During Europe's heat wave last month, Floriana Peroni's vintage clothing store had to close for a week. A truck of rented generators blocked her door as they fed power to the central Roman neighborhood hit by a blackout as temperatures surged. The main culprit: air conditioning.
Europeans look with disdain at overcooled U.S. buildings, kept to near meat-locker temperatures, where a blast of cold air can shoot across city sidewalks as people come and go, and where extended indoor appointments necessitate a sweater even in the height of summer. Cooling systems remain rare in Nordic countries and even Germany, where temperatures can nudge above 30 degrees for extended periods.
"They don't take into account the urban island effects," she said, when cities are unable to cool at night and surfaces become radiators."From a scientific point of view, if we all run to the go-to solution, which is air conditioning, we are going to get into a different type of problem, because there is high energy consumption and high carbon emissions related to air conditioning.
Despite the concerns over energy costs, air conditioning is rapidly conquering homes in Spain, a country that traditionally bent towards the use of fans and drawing heavy blinds, a very Spanish fixture. A study by Ca' Foscari University projects that half of Spanish households will have AC by 2040, up from just 5% in 1990.