On Monday, the governor ordered the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to audit all data centers wanting to connect to the state’s power grid.
Seems like a couple summers ago Texans were sweltering for lack of electric power to run their AC. Checking grid capacity should have been the job of whichever branch of state gov’t handed out these 1800 permits. Was the approval fee a box of steaks?
A lot of that AC usage comes down to poor insulation, older and poorly maintained units, single family housing, overly large housing, vacant housing that still needs to be cooled to keep it from deteriorating before someone can cover the inflated asset price, the need to insulate offices separately from housing because we’ve abolished work-from-home rules…
A well-maintained stock of publicly accessible homes in dense mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, with a professionally managed building-wide AC unit, could reduce the per-capita electricity demand enormously.
But instead, we’ve queued up billions of dollars in concrete and steel to build city-sized warehouses for scorching hot chipsets.
You don’t need to cool an entire house unless you have a family or pets and even still you can get away with using a 24" pedestal fan with using the AC you can cool 900 sq ft.
I mean yeah a mini split is the modern option but not everyone wants to drill into their homes.
It’s all about needs vs generalizations. I don’t need to cool every room in my house and I can get away with using one window ac in my living room and sending the cool air through my house with a penguin pedestal fan from Ocean State job lot.
Yeah it sucks having to put it in the window every year and it sucks bringing the fan down and walking by it but I have a natgas boiler based steam radiator system with heat in every room and given how the winters in New England are harsher than the summers, I think I’m okay.
Seems like a couple summers ago Texans were sweltering for lack of electric power to run their AC. Checking grid capacity should have been the job of whichever branch of state gov’t handed out these 1800 permits. Was the approval fee a box of steaks?
A lot of that AC usage comes down to poor insulation, older and poorly maintained units, single family housing, overly large housing, vacant housing that still needs to be cooled to keep it from deteriorating before someone can cover the inflated asset price, the need to insulate offices separately from housing because we’ve abolished work-from-home rules…
A well-maintained stock of publicly accessible homes in dense mixed-use walkable neighborhoods, with a professionally managed building-wide AC unit, could reduce the per-capita electricity demand enormously.
But instead, we’ve queued up billions of dollars in concrete and steel to build city-sized warehouses for scorching hot chipsets.
Bruh, a window a.c. is sold in grocery stores for under 200$.*
? and how many to cool a house and how much power does each draw. Which was their point. Not the dollar cost of the unit.
You don’t need to cool an entire house unless you have a family or pets and even still you can get away with using a 24" pedestal fan with using the AC you can cool 900 sq ft.
I mean yeah a mini split is the modern option but not everyone wants to drill into their homes.
It’s all about needs vs generalizations. I don’t need to cool every room in my house and I can get away with using one window ac in my living room and sending the cool air through my house with a penguin pedestal fan from Ocean State job lot.
Yeah it sucks having to put it in the window every year and it sucks bringing the fan down and walking by it but I have a natgas boiler based steam radiator system with heat in every room and given how the winters in New England are harsher than the summers, I think I’m okay.
That doesn’t seem necessary.
Sorry for the rudeness I will adjust the comment.
:D
I think you’ve got that mixed up with The Big Freeze of 2021. Everyone was calling for heads to roll after that fiasco, and are still pissed off.