Spring has finally arrived across southeastern Australia with most regions receiving their warmest weather since the middle of autumn.

After a cold start to September, temperatures on Friday climbed more than eight degrees above average through parts of Victoria, NSW and SA, nudging 35 degrees over the interior.

Melbourne reached a pleasant 25 degrees, their warmest day since April. Most of Sydney also enjoyed their warmest day since April with highs climbing to 26 degrees in some suburbs.

It will become even hotter on Saturday as strengthening northerly winds spread warm tropical air to the country's southern coastline. Temperatures are forecast to reach 27 in Sydney, 25 in Melbourne, 24 in Adelaide and 23 in Canberra.

A pair of fronts will lower temperatures back to typical September levels by Monday but another spell of summery weather is likely towards the end of next week.

- Weatherzone

http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/southeastern-australia-welcomes-warmest-day-in-months/9862

© Weatherzone 2008

Emma Young
Sydney Morning Herald - August 1, 2008

Lee Kuan Yew hailed it as one of man's greatest inventions, Boris Yeltsin claimed it gave him a cold and used it as an excuse to get out of work. Public Enemy sang about it, at least metaphorically, Jimmy Carter donned a cardigan and had words with the nation about turning it down and Bill Clinton increased its energy-efficiency standards months before leaving office.

The common theme here is air-conditioning. Air-conditioning is not an inalienable right, but in a culture of constant comfort with an everyday disregard for the "energy crisis" if it is going to interfere with a personal crisis, it is sometimes treated as such. Climate control is not, after all, what the English political philosopher John Locke was pointing a finger at when he made a philosophical fuss about our natural rights.

In New York a bill was rejected in June targeting this specific air-related extravagance. The Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, copped a fair amount of heat from disgruntled locals for his resistance to the proposal of a bill that shops such as Gap be fined $US200 ($212) for each door or window they leave open as a marketing technique. The commercial idea behind the "door open" policy is that people find it more inviting. The environmental idea behind the fines is that open doors increase the need for air-conditioning to balance out the disrupting heat or cold that billows in with people and their economy-bolstering credit cards. There is also the requisite burning of fossil fuels and emission of greenhouse gases that goes with it.

In Sydney this winter any manipulation of the temperature is clearly of a warming variety, but the philosophy remains the same. Many retailers, small and large, keep their doors open to welcome consumers and bracing winds alike, necessitating blasts of hot air to accommodate one and beat back the other. The same thing happens in supermarkets where arctic conditions reign in aisles dominated by open, door-free fridges: a blatantly wasteful design possibly motivated by the idea that a glass barrier might prove to be an insurmountable impediment to the purchase of packaged ham. As long as what is bad for the environment is good for sales it all works out.

Back in 1979 in New York, when a summer heatwave threatened to collapse the power grid against the backdrop of a global energy crisis and an unemployed shah, shops including the big-name department stores weren't allowed to cool their stores below a certain temperature. This was just before the decadent '80s hit its stride and you might think it would be impossible for 2008 to surpass the excess associated with that era but apparently not when it comes to air-conditioning. Regardless of any energy crisis, people seem to expect the best, much like John West always told them to. Convenience and energy profligacy is a daily mantra that we won't easily be separated from.

These new expectations are attested to by a recent phenomenon in "energy tourism" accounting for what is estimated to be a 50 per cent surge in petrol sales in Mexico. The jump comes in the guise of Texans who don their theme park-related T-shirts and cross the border to take advantage of the nationally subsidised oil prices offered by the Mexican Government.

The subsidy is supposed to make fuel affordable to poor Mexicans, but has attracted some hangers-on.

Border crossing in the name of petrol is a rather extreme expression of the popular and political insistence on sticking to what is cheap, convenient or "our right", rather than submitting to measures designed to curb wasteful energy practices in a way that is reasonable, practically achievable and flat-out right.

Of course it doesn't help anyone learning to break bad habits when members of the Bush Administration spent some of their two terms recommending air-conditioning to combat those pesky effects of climate change. And they weren't joking. In 2002 it was a tack derided in an open letter signed by 11 state's attorneys-general.

They compared it to a former interior secretary's inane suggestion that the hole in the ozone layer meant that all Americans needed to do was "make better use of sunglasses, suntan lotion and broad-brimmed hats". He wasn't joking either.

Perhaps then it's not surprising that the Vice-President, Dick Cheney, once described energy conservation as "a sign of personal virtue", not a political priority.

Practical measures to make buildings and cities more energy efficient need to be taken up by more individuals, small businesses and corporations.

"Low-E" windows that reflect and reduce radiant heat, and building materials that have high thermal mass to help buildings maintain a more constant temperature are possible solutions, but if they are not options we can start small.

Energy profligacy need not be a way of life and common sense dictates we open our minds to the possibility of shutting our doors.

Emma Young is a freelance writer.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/07/31/1217097424368.html 

Heat is on air-conditioning

The Sydney Morning Herald
May 6, 2008

As our summers get warmer, the race is on to design more efficient buildings and cooling systems, writes Helen Meredith.

Air-conditioners in office buildings could collapse under increased heat loads as climate change takes hold and temperatures rise, according to a study carried out at Queensland University of Technology's School of Engineering Systems.

Lisa Guan says her computer model of indoor thermal environments and the cooling load imposed on air-conditioners in office buildings shows that most units would not cope under the more extreme circumstances. External and internal heat would have to be reduced and new buildings designed to take better account of the potential impact of higher temperatures.

The results of Dr Guan's study were released as recent heatwaves in southern Australia sent sales of air-conditioners skyrocketing.

The extreme temperatures experienced in Adelaide, Melbourne and other urban centres during March have provided a glimpse of what could become more commonplace in the future.

Already concern at climate change and the environmental impact of chlorofluorocarbon and other similar refrigerants on the ozone layer has stimulated interest in developing "environmentally friendly" air-conditioning systems.

Dr Guan warns that when temperatures rise it will take more than conventional air-conditioners to cope with the heat.

She says systems will collapse: "If the outdoor temperature increases by two degrees, the risk of overheating in an air-conditioned office building will increase significantly.

"The cooling load on air-conditioners will increase by up to 47% in some Australian cities, based on CSIRO projections of the potential increase in temperature due to climate change."

Designing air-conditioning systems to cope with this would need to take account of heat generated inside buildings, as well as heat from the sun.

The number of people in office buildings, lighting and machines all produced a lot of heat for air-conditioners to deal with, Dr Guan says.

"An adult male generates 140 watts of heat, and a woman 85% of that. Heat generated from lights, computers, printers and copiers all contribute to the internal load."

Cutting that internal load would be as important as shielding buildings externally from the sun. "If we do nothing, the cooling capacity of air-conditioners will need to increase by up to 59%," says Dr Guan. Operating larger-capacity units would cost much more.

"Obviously this is not feasible. We need to find ways to reduce both the amount of sun falling on our buildings and the heat generated within them."

She is looking at how cope with higher temperatures in buildings, including automatic control of outdoor air intake for free cooling, systems to turn off unnecessary lights and innovative ways to improve how natural light is used to improve energy efficiency.

Other researchers within the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering at QUT have been working on a solar-powered cooling system. It uses a closed cycle adsorption process as an alternative to conventional air-conditioning systems that use vapour compression.

Its big advantage is that it runs on low-grade thermal energy instead of high-grade electricity.

The liquid desiccant solar air-conditioner removes moisture from the air and provides 100% fresh air without the application of CFC.

This makes it possible to control humidity levels independently, leaving conventional systems to deal with temperature.

Senior lecturer Dr Kame Khouzam says work has more recently been concentrated on the application of the technology to crop drying where humidity control is critical.

That also extends to environments in which seed has to be stored for some time and the need for temperature control is also an issue.

Dr Khouzam says this doesn't mean the technology could not still answer the call for smarter air-conditioning in commercial buildings.

This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/05/05/1209839551700.html