Hello again Peachtree City and AR! This blog has definitely no lack of controversial subject mater. So are you ready for this one? Ready or not....here goes!
US Energy Secretary Steven Chu, the 61-year-old physicist who is also a Nobel laureate in physics, says that he has the solution to the green house emissions that would literally be like taking every car off the road on this planet for 11 years! Pinch yourself and read on. This geo-engineering phenomenon would involve the painting of the roofs of homes and businesses.....WHITE!!!
Okay folks, I'm sure everyone has their own take on the scientist-turned-politician's advice to Prince Charles and the world. Further, for a more provacative debate you'd also probably have to stand in line as Chu has been all but Chu-ed up by a lynch mob of environmentalists over decisions he's rendered about America's campaign to fight global warming. But putting all the political horseplay and bantering aside....Is there any merit in the whole premise of white paint reflecting sunlight enabling buildings to stay cooler and using less energy? I didn't have a lot of physics courses in school but I do know that white paint emits less radiation so it would help to keep homes cooler in summer. In regards to the winter, you would probably have to have pretty good insulation.....but most heat is lost by convection, not radiation. My research has ascertained that it is all about Albedo....ability to reflect light back into space.
Essentially, the white rooftops would function just like the clouds reflecting heat back into space. About 50% of sunlight is visible light and the other 50% is heat. I know this sound like more hype and I'm not a scientist but the premise of these factors leading to about a 50% reduction of visible energy from the sun has to be at least acknowledged and researched further at this point. But for all those that are still processing this information...we'll just let that info marinate in your head for a few. But continue on my friends, there is more to this story.
So alright...think of it this way. Every year we would keep out of the atmosphere approximately 2.4 billion tons of carbon dioxide or the emissions produced by 60 million cars! On a bigger scale if we painted every roof in 100 major cities it would offset the entire planet's carbon emissions for one year. That just about 44 metric gigatons of Co2!!!!
I'm also inclined to think that if we do roof we might as well also consider our concrete and asphalt roadways. Every summer it gets so hot that you can see haze and smoke literally rising off the pavement. In Atlanta the asphalt get so hot that I could have sworn I saw the devil running butt-naked down the road nursing a sunburn. Okay so maybe it was just someone with a sunburn that ran out of gas from sitting in traffic. But traffic and rising oil prices are other issues and posts I'll reserve for another time!
Anyway, just for the record, let's go to the experts. I'm sure any scientist will state that there is conclusive
evidence that support the correlation between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the increase of global temperatures. Hashem Akbari and Surabi Meno, along with Art Rosenfeld, California Energy Commissioner and Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, are so convinced that this idea will work, that they have proposed a "Cool World" Plan that would use white roofs, and solar-reflective roofs of other colors, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help delay atmospheric heating effects.
Alright folks I hear ya rumbling out there. What would this type of project costs, right? Well the estimates I found were about $2.50 to $3.00 per square foot. So if you were to look at a 100,000 square ft facility the cost would be about $300,000. On the flip side that same ar-conditioned building here in Georgia would would probably recoup those cost pretty quickly in energy savings. By the way, talk about a boost to the job market...look how many jobs could possibly be created by this endeavour alone. (Not to mention paint stocks) I'm not a politician either but this agenda could be the beginnings of a serious debate which could include merit consideration for a tax credit to individuals and businesses to assist with implementation costs.
If this concepts still does not make dollars and sense to you, let's break it down to what we were all taught by our parents growing up. We all wore light colored clothing in the warm months because we stayed cooler that wearing dark ones, right? Additionally, if you have had an opportunity to travel especially to a Mediterranean country it is no surprise that residential homes and roofing came in a cornucopia of cool colors and roofing materials. This new research by Akbari, Rosenfeld, and Menon goes on to give estimates on how much cooling might be possible, in equivalent mass of carbon dioxide, by converting roofs and pavements in the world's urban areas to solar-reflective surfaces. Their research calculate that retrofitting 1,000 square feet (about 100 square meters) of roof with cool material that reflects 60 percent or more of the sun's heat would offset the emissions of 10 metric tons of CO2.
Starting to make sense now? Folks there is already tried and true technology out there for us to utilize in addressing this problem. Not only that...there has been technology around for just more than a minute. By the way, an even more startling revelation from my research found that in 30 years more than two-thirds of all the people inhabiting this earth will live in urban areas! Yes our cities will be gi-normous and if we don't get a handle on this now, the problems are obvious. To give you an example, did you watch the Olympics? The air quality in our major cities pale in comparison to Beijing. If this still sounds absurd to you, I understand your cynicism....however do your own research. The information is out there and available to us all. Don't be so naive to think that a real problem does not exist and even more-so that it will just go away!
Yeah...I hear ya now! Something needs to be done and with all the wasted energy being exerted by some of our elected officials.......it's all just enough to make you lose your cool!
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