LITTLETON- The US power system emits more carbon dioxide over the summer months than at any other time of year due to intense demand for air conditioners and other cooling systems during the hottest time of year.
From May through August, US power production systems emit an average of 147.4 million tons of carbon dioxide each month as they try to keep the nation’s buildings and homes cool, data from think tank Ember shows.
That emissions load is 13 percent more than the monthly average for the year as a whole, and means that US power producers pollute far more as they try to keep their customers cool in the summer than when they provide energy for heat over the winter.
Around 37.8 percent of total annual power sector emissions are discharged in the four months from May through August, compared with 30.1 percent for the January to April period, and 32.1 percent for September through December.
Around 90 percent of the roughly 128 million US households use some form of air conditioning, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) and the World Population Review.
That usage rate is more than 93 percent in parts of the south, which can become the warmest and most humid areas of the country and have seen temperatures rise faster than the US average in recent years, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows.
Globally, demand for air conditioning is also growing rapidly, and according to the International Energy Agency (IEA) the current global stock of air conditioners is around 2.2 billion units, up from around 1.2 billion in 2010.
Around 416 million air conditioner units are estimated to be in use in the U.S., or more than three per household.
Ironically, the growing use of air conditioners across the world’s cities is itself contributing to rising temperatures, as the constant use of air con units that spew unwanted hot air into surrounding streets can push up local temperature readings.
That side effect of widespread air con adoption is set to accelerate the global demand for air conditioner units to more than 5.5 billion by 2050, with more than 542 million in the US alone.
To feed this higher level of electricity demand over the summer months, power producers must deploy greater quantities of fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal, leading to higher pollution levels than at any other time of year.
This results in the US power system having a higher carbon intensity during the summer period than over winter months. Carbon intensity measures the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that is discharged to generate each unit of energy. -Reuters
