As cities heat up, reflective roofs could lower energy bills and help the climate. But dark-roofing manufacturers are waging a quiet campaign to block new rules
In most of the populated areas of the world we use a lot more energy to heat our buildings than we use to cool them. More people die of cold exposure than of heat. Warming up is good for us.
I hate to be this sort of guy. But if you had read the article it mentions a study that found exactly the opposite of what you claim.
Researchers have also found that even in most cold North American climates, the energy savings from cool roofs during warmer months outweigh any added heating costs in the winter.
Yep, mostly becuase cold climates are high latitude and they don’t get a ton of free BTUs from the sun all winter anyway. An exception might be lower latitude, high altitude areas (just guessing). I’d also guess that people doing white roofs are more likely to do basic air sealing and insulation retrofits.
North America & Europe (temperate/cold climates)
Heating dominates. In the U.S., for example, space heating accounts for roughly 2–3× more total energy than cooling on an annual basis, especially in northern and central states. In Europe, cooling demand is tiny in comparison — many countries use almost no air conditioning outside southern regions.
Why heating dominates overall:
Large parts of North America and Europe have long winters.
Heating often uses high-energy fuels (natural gas, oil, electricity), so the energy content is higher even if cooling is more frequent in some places.
Cooling is mostly electric and can be efficient with modern A/C systems, so it consumes less energy per degree of temperature change compared to heating.
In most of the populated areas of the world we use a lot more energy to heat our buildings than we use to cool them. More people die of cold exposure than of heat. Warming up is good for us.
I hate to be this sort of guy. But if you had read the article it mentions a study that found exactly the opposite of what you claim.
Yep, mostly becuase cold climates are high latitude and they don’t get a ton of free BTUs from the sun all winter anyway. An exception might be lower latitude, high altitude areas (just guessing). I’d also guess that people doing white roofs are more likely to do basic air sealing and insulation retrofits.
It’s just not true.
North America & Europe (temperate/cold climates) Heating dominates. In the U.S., for example, space heating accounts for roughly 2–3× more total energy than cooling on an annual basis, especially in northern and central states. In Europe, cooling demand is tiny in comparison — many countries use almost no air conditioning outside southern regions.
Why heating dominates overall:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-023-00878-3
That’s not disproving what the article said. Heating can dominate while the impacts of white roofs are still beneficial.
For one, the sun is far more active in summer than winter, especially further up north.
That’s just complete bullshit. The sun’s activity doesn’t have anything to do with what the position of the earth is at any given time.