Paris Olympics' AC-free ambition melts away as organisers order 2,500 AC units

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240702-no-ac-ambition-for-paris-olympic-village-melts-away

by rntn • 2 years ago

19 17 2 years ago

Most people don't want to be uncomfortable or poorer to advance environmental plans that are extremely tenuously (to be generous) connected to climate change.

jve• 2 years ago

There is a solution: solar panels. When you need AC, usually the solar electricity generation are at high levels. A single AC doesn't need much. My 3kW AC takes 5-6kWh on a hot 30+C day to cool down some 70m2

On those days a 10kW installation produced 59kWh and my panels aren't even positioned ideally south - they are something like SW.

So that means 3 out of 25 of my 405W panels fully fed the AC. A few kW solar installation ain't that expensive if one wants to be eco-friendly.

throwaway4good• 2 years ago

Yes. Solar panels, and air cons for that matter, are as cheap as ever. We europeans can easily afford this.

Insisting on no air con is a cultural phenomenon. We associate it to something unneccessary, unnatural, excessive, distasteful, and wasteful. Our attitude is changing though ...

rasz2• 2 years ago

Lack of power is not a problem in Nuke powered Paris. No AC was someone's hubris and ambition to be on the forefront of European Green Deal plan.

okeuro49• 2 years ago

France generates around 70pc of its electricity from nuclear.

Who cares about this?

vel0city3• 2 years ago

It is not just the energy usage but also the refrigerants used. Most common refrigerants used in AC systems are pretty bad GHG'es themselves, often 2,000x worse than CO2.

Are many small portable AC units these days running 1234yf yet?

datadrivenangel• 2 years ago

Can't you get R744 (CO2) AC systems these days?

kamilner• 2 years ago

I'm pretty sure most portable ACs sold in Europe these days are R290 (propane) which has a GWP of about 1/14th of CO2, so for those that's no longer much of a concern.

SkyPuncher• 2 years ago

This is not true anymore. Most systems are switching to less dangerous refrigerants.

dixkon• 2 years ago

French taxes payers do care about this. Those 2500 AC units will add to the public bill, and the country can't afford it.

_aavaa_• 2 years ago

No country can afford the Olympics, it's always a bad investment

rasz2• 2 years ago

No doubt those will be single hose stand alone units, the worst kind

[Portable Air Conditioners - Why you shouldn't like them] by Technology Connections https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-mBeYC2KGc

Paris Olympics' AC-free ambition melts away as organisers order 2,500 AC units

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