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Shaping Tomorrow's Global Built Environment Today
April 2, 2026
A proposed federal class-action lawsuit alleges that major HVAC manufacturers have conspired to fix prices and overcharge for equipment since January 2020, exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and the A2L transition. “These Defendants are alleged to have driven HVAC equipment prices to historic levels through a series of frequent and repeated secret meetings, information sharing, communications and public signaling,” a law firm involved in the case writes. Read more
Here’s the version of the orbital data center story you keep reading: Elon Musk says space will be the cheapest place to run AI within 36 months. LoneStar announces plans for a lunar data center. NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin Space-1 makes headlines. These are real announcements, and they all have one thing in common. Nobody talks about the source of electricity. Read more
The Sun delivers a vast amount of energy to Earth every second, but today’s solar cells can only capture a small portion of it. This limitation comes from a “physical ceiling” that has long been considered unavoidable. Researchers from Kyushu University and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz have introduced a new approach to overcome this barrier. Using a metal complex known as a “spin-flip” emitter to capture energy through singlet fission, they achieved an energy conversion efficiency of about 130%, exceeding the 100% limit and pointing toward more powerful future solar cells. Read more
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Student-designed “cooling shelters” are going to be rolling out in Fresno, California this summer. Their goal is to reduce the blistering heat for some of the roughly 40,300 people who use the city's public transportation every day–and anyone else passing by who wants to cool off. The project, started in 2024, had Fresno State students and faculty identify 50 sites across the city for new bus stops. They analyzed environmental data, such as solar exposure and urban heat island effects. Read more
Join Rebecca Norris and William Stober as they explore the unique challenges of controlled environment horticulture and why growing cannabis is particularly energy-intensive.
 
Hot Air Podcast
ASHRAE Journal
By Marwa Zaatari
This column compares the filtration efficiencies assigned in ASHRAE Standard 241-2023, Control of Infectious Aerosols, and Guideline 44-2024, Protecting Building Occupants from Smoke During Wildfire and Prescribed Burn Events, providing an in-depth evaluation of how these differences impact filter performance, particularly regarding particle removal. Download here
 
ASHRAE News
Abstract submissions are now being accepted for the 2027 ASHRAE Winter Conference to be held in Chicago, Jan. 23-27, 2027. Abstracts are due May 27, 2026. If accepted, final conference paper are due Sept. 2, 2026. For more information on the call for abstracts and the 2027 ASHRAE Winter Conference, visit ashrae.org/2027Winter. Read more
In Case You Missed It
A coalition of 24 states along with the District of Columbia, the U.S. Virgin Islands and about a dozen more cities and counties have filed a lawsuit to challenge the Environmental Protection Agency’s recent rescission of an Obama-era declaration known as the Endangerment Finding, which determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases threaten public health and welfare. This finding was the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act, or CAA, for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources. Read more
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