed when I bought an air conditioner for Alaska."

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Charmion
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 03:49 PM

Years ago, I worked at the National Archives of Canada. My spot was a six-foot folding table in front of a window (they liked me!) between two banks of ceiling-high shelving loaded with Victorian political records. The climate control was set up for the benefit of the collection, not the staff, and the temperature typically hovered at or below 18 degrees Celsius. Humidity was kept below 40 percent.

I lived in an un-airconditioned flat with west-facing windows, and commuted by bus — also not air-conditioned. A typical Ottawa summer is steamy and hot for at least eight weeks.

By the time I got home each day that summer, my feet and ankles were swollen to about half again their natural size, and I had patches of eczema around my ribs (bra-induced) and behind my knees. The rash took till October to clear up. I shivered at work and sweated miserably the rest of the time.

So, yeah. For your own good, set the air-conditioning as high as you can tolerate.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 03:28 PM

104F or 40C is brutal, everything I touched in our house last night was warm, and still so this morning, but thankfully cooled down this evening. Greyhound has stopped panting as well.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: robomatic
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 02:58 PM

In Anchorage we had some of the warmest weather on record, and very dry conditions. Good weather for hiking but at 70 def F (21 deg C) quite warm for most of us particularly the dogs. Dogs can't sweat, the dog I walk begins to pant really fast for a real long time.

For dogs you can get a 'cool coat' a wrap around that you can keep wet or my friends keep in the fridge.

Humidity can be a killer, 'cause the human body plan to sweat doesn't work so well when perspiration can't do its thing.

Anchorage used to be bone dry and you rarely had cause to sweat anyway, but in this warmer weather there has been a bit of uncharacteristic moisture in the air. Meanwhile over the past week we've had lower temps and above average rain.

SRS's OP about limiting one's cooling range to the 'warmest possible' cool is spot on. Your body has a temperature range for wherever you live, and you want to gently ease your comfort rather than going super cold and confusing your body and wasting a lot of energy.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 02:43 PM

So far it's only 104^o, but the day is only half over.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a high of around 101. An improvement.

My electric bill is projected in a weekly email, and this month it will be about 4x the spring rate and about double the "normal" summer rate.

I've propped bricks in and beside tanks of water (a kiddie pool and a stock tank) in the back yard, watching to see if wildlife go near it. They are leery of the dogs, and I'm not lugging these things off to the sides, so no saying if they'll get much use. The bird baths in the front have been host to some pretty bedraggled looking robins lately.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 02:41 PM

16C here in the North East, a chilly breeze but no rain. Same threatened for tomorrow and Friday.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 01:01 PM

It is now a cool 18 and drizzling here in Airdale.

Good old British weather. If you don't like it, hang around long enough and it will change :-)

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 10:58 AM

Dick, stay on topic. This thread is about how to stay cool.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: The Sandman
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 10:41 AM

helping clients to payless tax, that means less money for the government to spend on maintaining the NHS, WHICH means in extreme hot weather the elderly who might need medical attention have to wait longer ,

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 10:01 AM

The Twilight Zone episode with Lois Nettleton. That was particularly prescient.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 07:52 AM

I am reminded of a presient episode of the Twillight Zone when a gravitational anomally from a possible wandering neutron star throws the Earth closer to the Sun. An oil painter who did not evacuate her urban apartment building is left behind and watches her paintings melt, fires rage and water disappear.

In reality she is in a fevered nightmare and is dying of infection while Earth is thrown away from the Sun to freeze in a farther orbit.

Our reality is worse, we did it to ourselves.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 07:24 AM

One way to strengthen your immune system
Mr. Red, is to take a cool swim in the Thames.


London will live longer than Paris.
The London sewer system is stronger
compared to the patchwork quilt of the
foundation of the Paris sewer on a tilt.
Some of the Parisian underground collapse
will allow much of Paris to fall in a crack

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 06:36 AM

"Do you really think that trying to save the planet is sanctimonious Bonzo?"

Going on and on about it IS, but then Steve Shaw has nothing to do, I am very busy helping clients to pay the minimum amount of tax!!!!!

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 05:45 AM

Well, Ebbie, I hope you take pity on us poor East Coast Aussies because we have been suffering through a cold spell for the last few weeks. Some mornings here it has been around 10 deg C (50 deg F) with a chill factor of around 5 deg C. That's chilly, for us. The problem is that our cold spells usually only amount to a few days in winter but this year it has been a few weeks. We're not used to it.

LOL

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Ebbie
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 04:04 AM

I can scarcely imagine what's going on down there. Although I do remember heat waves in southern Michigan when I lived there for a couple of summers in my youth. I recall cool-water showers- and having my back perspiring at the same time. And lying in bed with a half-inch of sweat outlining my body.

For the past almost 35 years I have lived in southeastern Alaska where we think it's HOT if the temperature soars over 75 degrees.

We're in a cool spell right now- last week we hit 80 several times. Today's high was 57 degrees and right now at midnight it's 53.

So I guess Alaska's beating-the-heat tip would be: Head north. Live next to an ocean-the Pacific is right across the street from me.

sheesh. I know this post is insufferable. Seriously, I do feel anxious for you.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 03:26 AM

Much cooler this morning, here on the Northumberland coast. A nice easterly coming in off the North Sea, bringing a fresher, less muggy, feel.

We’ll be home in The Backwoods at the weekend, where it looks as though it might warm up again - yippee! ;-)

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 03:25 AM

Do you really think that trying to save the planet is sanctimonious Bonzo?

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Mr Red
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 02:54 AM

Charmion " humans eventually stop trying to adapt themselves to their environments and start adapting their environments to themselves. It’s how we roll as a species. "

Yea, and it is how we fall over as a species. But good news, the planet will survive without us. For at least 1 billion years ish.

When politicians can't stand the heat, then something will be done. Probably too late.
For how politicians deal with pollution consider the Great Stink - UK parliament had to put disinfectant soaked rags /curtains at the windows to combat the smell of the Thames.
THEN they gave Joseph Bazeljet pretty much a free hand to design Lundun's sewers. He over-designed them. He knew human and political nature. They carried our 21^st C effluent effortlessly until very recently.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 01:41 AM

I can't imagine what had brought on Steve Shaw's bout of sanctimoneous save the worldery??

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 20 Jul 22 - 01:01 AM

I remember clearly the day that I was driving along the main street of a nearby suburb in an extreme heatwave. The traffic wasn't very heavy on the four lane road but it was consistent and moving fairly steadily. Suddenly a man walked straight off the footpath on a diagonal path across the road, totally oblivious of the traffic coming both ways. It was just sheer luck which stopped him from being run over by one or more cars.

He appeared to be in a world of his own, he was extremely red in the face, and looked like he was not in the best of health. I suspect that he had been out in the heat, not drunk enough water, and put himself in danger of a serious health crisis. He was heading towards a shady park so I hope that he found somewhere out of the heat but I lost sight of him, so I don't know if he was all right.

So drink lots of water, keep hydrated and keep safe.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 22 - 11:31 PM

In Texas the ERCOT folks asked the Crypto miners to turn off their power-hungry systems. It saved 1% at the time they turned off - not a lot, but it made a difference for the area around Houston.

I have one unit out, and one working here, and a portable one in my office that is on only when I'm in the office. (I have to finance putting in the new unit that will be more more efficient than the dead 20-year-old heat pump that was state of the art in its day).

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Helen
Date: 19 Jul 22 - 11:22 PM

We have a split system air conditioner. We can just put it on for the two rooms we are using rather than the whole house. Our house is extremely well insulated so we only need to put the air con on for a short time e.g. 30 minutes, and then turn it off when the required temperature is reached. It stays fairly well within the comfortable range for some hours, usually. Later in the day we might put it on again and then turn it off. If ours was powered by solar or wind energy, even better but the changeover to alternative power is on our budget list for the very near future.

We are lucky we have a well-insulated house. It would not be appropriate for us to cast aspersions on other people who are not so lucky, especially in an emergency, a health-threatening or life-or-death situation.

I'm with Maggie. This heatwave has been declared as an emergency. Lives and health are very much at stake. Common sense has to prevail during emergency situations. Those stats on how much power air conditioners use are possibly/probably based on them being on for at least 12 hours per day, and also have to take into account lots of very large buildings like my previous workplace and not just individual dwelling places.

Yes, climate action is a top priority but lives and health in an emergency must be protected.

And countries where heatwaves are not common has the increased risk of people not knowing which precautions to take, and possibly underestimating the gravity of the situation, taking unnecessary risks and putting their health and/or their lives in danger.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 19 Jul 22 - 09:56 PM

Better use than protecting lives. You think about it. What would you put above that on the list? It's 44.5 C out there today.

Subject: RE: Tips from Texas to the UK for beating the heat
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 19 Jul 22 - 08:49 PM

Perhaps that precious wind farm energy could've been put to more virtuous use...

It's a tough one, innit...