AaronYeah I’m sure it’s all the dark colors that are causing global warming, nobody pay attention to the cars.
Linza@aaroncorsi It can temporarily blind drivers, which will save the world from cars in a different way.
danbjoseph@danbjoseph oh no, not like that! 😨
@aaroncorsi we could also try filling their gas tanks with the extremely reflective white paint 😉
Pavel Recnik@aaroncorsi while I agree that cars should be seen for what they have done to our planet, these paints are neat from a physics perspective. I ran a similar calculation to that in the article a while back and remember immediately concluding that it was absolutely an terrible idea.
That being said, the "space cooling" ultra white paint has interesting applications in urban and rural environments in a warming world, for what it's worth.
@pavelrecnik Past my snarky response I agree that there are probably some good uses for this paint and it probably even makes sense as one of countless small changes we could make to lessen the climate disaster. Should we paint all the roads and parking lots white? Probably not, but maybe it would make sense applied to roofing or something.
@aaroncorsi for sure, just wanted to add context because I find this material interesting.
Roofs are far better (don't want to blind pedestrians and drivers with ultra white paint, our roads are already unsafe enough). The paint can be used for passive cooling structures as well. Think a pavilion with a passive cooling canopy for sub-ambient conditions as a heat refuge without needing to run power. Permanent structures in public square and parks or temporary structures for events in summer.
Rob Galanakis@pavelrecnik @aaroncorsi there was an article the other day about how relatively useless this has been in Phoenix. The problem is mostly this paint gets worn down and dirty very quickly. I don't see how that can be engineered around at scale. Maybe if we stick to roofs, but that seems unable to reach scale in a useful time period
@robgalanakis @aaroncorsi yeah, it does not seem to be a good set and forget type of surface covering. The question would become maintenance, additional protective layers etc. Hopefully as we get more real world experience we can moderate our expectations and learn best practices.
@pavelrecnik @aaroncorsi I'm all for small marginal gains, but they need to be balanced against other uses for the money. I don't see how this can possibly pencil out. Phoenix is continuing with it because the coating is more durable. So we'll see what happens.
@robgalanakis Thats a good point, the resources used keeping the paint clean enough to be effective might even wind up negating its benefits.