Pretty cool (no pun). Wonder if this would have an effect on city UHI?

Bill Marsh wrote:

Pretty cool (no pun). Wonder if this would have an effect on city UHI?

Good question, William. Since the UHI effect is negligible, these windows will no doubt result in rampant global cooling. ;-)

Bill Marsh: I was thinking the same thing. If they can reduce glare, it will at least help the heat that gets into the surrounding buildings, meaning less A/C usage.

Stay cool

Sounds like a really good idea, but I wonder if it could produce enough electricity over the lifetime of the system to pay for itself?

Bill Marsh,

Pretty cool (no pun). Wonder if this would have an effect on city UHI?

In theory, it should. The windows are converting some solar energy that would otherwise be converted into thermal energy to electrical energy instead. The question is, how much of the incoming energy will be converted instead of reflected? My guess is not much, and the effect on UHI will be negligible. You never know, though. As I said, it depends how much light is converted rather than reflected.

Why not also mount huge windmills on top of the buildings to keep the air circulating. Run all the waste water drainage pipes to one spot at the bottom of these buildings and generate hydropower from them (Reply: I doubt there would be enough power generated by that, I am no expert though), reuse the waste as methane for heat, paint the top of the building white and the bottom black, grow a garden on the roof, all self sufficient, the new age high tech city dwelling amish.

Stay cool

Good find Brett. This is what I'm talking about.

If we all exhibit some patience, let the free markets work, we can get there without carbon offsets/taxation. Besides, who wouldn't want to invest in some of these things? I would. We live in the greatest country in the world. We can overcome technological challenges.

As far as July, we have greater arctic sea ice coverge compared to 2005, 2006 and 2007. We have time. Let's not jump ship just yet.

http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm

I heard Snickers may film their next commercial in the Arctic. "Not going anywhere for a while?"

Fantastic idea.

Never any shortage of global warming BS at the New Tork Times

The data scientists are now studying reveal substantial evidence that on average Arctic temperatures in the winter have risen 11 degrees over the past 30 years

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00E3DD1E31F93AA1575BC0A9669C8B63

http://climate.uah.edu/jan2008.htm

Great Idea, hope it works out.

While we are at it, why don't we put pipes in the concrete surrounding the buildings to collect all the energy from the sunlight hitting the concrete, concentrate the energy and produce steam to drive a turbine to generate electricity.

We could also concentrate the heat from computers and lights too.

Who wants to fund my 'project'?

If the energy produced at least pays for the additional cost of the windows, who could object to that?
Sounds great to me. Rock on!

This is just good engineering.

Now if they can build in the efficiency of the Israeli Solar technology.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/137821-Israeli+company+makes+solar+energy+viable

Excerpt:
According to Feiman, "an ordinary photovoltaic cell, which is 10 by 10 centimeters, normally produces one watt of electricity. We managed to extract more than a thousand times more - 1,500 watts. In this way, the cost of a cell is 1,500 less, becoming almost nothing."

AND:

More proof that AGW is a leftist agenda.
Rojer Pielke Sr.

http://climatesci.org/2008/07/15/recent-ignored-scientific-findings-an-illustration-of-a-broken-scientific-method/

Excerpt:
This weblog lists three research findings that are in the peer reviewed literature, but have been completely ignored by the IPCC ...

RICH:
We live the greatest country in the world,so we don't need to cap and trade. While GM is restructuring, like a bull in a china shop, the new toyota Prius which gets 55 mpg, will be even better next year with a solar panel on the roof.
China is the largest maker of solar panels,and now budweiser is European. Half of the Air Bus is being made in Europe. Now that my mortgage is owned by the government(INDYMAC), and we owe 8 trillion dollars, three of it from China, no wonder they sell us lead products. The only reason we are not fighting in Iran is that you have no extra troops for George Bush's wars. Now that we are in a recession the world is going to buy us out! We are now making our money from European tourists. God bless the EURO!
KIPP

Great idea. I've often wondered why they don't do this more often. I agree Rich, that this country is capable of becoming independent of OPEC by using our intelligence, willpower to be the best and our tremendous resources to develop alternative, non-food based sources of energy. I think it's possible without reducing our standard of living. But we all need to work together instead of constantly bashing each other because we have different points of view.

We have a great example of an energy efficient green building in the city near where I live. It has a rainwater collection system that uses that collected rainwater to flush the toilets. It's roof is a white rubberized material to save on cooling costs, it has motion detection light switches, large windows and skylights to use more natural light, and it is one of the most advanced, high tech buildings around. It even has a windmill to generate power. It is a fine example of a high tech energy efficient building - last time I checked....it's not Amish! LOL!

Gary,

The one big problem I have with Pielke's article is in regards to his second statement:

"A conservative estimate of the warm bias in the construction of a global average surface temperature trend resulting from measuring the air temperature near the ground is around 0.21C per decade (with the nighttime minimum temperature contributing a large part of this bias). Since land covers about 29% of the Earth's surface, the warm bias due to this influence explains about 30% of the IPCC estimate of global warming. In other words, consideration of the bias in temperature would reduce the IPCC trend to about 0.14C per decade; still a warming, but not as large as indicated [based on Lin et al 2007];"

What he seems to ignore is the fact that satellite temperatures (for the whole world including oceans) basically confirm the same amount of reported land surface temperature increases reported over the last 30-years (that is all the satellite data we have so far). He also ignores the fact that ocean temperatures, far removed from any surface/land heating issue, are also increasing at the same rates as those on land for the past 100-years. So his statements are not trully accurate.

Also isn't the result of the heating of the land areas occupied by humans caused by the direct result of human development, thus by definition - "caused by humans" - therefore anthropogenic?

Dennis wrote:
"Also isn't the result of the heating of the land areas occupied by humans caused by the direct result of human development, thus by definition - "caused by humans" - therefore anthropogenic?"

Fine, Dennis, now can we get the vast majority of the AGW faithful to talk about more than just CO2 and back off a bit on the demand for CO2 reduction?

Great idea, although I'm a little old fashioned and would prefer to drill my way out this.

Hi Kipp,

The Toyota Prius, although fuel efficent, is not cost effective yet. It is priced $8,000 higher than comparable cars. They also need to work on the battery. It's average life of 6 years makes it unattractive, especially when the replacement battery costs over $5,000. That's $13,000 MORE for an average car that produces LESS CO2. This is why you see mostly-only "greenies" driving them, less CO2.

I am not surprised that China and Europe grow in strength. What do you suggest we do?

As for carbon offsets/taxation, you may want to tell Obama or McCain that we DON'T need them.

"The only reason we are not fighting in Iran is that you have no extra troops for George Bush's wars."

Ummm... we have troops. They are spread throughout the world. Are you suggesting that we close bases and relocate troops to Iraq? Do you know that "Bushs" war is actually Americas war, Australias war, Great Britians war and countless other countries war on terrorism?

Do you think Obama can CONVINCE the Iranians that they are WRONG? Do you think Israel will strike Iran under preemption? Don't you think this would effect fuel prices? Isn't this a good reason for us to drill our own fuel AND continue with alternative energy?

Finally, are you willing to be PATIENT and stop with the change or die, global warming rhetoric?

Dennis:
You "may" have a point about Roger's comments.
You should ask him. He is however, linking to peer reviewed papers so you may find yourself arguing with several experts in the field.
Your second comment doesn't make sense to me.
How do you extrapolate from "the heating of the land areas occupied by humans" to Humans caused the heating. Seems to me to be co-incedent not caused by.

Kipp: Take a deeper look at the Prius.
First, it takes way more resources to build.
Second, (at least where I live) the fuel saving in the car is more that offset by the fuel burning in the coal fired power plants that charge the batteries.
I believe the Prius is a very good example of knee jerk solutions that don't help anything.

Toyota does build a small clean diesel car in Europe that get 69 MPG without the complex electrics or use of coal.

Gary: "Your second comment doesn't make sense to me.
How do you extrapolate from "the heating of the land areas occupied by humans" to Humans caused the heating. Seems to me to be co-incedent not caused by."

Are you trying to tell me that the areas in which the cities currently exist would have warmed up all by themselves anyway without man building the cities? The fact that the land is heating up in and around the cities more than the outlying areas is just a coincidence with our placement of the cities? We just happended to pick the right spots that would have been warming naturally?

If the urban heat island is not directly caused by us humans what is it caused by?

Dennis:
My Bad.
I see what you mean. I was reading it wrong.

Gary:

I don't believe the Prius actually uses any electricity from coal plants. The batteries are charged by the engine when it is using traditional fuel, and also from the braking system.

As for the initial charge of the batteries, I'm not sure where that comes from, and I can't comment one way or the other on how much extra energy is consumed in making the vehicle. I agree that strictly as a cost-saving measure, as long as gas is under ~$6 a gallon, it's not worth it.

At the time I was researching the Prius, there was talk of a GM model called a Volt, however. It was supposed to run completely off of a battery charged by plugging in the car. I can't say if this is better or worse for the environment, I'd have to see emissions comparisons between traditional automobiles and power plants. I think this would be a good option if we could figure out a way to make fuel-cell technology available. If not running the car off of it directly, at least a personal station in the garage to "fuel up" your electric car.

Stay cool

Triple C wrote:
"At the time I was researching the Prius, there was talk of a GM model called a Volt, however. It was supposed to run completely off of a battery charged by plugging in the car."

The Volt is actually a hybrid as well. The latest info available indicates a range of about 40 miles on a fully charged battery. For when the battery runs low, it has a small gasoline engine that turns a generator to continually charge the battery while driving (kind of like the diesel-electric locomotives that have been around for many years). The combustion engine extends its range to about 600 miles on a tank of gas. GM estimates about 60mpg while running on gasoline - not bad.

Personally, I'm waiting for when battery technology improves enough to make a plug-in with acceptable range possible without the gasoline engine. I don't care about CO2 emissions, but I'd love to stop sending so much $ out of the country for petroleum. The electric grid in our State is powered mostly by U.S. produced nuclear and coal.

Relative to impact on Urban Heat island (UHI) effect:

(I think) Solar collection essentially acts to increase the overall albedo of the building. If solar radiation was absorbed simply as heat energy, that energy would be conductively and radiatively transferred back to the atmosphere, with an especially noticeable effect after dark. To assess the UHI impact of solar one needs to follow the electrical energy to determine how much is ultimately dissipated as heat inside the building and then, ultimately convected, conducted or radiated back outside and how much is converted to mechanical energy like flushing toilets (and I don't now what the typical ratios are)

Relative to batteries being the saving grace:

They still need to be charged from somewhere. Their real benefit is presumably that they can be more efficient in converting electrical energy to kinetic energy than an individual combustion engine. If fossil fuels are needed to generate the electricity to charge them, it is likely that a power plant is more efficient than a number of individual engines. I'm sure someone has done all those calculations, including energy transmission loss, etc.