Heat Wave in Asia (Climate Change) Near Freezing Cold near Seattle, Wa, USA

In southwest China & other parts of southwest Asia a deadly heatwave ongoing with daily high temperatures hitting 32-45 Centigrade or 95-112 Fahrenheit, causing deaths from heat-stoke & in a related way electrical energy consumption to surge 30-50% higher than normal to run AC or air conditioning or Heat-Pumps for interior cooling during the peak hot humid weather season in many parts of Asia. 

Electrical energy consumption will rise 30-50% worldwide by 2050 as more people improve their standards of living, i.e. such that more people have microwave ovens, fridges, other appliances, battery electric vehicles of all kinds & the niceties that most people regularly use daily in developed nations (espresso grinders that cost as much as a mid end smartphone :) 

Thankfully energy efficient heat-pumps for cooling are gaining popularity as replacements for less expensive but much more energy wasting traditional AC systems & similar IPM efficient motor fans with CFD optimized blade geometry & evaporative swap cooling technologies applied broadly across many locals in most homes & building to reduce interior air humidity & temperature to make it more comfortable & less sweaty to inhibit indoor spaces in homes, offices, schools, government buildings & other dwellings or habitation spaces where people live, sleep, cook, bathe, relax, watch content, do hobbies, bake, clean, organize or whatever. 

A typical home AC unit only about 70% efficient at turning electricity into heat rejection to suck heat out of the home & shove it outside into the environment in order to cool the home. That's less than a 1:1 energy to heat movement ratio or COP coefficient of performance. Newer air-source mini-split heat pumps have a COP of 3.3-5.8 meanings that 1 unit of electricity can move 3-6 units of heat for heating or cooling, so while a heat pump system might cost $2500 installed by a professional vs $1000 for a traditional AC & and $500 for electrical resistances space heaters as a system, the ROI much better if the mini-split heat pump reliable such that over many years the lower operating cost of the Heat Pump will more than pay for the initial price premium, even when you factor in the losses from the locked up capital premium paid initially. 

Consider that either system has failure points, will not last forever, will need cleaning & maintenance & that to get a good return on your investment you need a very reliable air-source heat-pump installed by professional & charged with energy efficient refrigerant gasses. Traditional AC systems are a lossy less efficient version of a heat-pump and many window mounted AC units are a bunch of engineering tradeoffs vs a mini-split system where the larger operation between the heat exchangers enables radically better energy efficiency while also enabling most domestic air-source heat pumps to work as a home heater or home air cooling air conditions or for general all season HVAC while most window AC units only work to cool & dehumidify & a separate heating solution required in colder locals. The majority of home energy consumption near Seattle, Wa, USA or in western Washington & many color locals comes by way of electrical or natural gas thermal energy used to heat water or air for domestic applications, cooking, was hinging, bathing, cleaning, habitation etc. 

It's been unusually colder than historically normal for April 2023 nearby, 10 miles or 16 km east of Seattle. I am seeing overnight low outdoor temperatures just above freezing lately. I am a school bus driver & my bus as cold as the inside of our home refrigerator and it takes 12-18 minutes of the engine operating & heaters on to get start to warm slightly during my pre-trip procedure time. Hearing about this heat wave was so contrary to my personal experience of feeling cold. When my mother was living with us, we had our home thermostat set to 76 F or 25 C even during the winter, resulting in monthly electrical utility bills of nearly $290, or close to 2000 kWh for 31 days. 

When my mother died in late March, the last 10 days of the month were energy optimized as we lowered our thermostat to 65 F or 18 C & use less hot water, take fewer showers less often, switched from hot laundry machine settings to colors or cool or some stuff warm. We turned off most electrical loads inside, unplugged as lot of different electronics, turn of lights more often, use less lighting, use less energy in the fridge & open the fridge door for shorter burst less often. In every practical way we slashed our home energy use and were able to lower our monthly energy consumption to just over 1500kWh & $210 to PSE for that electricity & service respectively. 

We reckon that we can use less than 600kWh per month, even with periodic overnight L1 charging the 19 Nissan LEAF SV's 40kWh lithium ion battery using the EVSE extension cord charger plugged into our ground floor apartment deck outside regular electrical outlet, or similar using an additional 50 foot 12-3 waterproof outdoor electrical extension cord to increase the reach of the L1 EVSE charging solution :) This low energy consumption goal at home to save us money on our electrical utility bills & to reduce our consumption of electricity to the lowest practical level while still being comfortable. Admittedly the radical 10+ degree temperature drop inside so cold that Meg & I have felt uncomfortably cold lately. Our bodies had acclimatized to the higher temperatures inside for nearly 3 years, since 2020 when we first moved into the overpriced Anthology Luxury Apartments. 

The entry hallway connected to a long narrow garage with electrically lifted garage door a very nice feature for storing my motorcycle, welder, pressure washer, vehicle oil change & mechanical tooling gear, metal furnace, gas welding O2 tank & propane tanks, & other electrical, consumer goods & similar, especially including the 2001 Audi A4 2.8 Quattro that we recently inherited, though transferring the title proving to be a headache as it requires the death certificate of both my recently deceased mother (no problem, already have one) and my late father who died in 2015 (problem, not death certificate) such that both are on the vehicles title & the DOL cannot transfer the title into my name unless I prove both death certificates as the executor of the estate. This Audi been garaged for its entire life, so its a cream puff with just over 92,000 miles ODO, one owner (Twas my late mom's car since brand new) and has heated lather seats & a power sun roof with tilt setting & early generation HID forward head lighting. Its also a mostly metal design in the engine where metal much better and longer lasting vs plastic used for such parts in newer made in Germany, German branded automobiles, like plastic water pumps & plastic intakes on newer BMW's, baby Mercedes, and related Audi or VW vehicles. Dyson switched from aluminum to plastic for the impeller in its amazing battery handheld vacuum machines, something that makes the impeller less resilient, less strong, easier to break, just less robust than the machined aluminum part it replaced. 

Apple makes a lot of their electrons from machined post consumer aluminum because the plastic MacBooks had cracking issues. That's the problem with hot & cold cycled plastic engine parts, the plasticizers bake out of such plastic engine parts making them brittle & crack prone, very much unlike the metal parts they replaced for cost saving or to improve profits of the automaker while producing cars that are less reliable that ultimate cheat people who buy newer cars that are less durable or less relaiable because of the use of plastics in hot high performance engine applications where aluminum, copper, steel, magnesium & other metal alloys would be much better & longer lasting. These plastic engine parts make newer luxury vehicles depreciate faster such that repairing higher mileage used newer model year German cars becomes very expensive. 

Lower reliability in a supposedly premium automobile does not make sense on a logical level either. The world Premium or Luxury should imply less glitch or error or better quality meaning longer lasting or more reliable or holds up well in the real world under wet, freezing, sun baked, hot, dry, water logged, banged hard, dropped, hit, shaken, vibrated, the kinds of conditions that typical passenger cars & other automobiles experience during seasonal changes in weather as these vehicles tend to be operated all year, rain or shine, in winter storms or hot summer weather, driven in deep snow, or through arid deserts during peak summer heat! 

This means automotive parts have to be able to tolerate wide temperature regimes, noise, vibration, harshness & moisture or high heat loading & still be reliable for 200,000 miles or 20 years of daily use commuting or transporting people & goods for hours per day while being parked 90% of the time when peoples privately owned cars are at home, in the garage or parked in the driveway, or while people park their cars while they are at work or out shopping retail in first person.