Anthropogenic Global Warming

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More ancient construction can help cool homes and lower costs in desert homes.

This Ancient AC System will Cool your House Without Electricity

A designer has adapted ancient methods of A/C into a modern, stylish wall ornament that powerfully regulates indoor temperatures without a watt of electricity.

The Nave is a large terracotta radiator filled with cold water, inspired by the Jarrah of ancient Palestine. Pores in the terracotta release tiny amounts of water which evaporate and cool down the interior of the Nave, cooling the wall radiatively, and thus the room.

Humans have been baking in the heat of the deserts and the tropics for millennia, and long before the invention of air conditioning, engineers and architects had methods for cooling down built into their homes.

Yael Issacharov, industrial designer at the Holon Institute of Technology, says the Nave performs best in desert climates where the dry air will gestate evaporation at a faster rate. The invention won her the gold at the IDA Design Awards, and bronze at the A’Design Awards.

She says its price would be more expensive than a regular A/C unit, but along with recouping the cost through energy savings, the Nave is actually quite beautiful to look at, and frees up the use of the window.

The Jarrah of Palestine was actually used to store drinking water, as the evaporation process helped keep the water cool, as well the room it was stored in.

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A new paint that could help reduce costs by keeping building cooler.

This Paint is So White it Reflects Heat So Humans Don't Need as Much Cooling

A stunningly-white coat of paint could be used to reduce reliance on air conditioning, after it was demonstrated to reflect 98.7% of incoming sunlight.

Just the paint alone was shown in a demonstrations to keep surfaces 19°F cooler than the surroundings by completely reflecting incoming solar radiation.

It was in 2021 that Xiulin Ruan, a Purdue University professor of mechanical engineering, first developed the paint, and with a new tweak that’s achieved the same results with a thinner coat, it has the potential of becoming an industry standard.

“I’ve been contacted by everyone from spacecraft manufacturers to architects to companies that make clothes and shoes,” said Xiulin Ruan. “They mostly had two questions: Where can I buy it, and can you make it thinner?”

The 2021 world’s whitest paint, for which Ruan was entered into the Guinness World Records, had to be applied at a layer of 400 microns thick, which is only possible for robust and stationary objects like buildings.

For things like airplanes, cars, or anything that comes with weight restrictions, 400 microns is too dense a coating to be useable. That’s why Ruan and his colleagues went back to experimenting with new materials, and replaced the barium oxide with hexagonal boron nitride.

Something like this has the possibility of massively reducing cooling costs and could be hugely beneficial in certain areas.

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Here's an interesting option for a smaller segment of businesses. But who knows what it could lead to.

Scottish Nightclub is Powered By the Heat From Dancers - Moving the Venue to Thermal Energy

A Scottish night club has found it can reduce its carbon footprint by 70 tons per year if it relies on the beat to make the heat.

Glasgow arts venue SWG3 now has a dancefloor that absorbs body heat from the dancers and converts it to thermal energy, between 250 and 600 watts depending on how intense the music is.

The venue had announced the idea last year, but has only just got it turned on; not a moment to soon considering the energy crisis.

The thermal energy is channeled via a carrier fluid to a deep borehole 650 feet (200 meters) underground where it is charged like a thermal battery before being pumped back up to provide heating and A/C to the club.

TownRock Energy Geothermal designed the system which they aptly branded as “Body Heat” and founder David Townsend told the BBC that medium intensity music like the Rolling Stones could generate 250 watts.

“But if you’ve got a big DJ, absolutely slamming basslines and making everyone jump up and down, you could be generating 500-600W of thermal energy,” he said.

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This is the kind of tech/discoveries that can go a long way in helping repurpose/recycle things that have been difficult to this point.

Breakthrough: Polyethylene Bags and Jugs Can Finally be Upcycled to Solve Several Problems at Once

Notorious plastic bags and containers can finally be upcycled, thanks to a new technique for recycling polyethylene bags and food packaging into valuable starter materials for high-value plastics and chemicals.

Polyethylene plastics are used to make plastic bags, shampoo bottles, and many products that are extremely difficult to recycle. In fact, only 14 percent of all polyethylene plastic are currently able to be recycled—and, then, only for certain products such as garden furniture.

They make up about one-third of the entire plastics market worldwide—all manufactured using massive amounts of fossil fuels.

But this may be changing thanks to scientists at the University of California, Berkeley in the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

They have found a way to break the sturdy polymers into the three-carbon molecule called propylene—a valuable molecule that can then be used to make new plastics, including polypropylene, which is used in ropes, twine, tape, carpets, upholstery, clothing, and camping equipment.

Not only that, the discovery will allow them to do it with very minimal fossil fuels.

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Undersea Cable to Funnel 3 Gigawatts of Solar Energy From Egypt to Power Millions of European Households

aking advantage of the huge output of solar energy in places neighboring the Sahara Desert, a massive undersea power cable is coming to Europe from Egypt.

Bringing 3,000 megawatts of renewable energy, the GREGY interconnection will run from northern Egypt to Attica, Greece.

Expected to be in operation for around 8 years, one-third of the cable’s supply will power Greek heavier industry, another third will be exported via shared grids to other European countries Bulgaria and Italy.

The final third will go to the production of green hydrogen.

“By bringing 3 gigawatts of clean energy to Europe, via Greece, we are helping Europe wean itself off Russia’s fossil fuels and natural gas. Also, the green energy we will transport will be much cheaper than today’s energy prices. You understand that this will help both Greek and European consumers,” said Ioannis Karydas, CEO of Renewables, Copelouzos Group.

Utilizing the conditions around the Sahara for clean energy isn't a bad thing. Apparently there's one in Morocco that delivers 10 gigawatts to the UK.