Congressmen Without Power in DC!

[don]

That's it, just felt good to say it!

[lektrode]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

yes, altho its going to be tough on the commoners, the very idea of the political class feeling the heat and what its like to SWEAT is somewhat entertaining - but i do feel sorry for the rest of em over there:

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/07/02...est=latestnews
(was first one i could find on 'washington offices with no air conditioning' )


"The power outages had prompted concerns of traffic problems as commuters took to roads with darkened stoplights. But throughout northern Virginia, there was less traffic than normal in many places Monday as federal workers took advantage of liberal leave that was put in place for the day.

To alleviate traffic congestion around Baltimore and Washington, federal and state officials gave many workers the option of staying home Monday. Maryland's governor also gave state workers wide leeway for staying out of the office."

course it might also end up being a 5day weekend over there too....
woe be the person who needs something from the buracracy today - never mind the supermarket.

[vt]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

Us poor souls that own our business, and pay the taxes to keep the governments going, still have to work even around power interruptions and traffic problems. We saw the same behavior in snowstorms. They will close everything at the first flake if the forecast calls for more. Another reason to radically downsize goverment at all levels.

[Shakespear]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

Another reason to radically downsize goverment at all levels.

I was positive that that was what Reagan was working on, "Get the gov. off our backs".

[lektrode]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

more on the 'great july 4th blackout'....

anybody for a little Cherry Bounce ?
Many Americans Have Throwback Fourth Without Power

MOUNT VERNON, Va. (AP) — George Washington never had air conditioning, but he knew how to keep cool: a mansion with lots of windows elevated on the banks of a wide, rolling river and lots of ice cream, maybe with a little brandy.


It was a little like the old days without electricity Wednesday, as the nation's capital region celebrated Independence Day the better part of a week into a widespread blackout that left millions of residents sweltering in 90-plus degree heat without air conditioning. Utilities have slowly been restoring service knocked out by a freak storm Friday from the Midwest to the Mid-Atlantic, and at least 26 people have died in the storm or its aftermath.


At George Washington's Mount Vernon estate, one of the most popular Fourth of July attractions was a demonstration of 18th-century ice cream making, one of Washington's favorite desserts. Historical interpreters Gail Cassidy and Anette Ahrens showed the crowds how cocoa beans were roasted and ground into a paste for chocolate ice cream, made using ice hauled up in massive blocks from the Potomac River and stored underground to last as long into the summer as possible.


As for beverages, Washington was no stranger to alcohol, enjoying imported Madeira wine from Portugal, distilling his own whiskey and enjoying a fruity brandy cocktail called Cherry Bounce.


Washington was his own architect at Mount Vernon, "and he was very good at it," said Dennis Pogue, associate director for preservation at Mount Vernon. The piazza, which runs the length of the mansion, is "kind of California living in the 18th century," Pogue said.


The location, atop a sloping hill along the Potomac, catches cool breezes. Lots of windows and shutters allow for the regulation of sun and wind. And the distinctive cupola on the mansion roof serves as the mansion's air conditioning unit, funneling hot air out the top and drawing cooler air in at the ground level.


Visitors on Wednesday gathered on the mansion's back porch, a piazza overlooking the Potomac where breezes rolled through.

theres more to this one:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=156239210

[lektrode]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

this one should be titled The George Washington of A/C, but hey
its time for a little Lime Bounce (with schweppes and gordons)

Too Hot? No Cooler Time To Honor The Steve Jobs Of A.C.

With triple-digit heat across the country and places from Denver (105 degrees) to Farmville, Va. (106), setting or tying all-time record highs, let's set down our lemonades and iced teas long enough to show our appreciation for Willis H. Carrier.


Enlarge Baltimore & Ohio Railroad ad



A series of 1931 newspaper ads touted the latest comfort for rail passengers on the B&O's Columbian line.


Carrier was the wunderkind of modern air conditioning, a Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg of cold air. So it seems fitting to mark the upcoming 110th anniversary of his first breakthrough with a heat wave and bands of early summer storms that left millions without electricity and air conditioning.


The Cornell grad's July 1902 innovation at age 25 helped a Brooklyn printing company deal with vexing humidity and temperature issues. By the Roasting 1920s, trains, theaters, department stores and even Congress (never short on hot air) began installing air-conditioning systems made possible by the steady flow of Carrier's work.


Despite iPod-strong sales, air conditioning remained a luxury for many years. Newspapers in the '20s and '30s were still filled with headlines about thousands of deaths and "prostrations" linked to summer heat. It would be decades before most newly built single-family homes in the United States had A.C. — hard to believe today, when Census data show that about 90 percent of newly built homes are air-conditioned.


So how did ordinary people endure the heat and keep their cool in those days before air conditioning went from extravagance to necessity?


Early Social Media
Talking about the weather is almost as old as weather itself. Before air conditioning, there was no better setting for those conversations than the shaded shelter of a friendly front porch. That is, until the telephone came along.


One indication of this rapid change of venue emerged during a June 1925 heat wave, when the New York Telephone Co. noted that phone use had spiked as high as the mercury. In Coney Island, the company saw traffic double. As a Wall Street Journal report noted at the time, the telephone was hot:

"Seldom in the history of the company have there been such sudden jumps in the volume of traffic. The whole balance of the service suddenly shifted. ... Operators had to be sent from New York to help out in the outlying districts."

Going Casual
Keeping cool in the buttoned-up pre-A.C. era inevitably required unbuttoning, even a little. The Washington Post, covering the same 1925 heat wave that had phones ringing up and down the East Coast, noted some changing fashion rules during that scorcher. During one 99-degree day, local D.C. police were urged to loosen up — but not too much:

"Although police are in summer uniform, and allowed to go about with coats opened, providing the regulation shirt and collar is worn, they are not allowed to doff their coats, it was learned."

On a similarly hot day in New York the following year, higher degrees of disrobing broke out in some municipal courts. As the New York Times reported in a July story:

"Some of the law courts mercifully waved rules and countenanced shirt sleeves yesterday. In the Traffic Court here and in the County Court in Brooklyn, attendants had to take a hand when some of the sufferers removed their shirts."

Going Outside
Alien as it might seem to those of us A.C. users who are used to seeking shelter from the heat in the great indoors, the open air once provided some overnight relief from sleepless swelter for masses of people, even in Big City USA.
Accounts of steamy summers from the '20s and '30s are filled with descriptions of roofs and even fire escapes transformed into crowded public bedrooms. "Many of the city's parks and nearby beaches were hosts to thousands who flocked there to sleep during the night," said a Times story from June 1934. "More than 8,000, many of them men and women clad in pajamas and carrying blankets to spread on the sand, came to Coney Island beach shortly after nightfall."
Taking It All Off
The primary difference between extreme cold and extreme heat is that you can always layer on more clothing, but there is only so much you can take off — especially in more modest times and places.
As it happened, the import of nudist ideas to the United States in the 1920s and '30s corresponded with the rise of A.C. But American culture and law did not exactly embrace the movement, even when the weather turned brutal.
That was the challenge for Fred C. Ring, a dance instructor in Kalamazoo, Mich., back in 1933. Ring established the "Sunshine Sports League," a family-friendly nudist colony near Allegan, Mich., that provided a secluded place for family and friends to freely frolic during that especially sticky summer.
Alas, police raided Ring's private encampment, and Ring was fined $300 and sentenced to 60 days in jail for indecent exposure. He appealed to Michigan's Supreme Court, which had little sympathy for his, um, brief. "It is clearly shown that the appellant designedly made an open exposure of his person and that of others in a manner that is offensive to the people of the State of Michigan," the justices wrote in their 1934 ruling. "Such exposure is both open and indecent."
If ever a stronger case for A.C. had been argued, we cannot find it in the annals of the law, or the newspaper pages of decades long past.
Now What?
In this century, public concern is more focused on global warming than indoor cooling — and even heated arguments about the link between the two. Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), made that point in a Washington Post essay following a 2010 heat wave:

"The energy required to air-condition American homes and retail spaces has doubled since the early 1990s. Turning buildings into refrigerators burns fossil fuels, which emits greenhouse gases, which raises global temperatures, which creates a need for — you guessed it — more air-conditioning."

Those words of caution, along with the sultry scenes above, provide a balanced way to reflect on how Willis Carrier's innovations reshaped our relationship with weather. Perhaps on July 17, the day in 1902 when Carrier first fired up the air-conditioning system he created for the Sackett & Wilhelms printing plant in Brooklyn, we should turn down or even turn off our A.C.s, no matter how hot it is. That way we can appreciate both how things used to be, and how A.C. transformed our world.

[mooncliff]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

Now What?
In this century, public concern is more focused on global warming than indoor cooling — and even heated arguments about the link between the two. Stan Cox, author of Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Through the Summer), made that point in a Washington Post essay following a 2010 heat wave:

"The energy required to air-condition American homes and retail spaces has doubled since the early 1990s. Turning buildings into refrigerators burns fossil fuels, which emits greenhouse gases, which raises global temperatures, which creates a need for — you guessed it — more air-conditioning."


Last summer in Tokyo, air conditioning was used sparingly because of the lack of electrical power. This seems to have dropped the temperature of Tokyo by 1 degree F!
Dark asphalt sidewalks are being replaced with lighter colored pavement, trees are being planted, roofs are being lightened in color. Some progress being made. Newest air conditioners are extremely efficient and can run at 1 to 3 cents per hour. They have presence sensors and ramp down when no one is in the room. They also direct air toward where you are in the room, and can determine from your body temperature how much cooling is necessary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcyVa...eature=related
There is a LOT more efficiency to be squeezed out of the systems, even in Japan. I replaced the air conditioner, refrigerator, TV, and switched lights to LEDs last year, and my electric bill is half of what it was. I am during nonheating/cooling seasons using as little as 120 kwh per month, which, if I were paying the US average of 11 cents a kwh, would mean my bill would be $10 for the service and $13 for the electricity.


Gore Vidal asked, "What is the most evil invention of the 20th century?"
Most people said nuclear weapons.
"No", Gore said, "The most evil invention of the 20th century is air conditioning."
"Washington used to be so hot in the summer that the government would leave; now, they stay all year making mischief."

[don]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL and ANDREW W. LEHREN

In the ramshackle apartment blocks and sooty concrete homes that line the dusty roads of urban India, there is a new status symbol on proud display. An air-conditioner has become a sign of middle-class status in developing nations, a must-have dowry item.

It is cheaper than a car, and arguably more life-changing in steamy regions, where cooling can make it easier for a child to study or a worker to sleep.

But as air-conditioners sprout from windows and storefronts across the world, scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed about the impact of the gases on which they run. All are potent agents of global warming.

Air-conditioning sales are growing 20 percent a year in China and India, as middle classes grow, units become more affordable and temperatures rise with climate change. The potential cooling demands of upwardly mobile Mumbai, India, alone have been estimated to be a quarter of those of the United States.

Air-conditioning gases are regulated primarily though a 1987 treaty called the Montreal Protocol, created to protect the ozone layer. It has reduced damage to that vital shield, which blocks cancer-causing ultraviolet rays, by mandating the use of progressively more benign gases. The oldest CFC coolants, which are highly damaging to the ozone layer, have been largely eliminated from use; and the newest ones, used widely in industrialized nations, have little or no effect on it.

But these gases have an impact the ozone treaty largely ignores. Pound for pound, they contribute to global warming thousands of times more than does carbon dioxide, the standard greenhouse gas.

The leading scientists in the field have just calculated that if all the equipment entering the world market uses the newest gases currently employed in air-conditioners, up to 27 percent of all global warming will be attributable to those gases by 2050.

So the therapy to cure one global environmental disaster is now seeding another. “There is precious little time to do something, to act,” said Stephen O. Andersen, the co-chairman of the treaty’s technical and economic advisory panel.

The numbers are all moving in the wrong direction.

Atmospheric concentrations of the gases that replaced CFCs, known as HCFCs, which are mildly damaging to the ozone, are still rising rapidly at a time when many scientists anticipated they should have been falling as the treaty is phasing them out. The levels of these gases, the mainstay of booming air-conditioning sectors in the developing world, have more than doubled in the past two decades to record highs, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

And concentrations of the newer, ozone-friendly gases are also rising meteorically, because industrialized countries began switching to them a decade ago. New room air-conditioners in the United States now use an HFC coolant called 410a, labeled “environmentally friendly” because it spares the ozone. But its warming effect is 2,100 times that of carbon dioxide. And the treaty cannot control the rise of these coolants because it regulates only ozone-depleting gases.

The treaty timetable requires dozens of developing countries, including China and India, to also begin switching next year from HCFCs to gases with less impact on the ozone. But the United States and other wealthy nations are prodding them to choose ones that do not warm the planet. This week in Rio de Janeiro, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is attending the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, where proposals to gradually eliminate HFCs for their warming effect are on the provisional agenda.

But she faces resistance because the United States is essentially telling the other nations to do what it has not: to leapfrog this generation of coolants. The trouble is, there are currently no readily available commercial ozone-friendly alternatives for air-conditioners that do not also have a strong warming effect — though there are many on the horizon.

Nearly all chemical and air-conditioning companies — including DuPont, the American chemical giant, and Daikin, one of Japan’s leading appliance manufacturers — have developed air-conditioning appliances and gases that do not contribute to global warming. Companies have even erected factories to produce them.

But these products require regulatory approvals before they can be sold, and the development of new safety standards, because the gases in them are often flammable or toxic. And with profits booming from current cooling systems and no effective regulation of HFCs, there is little incentive for countries or companies to move the new designs to market.

“There are no good solutions right now — that’s why countries are grappling, tapping in the dark,” said Rajendra Shende, the recently retired head of the Paris-based United Nations ozone program, who now runs the Terre Policy Center in Pune, India.

An Unanticipated Problem

The 25-year-old Montreal Protocol is widely regarded as the most successful environmental treaty ever, essentially eliminating the use of CFC coolants, which are highly damaging to the ozone layer. Under its terms, wealthier countries shift away from each harmful gas first, and developing countries follow a decade or more later so that replacement technologies can be perfected and fall in price.

Concentrations of CFC-12, which had been growing rapidly since the 1960s, have tapered off since 2003, thanks to the treaty’s strict phaseout schedule. In 2006, NASA scientists concluded that the ozone layer was on the mend.

But that sense of victory has been eclipsed by the potentially disastrous growth in emissions from the newer air-conditioning gases. While a healthier ozone layer itself leads to some warming, far more warming results from the tendency of these coolant gases to reflect back heat radiating off the Earth.

When the treaty set its rules in the mid-1980s, global warming was poorly understood, the cooling industry was anchored in the West, and demand for cooling was minuscule in developing nations.

That has clearly changed.

Jayshree Punjabi, a 40-year-old from Surat, was shopping for an air-conditioner at Vijay Sales in Mumbai on a recent afternoon. She bought her first one 10 years ago and now has three. “Now almost every home in Surat has more than one,” she said. “The children see them on television and demand them.”

Refrigeration is also essential for these countries’ shifting food supplies. “When I was a kid in Delhi, veggies came from vendors on the street; now they all come from the supermarket,” said Atul Bagai, an Indian citizen who is the United Nations ozone program’s coordinator for South Asia.

In 2011, 55 percent of new air-conditioning units were sold in the Asia Pacific region, and the industry’s production has moved there. Last year, China built more than 70 percent of the world’s household air-conditioners, for domestic use and export. The most common coolant gas is HCFC-22. In 2010, China produced about seven times the amount of that gas as the United States.

With inexpensive HCFC-22 from Asia flooding the market, efforts to curb or eliminate its use have been undercut, even in the United States. For example, although American law now forbids the sale of new air-conditioners containing HCFC, stores have started selling empty components that can be filled with the cheap gas after installation, enabling its continued use.

Trying to Adapt the Treaty

During a four-day meeting in Montreal in April, about 200 representatives attending the protocol’s executive committee meeting clashed over how to adapt to the changing circumstances. Should they be concerned with ozone protection, climate change or both?

As developing countries submitted plans to reduce reliance on HCFCs in order to win United Nations financing for the transition, delegations from richer nations rejected proposals that relied on HFCs, because of their warming effect. Canada raised a proposal that countries should use only compounds with low impact on global warming.

Phasing out HFCs by incorporating them into the treaty is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce global warming, said Durwood Zaelke, president of the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development.

But India, China and Brazil object that this could slow development and cost too much. All the acceptable substitutes under development for air-conditioners are either under patent, demand new equipment or require extensive new regulation and testing procedures. “This appears simple, but it’s not standard, and it imposes a new burden,” said Wang Yong, of the Chinese delegation.

Said Suely Carvalho, the Brazilian-born chief of the United Nations Development Program’s Montreal Protocol and Chemicals Unit: “The developing countries are already struggling to phase out, and now you tell them, ‘Don’t do what we did.’ You can see why they’re upset.”

Commercial interests foster the stalemate. Though the protocol aggressively reduces the use of HCFC-22 for cooling, it restricts production on a slower, more lenient timetable, and as a result, output has grown more than 60 percent in the past decade. Even in the United States, HCFC-22 is still profitably manufactured for use in older appliances, export and a few other industrial purposes that do not create significant emissions, like making Teflon.

Politically influential manufacturers like Gujarat Fluorochemicals in India, Zhejiang Dongyang Chemical Company in China and Quimobásicos in Mexico (of which Honeywell owns 49 percent) have prospered by producing the coolant. They even receive lucrative subsidies from the United Nations for making it.

For their part, manufacturers are reluctant to hurry to market new technologies that are better for the climate, until they get a stronger signal of which ones countries will adopt, said Mack McFarland, an atmospheric scientist with DuPont.

Othmar Schwank, a Swiss environmental consultant who has advised the United Nations, said: “In many countries, these targets will be very difficult to achieve. With appliances growing in India and China, everyone is making money, so they want to delay this as much as possible.”

Technologies Stalled

The Montreal Protocol originally gave the developing countries until 2040 to get rid of HCFCs, but its governing board accelerated that timetable in 2007. “We saw consumption going through the roof,” said Markus Wypior, of the German government agency GIZ Proklima. The new schedule says developing countries must “stabilize” consumption of HCFCs by Jan. 1, and reduce it by 10 percent by 2015.

But the industry is growing so fast that meeting the targets, which were based on consumption in 2009-10, would now require a 40 percent reduction from current use in India. Many countries, including India, are trying to satisfy their 2013 mandate with one-time fixes that do not involve the cooling sector — for example, replacing HCFC-22 with another gas in making foam. Meeting the next reduction target, in 2015, is expected to be much harder.

In the meantime, the Montreal Protocol has started using its limited tools to prod developing countries moving from HCFCs toward climate-friendly solutions, offering a 25 percent bonus payment for plans that create less warming. Experts say that is not sufficient incentive for the drastic changes needed in machine design, servicing, manufacturing and regulation.

Promising technologies wait, stalled in the wings. In China and a few other countries, room air-conditioners using hydrocarbons — which cause little warming or ozone depletion — are already coming off assembly lines in small numbers but have not yet been approved for sale, in part because the chemicals are flammable.

Yet in Europe, refrigerators that cool with hydrocarbons have been in use for years, and some companies in the United States, like Pepsi and Ben and Jerry’s, have recently converted in-store coolers from HFCs to hydrocarbons as part of sustainability plans.

In a statement, the United States Environmental Protection Agency said it had recently approved some of the new climate-friendly gases for car air-conditioning and refrigerators and is “evaluating additional alternatives for other air-conditioning applications,” most notably a newer HFC variant called R32.

But when will they be on the market? Even small steps forward have been frustrated.

Last year the European Union began requiring automakers to use climate-friendly coolants in cars, considered a relatively simple transition. A chemical called 1234yf was deemed suitable, and the tiny amounts of coolant in car air-conditioners make flammability and high cost less of a deterrent.

But this year, the European Union postponed the plan: Chinese factories that make the compound are still in the process of obtaining government registration. The patent, owned by Honeywell, is being disputed. And the German government has still not finished safety testing.

Said Mr. Wypior, whose agency is trying to promote climate-friendly air-conditioning industries in India and China: “The technologies are available. They’re well known. They’re proven — though not at scale. So why aren’t we moving?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/wo...pagewanted=all

[lektrode]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

whoa baybee!
how to make an ACR guy's heart pound....

and guessing the other side of the building looks like this: ;)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/wo...pagewanted=all

With inexpensive HCFC-22 from Asia flooding the market, efforts to curb or eliminate its use have been undercut, even in the United States. (???)

dunno where they've seen it 'flooding' into the US, but this sure hasnt had any (downward) effect on the price, latest quote eye've seen is over 360bux for a 30pounder = more than double 2 years ago and almost 6x 10years ago

and the r-410 eqpt is quite a bit pricier than r-22 stuff, due to much higher pressures involved - but keeping the old stuff running is going to start skyrocketing, so switching sooner vs later is advised...

but none of this is 'inflationary'

since the new eqpt is sooo much more efficient
too bad electric rates are going up as fast as EER ratings....

[BadJuju]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

As someone that has performed electrical work, I do not know how these people have managed to not electrocute themselves or burn entire cities down with such deplorable electrical standards.

[don]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

As someone that has performed electrical work, I do not know how these people have managed to not electrocute themselves or burn entire cities down with such deplorable electrical standards.

That's Comcast ;)

[charliebrown]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

I just lived through a long power outage in the suburbs of chicago. 60 hours without power. On top of the loss of power we are also experience a nasty heat wave. days of upper 90, and lower 100 temps with full sun and moderate humidity. I was able to take turns with my neighbor's generator to run my fridge, but that was it. forutunately we have lots of flashlights, the daily newpaper, and a solar powered radio was our communications, we are on city water so we still had cool water and working toilets. My wife and son wilt with this heat. I am not used to sleeping in it an was drenched with sweat when I woke up in the middle of the night.

I have an updated list of new things to get to help us through the next one. Maybe a room air conditioner that could be run by a small gas generator. That way we have a cool room we can retreat to cool off and sleep in. If you can keep the air moving with fans, and get the humidity out, 80 is quite tolerable. Our house would sink to 85 at night with high humidity and still air.

[Thailandnotes]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

25,000 around D.C. still without power a week after the big storm. Meteorologists predict 106 for Saturday...

"Part of a neighbor’s tree fell on Epstein’s roof, so she did what anyone else would: She called her insurance company and a tree removal service, figuring that would resolve the problem.

"On Monday, a tree-removal company arrived, but a worker said the company couldn’t help because the tree was touching the power line. He suggested that Epstein call Pepco.

"On Tuesday, a contractor with Pepco came to assess the situation and determined that it should fall to the power company to fix.

"On Wednesday, a Pepco employee arrived and said the company could not remove the tree because it was on private property."

[c1ue]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

The energy required to air-condition American homes and retail spaces has doubled since the early 1990s.

This statement is meaningless if the impact of larger McMansions, home building in deserts (LA, Nevada, and Arizona), as well as population growth in the South are not factored.

Equally overall electricity consumption - for any purpose and including industrial on top of residential and commercial - has gone up over 1/3 since 1990.

[charliebrown]

Re: Congressmen Without Power in DC!

There was a large bough laying on my neighbor's roof that was also laying on her service lines. She called a tree guy but it would be a week before they could come out. It would not be a good day if after the power was restored, the branch started on fire. My family and a few neighbors and a bow saw got the limb off her roof, while the power was out. Service lines and roof was undamaged after the bough removed. I am slightly damaged, but will be fine in a few days. Big scrape.
don't ask ...