davidsyes's Journal: California Leading Way to 20% More Efficient Air Conditioner

http://www.kqed.org/quest/blog/

"AC seems mundane because it's ubiquitous - but because it's ubiquitous, its impact is astonishing. If you took air conditioning out of the picture, there might not be such thing as the California energy crisis. We could put dozens of power plants offline. In terms of global warming, it would be like taking hundreds of thousands of cars off the road, permanently."

"So, it comes as no surprise that a number of Californians are putting serious energy into making air conditioning work better. At the top of that list is California Energy Commission Commissioner Art Rosenfeld, the efficiency guru who, perhaps more than any other person, can be credited for California's remarkable efficiency gains over the last 30 years. We also hear from AC inventor and entrepreneur John Proctor. And thanks also go to Jeff Scalier, of Antioch-based Blue Star Heating and Air Conditioning, who introduced me to his very satisfied customer, Al Mason, and whose mother I hope enjoys the CD we send her.

If you want to retrofit your central AC system to tailor it to California climate (and make it 20 percent more efficient) a number of Bay Area installers are ready to do it. Here are some of them, courtesy of Proctor Engineering:"

Also, in the audio report, you can learn that AC units were pretty much designed very inefficiently (for production costs?) with a "one-size-fits-all" approach. So, the AC units in California are working just as hard as those in, say, Florida, where it may be 100 degrees with 40%-80% humidity, and harder than those in the Midwest part of the country.

http://www.kqed.org/quest/radio/air-conditioning-reinvented