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France to ban heating/airconditioning the streets
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MrMobodies:
I went to Amerstam many years ago and in the winter and it was the cold all around. About 2 years later I went back about the same time of the year and noticed these floodlights with this bulb that emitted a red light with lot heat and they seem to be all over the streets in many shop fronts in the place I was staying. Where it was really cold on some streets without these things it was like summer on busy streets with these things everywhere and switched on. I thought what a waste of electricity and that couldn't be good for the environment. I remembered in about Spring time something about an early short heatwave from hot air flowing from Europe into Britain but maybe that is just a coincidence. I didn't know they did this in France but I read that they going to put a stop to this.

https://www.fastcompany.com/90533015/france-will-ban-outdoor-heating-at-restaurants

--- Quote ---07-27-20 WORLD CHANGING IDEAS
France is going to ban outdoor heating at restaurants
Bring a blanket, because the heaters are an “ecological aberration.”


BY KRISTIN TOUSSAINT 2 MINUTE READ
Outdoor dining has been popular in France since long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but next year, it may be a bit more difficult to do when the weather turns less-than-ideal. The French government committed to banning outdoor heaters at restaurants and bars as part of a package of measures meant to make the country more environmentally friendly.

Ecology Minister Barbara Pompili said that outdoor heating or air conditioning was an “ecological aberration,” according to the BBC, which reported that the ban isn’t set to go into effect until after the winter, in order to give restaurants that have been hit by the pandemic more time to recover economically.

Rennes, in northwest France, outlawed heated terraces in January, becoming the first French municipality to do so. Though Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo has previously said she wouldn’t ban outdoor heaters because of how it would harm businesses, some residents there have called for them to be banned over concerns about gas and electricity use. Jacques Boutault, mayor of Paris’s second arrondissement, called for an outdoor heating ban in March, telling Euronews that if Paris wants to reach its goal of being carbon neutral by 2030, then it has to begin by not “using pointless energy like these heaters.”

There are about 12,500 heated terraces in Paris alone, per the BBC. Heated terraces became especially commonplace in the city after bans on indoor smoking went into effect. Thierry Salomon, vice president of the French sustainable energy advocacy group NegaWatt, estimates that one terrace with five gas heaters running for 14 hours a day from November to March produces 13.6 tonnes of CO2, “the equivalent of what a new car would emit if it went around the Earth three times.”

Others have pointed out that heating—and cooling—the outdoor air is extremely inefficient. Speaking to reporters on Monday after announcing this latest climate package, Pompili added that it was wrong for stores to “air-condition the streets” in the summer by keeping their doors open. “Neither should terraces be heated in winter so people can feel warm as they drink coffee,” she said. As part of the environmental package, all heated or air-conditioned buildings open to the public will have to keep their doors closed, so as not to waste energy.

The environmental efforts announced Monday were recommended by the Citizens’ Convention on Climate, a group of 150 randomly selected French citizens that was set up by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019. The announced measures also include the creation of two natural parks and a nature reserve, and calls for building owners to improve insulation and not install new coal- or oil-burning furnaces
--- End quote ---
Mr. Scram:
I always felt future historians would show pictures of these things when global warming and our folly are discussed.
David Hess:
They would not be using radiant heating outdoors unless it made economic sense, which it may not if the cost of the power for it is being subsidized but how would the businesses know that?

So somewhere the government is subsidizing the power.  Stop doing that and if radiant heating outdoors does not result in greater profits from increased sales, businesses will stop doing it.  Solving one market distortion with another will just lead to rent seeking, which it already has.
NiHaoMike:
Wouldn't it make more sense to just heat the seats that are being used?
KaneTW:
What nonsense. All patio heaters combined don't even make a drop in the bucket in energy consumption.
If they did, they would be too expensive to operate for a restaurant.

The trend of taking away comforts for a perceived improvement in climate change while bigger, actual improvements flounder is extremely irritating.
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