Title: Air-Conditioning Is an Environmental Quandary - The New York Times
Headings: The Cost of Cool
The Cost of Cool
Content: Over the course of the day that meant they accomplished 30 minutes less work, he said. Other studies have found that with office temperatures between 82 and 86 degrees, symptoms like headache, drowsiness and difficulty concentrating increase, which may explain the drop in performance. Worse still, perhaps, Mr. Tanabe calculated that the suffering was all for naught: When offices were kept above about 82 degrees, so many people were using inefficient fans at their desks that the total electricity consumption could be higher than if the building had been better cooled. “ That’s just stupid,” he said. Some studies from hot and humid Singapore also show that cooler is better when it comes to office work, said Mr. Wargocki, who is currently a visiting researcher at the National University there. Though people in Singapore tend to identify a range from about 68 to 75 degrees as “neutral” temperature — neither hot nor cold — studies found that work improved if the thermostat was lowered to about 72. “ It’s a huge problem if we have to cool buildings in tropical environments to that level, in terms of energy use and climate,” Mr. Wargocki said. And that is where the bulk of new demand will occur. A new report by the McKinsey Global Initiative predicts that one billion city dwellers “will enter the global consuming class by 2025.”