The Trump administration last week loosened federal rules requiring grocery stores and air-conditioning companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cooling equipment, a step that the president said would help lower grocery costs. The move to relax the Biden-era rules on harmful pollutants known as hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, emitted by refrigerators and other appliances was the latest attempt before pivotal elections in November to try to address rising voter concerns over the cost of living. Read more |
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Like in many American cities, Denver’s largest source of climate pollution is its buildings. Powering, heating and cooling the city’s skyscrapers takes a lot of fossil fuels. Now, the city is planning to heat and cool a cluster of large downtown buildings using a combination of water, the heat of the Earth—and sewage. The Cherokee Boiler House, near downtown Denver, sits at the center of this plan. Despite the mothballed plant’s handsome brick exterior, inside it’s filled with rattling pipes, hazard signs and cockroach carcasses. Read more
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U.S. data center power demand is forecast to more than double to 66 GW in 2027 from 31 GW in 2025, driven by an accelerating buildout of AI infrastructure, according to Goldman Sachs Commodities Research. Only about 50-60% of data center capacity scheduled for the next one to two years is expected to come online on time amid delays and cancellations. Regional impacts will diverge sharply, with Mid-Atlantic, Mid-Continent and Northwest markets facing elevated reliability risks, while the impact in Texas and Georgia may be relatively marginal thanks to plans for additional power generation. Read more
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Air-quality standards around the world are built on one idea: count the particles. Measure the tiny specks of matter floating in a cubic meter of air, and you have a number that tells you how dangerous exposure to that pollution is–regardless of whether those particles came from a car, a fireplace or a frying pan. A clinical trial at the University of Birmingham (UK) put that assumption through a controlled experiment, recruiting 15 adults over the age of 50 with a family history of dementia. The experiment used the same particle count, same exposure time and four completely different pollution sources. The brain and lung responses were not even remotely the same. Read more
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Join host Rebecca Norris along with guests Asit Kumar Mishra and Robert Bean as they explore why there are more myths associated with thermal comfort than other areas of HVAC&R.
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By Masahiko Fujisaki; Ryozo Ooka, Ph.D.
Shiroi Data Center Campus (SDCC) is a large-scale suburban data center opened in Shiroi City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, in 2019. SDCC is built based on four main concepts: 1) architectural planning that puts equipment efficiency first, 2) consolidation of highly efficient air-conditioning equipment, 3) AI-driven operation control and 4) airflow control of information and communication technology equipment. Due to the synergistic effect of the design, it has achieved a power usage effectiveness of 1.2, the highest level for data centers in Japan. Download here
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ASHRAE released its technical program for its 2026 Annual Conference, taking place June 27–July 1 in Austin, Texas. The conference will bring together industry professionals, researchers and practitioners from around the world for a week of knowledge-sharing, technical exploration, professional development and peer engagement. The complete schedule is now available online and through ASHRAE 365, enabling attendees to build personalized conference itineraries in advance. Read more |
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Airborne diseases like COVID-19 can easily spread between apartments in multi-family housing buildings using a common bathroom ventilation system, according to a study from the University of Colorado Boulder and several other institutions. Researchers looked at a COVID-19 outbreak inside an older high-rise building in Spain in 2020, where 15 individuals contracted the virus despite staying in their apartments during lockdown. Read more
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