...would it also make sense for hotter communities to have "cooling plants"? Idk how that would work but it was just a weird thought I had.
Yes, to a point. Large companies and universities use centralized cooling plants and chilled water distribution systems to take advantage of this. However, the farther from the source, the less efficient the distribution.
Municipalities drilling wells for a standardized heat pump system is what I would hope for
It would make more sense for the community to huddle in the same building to preserve the cool air and at that point it's an arcology.
Which we should be building anyway because they minimize land use and the material/energy costs of housing per capita.
yes, but the cooling plant we're talking about is a tree. the community should centrally decide to plant trees everywhere until you cannot see the sky in summer.
that'd cool shit down. centrally.
I can say that trees work very very well for this. My uni is PACKED full of trees. Once you get in the campus it's such a difference from the street. Not getting direct sunlight helps a lot and good air circulation too, so even though it was hot, it was never unbearable.
all streets in all settlements should look like this: https://gardonykultura.hu/ertektar/a-vedett-fasorok/
we should've been doing this all along because it's awesome, but now with catastrophic levels of climate change, we really should put the turbo on it. but we wont. heaven forbid we have to eminent domain strips of land from people to have this kind of tree coverage and make our settlements livable again.Only possible problem is power lines, but they can go underground and be much safer for everyone, it's just going to need some more money put into it, if they aren't ready
I'm basically just making a guess, but given how efficient small heat pumps are, it seems like gains you'd get from scaling them up would be lost in the process of moving the cooled refrigerant/air farther.
In my area 2 recently constructed, supposedly energy efficient, apartment buildings went with individual heat pumps for each apartment instead of central heating/cooling. There might be some other reasons for it, though.
