They want to “save the planet”.
Is this actually a Chinese run paper? I think I saw another article where the Chinese in Hong Kong were sleeping in McDonald’s restaurants precisely because of their air conditioning problems.
Some government goon probably saw that and decided they needed to make the Koreans and Japanese feel bad for the same thing.
Korean idea of “hi-tech” is a shovel that is powered by 3 humans.
Maybe this is what Trump had in mind when he was selling Kim Jung Un about building hotels and making North Korea a tourist Mecca...
There are even personal sized swamp coolers that one places close where they are sitting or sleeping.
France doesn’t use it either
Except for commercial buildings no one had AC in Colorado when I was growing up. True in California if you lived in the Bay Area. Didn’t need it very often so why bother
Ive been in the summer...there are (traditional Korean style) spas to cool off or sweat it out in sauna on every corner it seems.
This is typical in Asia. We have air conditioner/heaters for each room. When it’s too hot or too cold and you can’t bundle up or strip off clothes to be comfortable, you turn them on. This is standard in Japan. If it gets too hot in the house, I go outside. No big deal. I like the contrast on the high-tech and the uncomprehensible to the outsider “low-tech” that we have here.
Plenty of homes in the NE US with no AC.
Also in Korean culture, being cold is a big no-no...
Like iced drinks are traditionally looked down upon as being bad for health etc...
In south florida A/C is absolute.
We only have 2 seasons, hot and really HOT
The humidity is so high your sweat doesn’t evaporate cooling you off.
I drink at least 1 gallon of water when at work
It wasn't so long ago that refrigeration/AC was reserved for the very rich in Korea (I'm sure that's still true in the North). Korean cuisine is based on a lot of pickled vegetables (Kimchee), which don't require refrigeration, because most people didn't have refrigerators or electricity until recently.
Even in the big cities the majority of housing predates A/C. It's common to see concrete hi-rise apartment buildings with electric cables attached to the OUTSIDE, feeding individual A/C units.
Energy is expensive, even hot water is a luxury in some places...
Electric rates here are artificially high so the states can A) collect more tax and B) to force their view of saving the earth at our expense.
It is really not that big of deal, especially if you are not used to it. I have lived in Arizona for 34 years now and never lived in a house that had anything more than a swamp cooler and only had a couple cars that had working a/c, including the one we have now, my wife uses it now and then, but I have never even turned it on this year after charging it up at the end of spring.
Was there in 2014 - Coast Guard facility in Inchon had the AC set at 95 (Government mandated) - that was a miserable day of meetings (jacket and tie, drenched).
The article supplies the answer and it has little to do with technology. The problem is public utility regulation policies that seems to cost-favor industry (and maybe even commercial) power consumers over residents.
But sometimes all it takes is a good crisis for public policy to change. Maybe the heat wave will have a positive affect of changing public utility regulations, and moving some of the cost burden of power consumption off of residential consumers.
Of course that will only seem to be the case when it is done, because surely if industrial power consumption costs rise, South Korean consumers could see some prices rise on the goods they purchase; partially offsetting lower utility bills.
Ah yes, things cost what they cost and in the end everything produced is something consumed and for which the consumer will pay for the cost (one way or another), and at least the cost even when the profit margin is slim.
68% with AC doesn’t sound bad. There’s chunks of America well below that. Some folks just ain’t into it.