Tag: climate

Proper HVAC

by collecting 500M data points from the sensors in all their buildings every 24h, finding huge energy savings right away:

In 1 building garage, exhaust fans had been mistakenly left on for a year (to the tune of $66K of wasted energy). Within moments of coming online, the smart buildings solution sniffed out this fault and the problem was corrected.

2016-07-21: Cooling AI

by applying DeepMind’s machine learning to Google data centers, we’ve reduced the energy we use for cooling by up to 40%. In any large scale environment, this would be a huge improvement. Given how sophisticated Google’s data centers are already, it’s a phenomenal step forward.

this is why smart grids are one of the highest ROI investments countries could make.

Aerosolized sulfuric acid

Customize several Gulfstream business jets with military engines and with equipment to produce and disperse fine droplets of sulfuric acid. Fly the jets up around 20 kilometers—significantly higher than the cruising altitude for a commercial jetliner but still well within their range. The planes spray the sulfuric acid, carefully controlling the rate of its release. The sulfur combines with water vapor to form sulfate aerosols, fine particles less than 1 micrometer in diameter. These get swept upward by natural wind patterns and are dispersed over the globe, including the poles. Once spread across the stratosphere, the aerosols will reflect ~1% of the sunlight hitting Earth back into space. Increasing the planet’s albedo will partially offset the warming effects caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases.

If operations were begun in 2020, it would take 25k tons of sulfuric acid to cut global warming 50% after 1 year. Once underway, the injection of sulfuric acid would proceed continuously. By 2040, 11 jets delivering ~250k tons of it each year, at an annual cost of $700m, would be required to compensate for the increased warming caused by rising levels of CO2. By 2070, the program would need to be injecting a bit more than 1m tons per year using a fleet of 100 aircraft. One of the startling things about Keith’s proposal is just how little sulfur would be required. A few grams of it in the stratosphere will offset the warming caused by a ton of CO2

since these schemes are cheap enough and consensus unobtainable (who gets a say?) we’ll very likely see surprise unilateral action by rich individuals, companies or states once the situation gets dire enough.

Bronze Age Collapse

the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire.

The thing about bronze is that it requires long supply lines. To make a bronze sword in Greece, you might need tin from Cornwall and copper from Cyprus. Except for a small area in Asia Minor, tin and copper deposits don’t co-occur. The Bronze Age was therefore a time of international trade and travel. Art from the Middle East turned up in Norway and Afghanistan, that sort of thing.
2023-02-11: Evidence for a climate factor in the collapse

Here we examine the collapse of the Hittite Empire 3200 BP. The Hittites were one of the great powers in the ancient world, with an empire centered in a semi-arid region in Anatolia with political and socioeconomic interconnections throughout the ancient Near East and Eastern Mediterranean, which for a long time proved resilient despite facing regular and intersecting sociopolitical, economic and environmental challenges. Examination of ring width and stable isotope records obtained from contemporary juniper trees in central Anatolia provides a high-resolution dryness record. This analysis identifies an unusually severe continuous dry period from around 1198 to 1196 (±3) BC, potentially indicating a tipping point, and signals the type of episode that can overwhelm contemporary risk-buffering practices.

The Physical Internet

they gloss over the crucial bit, the peering agreements. standardizing containers is obvious and already well underway with shipping containers and pallets, but peering is pretty much nowhere, and much trickier in the physical world, where all routes are not the same.

The Physical Internet – a concept in which goods are handled, stored and transported in a shared network of manufacturers, retailers and the transportation industry – would benefit the US economy and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If 25% of the US supply chain operated with such an interconnected system, profits for participating firms would increase by $100B, CO2 emissions from road-based freight would decrease by at least 33% and consumers would pay less for goods.

NYC Green Roofs

The benefits of a green roof, reduction of temperature, are very similar to that of the CoolRoofs, but add oxygen creation, water management and sound dampening.

2019-04-24:

rooftops on new buildings and those that go through extensive renovation on old buildings need to be covered in green roof infrastructure, solar panels or a combination of the 2.