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Smog in our brains

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Re: Smog in our brains

#61

Post by fma »

louprado wrote: post #54

Can anyone recommend an air quality detector for personal use. My second floor office is in downtown Oakland by a busy road. The windows are closed and an air filter is always running. Perhaps the air filter is providing a false sense of security and not trapping any sub 2.5 micron particles. My last air quality detector seemed questionable. I could leave the windows open during rush hour it would always just say the…

I have foobot if you want an IOT device. Seems to work. I have a brand new house and the formaldehyde/VOC levels were very high. It's sad that it's not regulated in the USA for residential (it is for office...). Opened the windows as much as possible. Now levels are low and I'm not as concerned.

I also got a cheaper monitor (https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01N0MJJRO/ref=pd_aw_sim_sbs_... this has no reviews, but on mobile and don't feel like searching more) and this works as well for fast instantaneous readings. One day my wife was using moisturizer and it went crazy. Found out many bath and cosmetic products use formaldehyde (DMDM hydrogenate or whatever...different name but essentially formaldehyde)

Re: Smog in our brains

#62

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

freeflight wrote: post #57
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they did, I would hope people around them recognized that their conflation of neurotoxins in water and largely benign electronics makes very little sense. I think I understand the sentiment, but I don't think the three are the same. And if they had similar results, hypothetically, they would be for entirely different reasons. edit: I'm interested to know more about peoples' concerns about smartphones and other dev…

> If they did, I would hope people around them recognized that their conflation of neurotoxins in water and largely benign electronics makes very little sense. Right now we consider these electronics, and their emissions, largely benign but that doesn't mean that's actually the case in the long term. Think about the amount of wireless stuff constantly going on around you: GSM, EDGE, UMTS, LTE, bluetooth, several WLAN…

> GSM, EDGE, UMTS, LTE, bluetooth, several WLAN standards, radio, satellite

Non-ionizing, regulated dosage. Maybe we'll discover they were dangerous, but evidence doesn't support it so far.

Re: Smog in our brains

#63

Post by logicallee »

simongray wrote: post #60
bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there an easy way to measure your indoor air quality?

I live in Beijing and we use the air purifiers from Xiaomi to measure indoor air quality (and clean it up). It's true that eg frying bacon really makes the air quality index spike up a lot.

Off topic but I have a ton of questions about air in Beijing - I can hardly believe what I've heard. It's kind of off-topic but if you'd have a minute, could you shoot me an email (see my profile here) or reply with yours? Thanks.

Re: Smog in our brains

#64

Post by freeflight »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #62
freeflight wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they did, I would hope people around them recognized that their conflation of neurotoxins in water and largely benign electronics makes very little sense. Right now we consider these electronics, and their emissions, largely benign but that doesn't mean that's actually the case in the long term. Think about the amount of wireless stuff constantly going on around you: GSM, EDGE, UMTS, LTE, bluetooth, several WLAN…

> GSM, EDGE, UMTS, LTE, bluetooth, several WLAN standards, radio, satellite Non-ionizing, regulated dosage. Maybe we'll discover they were dangerous, but evidence doesn't support it so far.

> regulated dosage

Of a single device, but how do we account for the accumulation of the dosages when there are literally dozens of those devices constantly around us?

Let's also keep in mind that we haven't been living like this for very long, 10-20 years ain't really that big of a timeframe. For all purpose and effect, this is a rather recent development in human history.

That's stuff bad dystopian sci-fi stories are made of: 30 years from now developed countries will reach "peak ERM" and people's brains suddenly start shriveling to raisins ;)

Re: Smog in our brains

#65

Post by toisanji »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #59
observation wrote: post #53

You should be worried about IAQ - indoor air quality. This is because you spend 90% of your time indoors. It is also because IAQ is far worse than outdoor air quality. The kitchens of most homes would be closed down by inspectors if they were commercial. Correctly ventilating a home with a ERV/HRV, bathroom ventilation and oven hood (harder than it sounds because many designs are snake oil) solves the problem. Few pe…

Is there an easy way to measure your indoor air quality?

sounds like a great idea for a startup product, air monitoring device

Re: Smog in our brains

#66

Post by KGIII »

nooron wrote: post #50
akiselev wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A technology whose proponents's best answer even today is "wait until the next breakthrough". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_lightbulb This was researcher was completed by the United Aircraft Corporation in the late 60's and early 70's before it was canceled by Nixon along with the Mars program. It was under a NASA contract for space exploration so the literature is in the context of a rocket engine but it i…

I recommend To the End of the Solar System by James Dewar, on this topic. He's an evangelist, but it has great primary source docs.

There is also a prolific guy on YouTube. He's all about the liquid salt thorium reactors. I don't recall his name, but searching YouTube for that phrase will almost certainly find him.

I believe they have a project in the works. I just watch documentaries, I am not a nuclear physicist or anything. It sounds like it is safe and efficient. We've got a huge supply of thorium.

Re: Smog in our brains

#67

Post by KGIII »

jdc wrote: post #43
legulere wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars surprisingly don't reduce particulate matter air pollution by much. A big part of the pollution comes from wear of the tires and the road. It's higher with heavier cars and electric cars generally are heavier because of their batteries. Then you have the effect of reemission of PM already lying on the road that stays the same. Another way of PM emissions that is not tackled at all is agriculture. And it…

Just how great are the PM emissions from car tires? Has anyone quantified the effect?

2015 EPA

Tire wear is something like 10%, maybe a bit less. Break wear is much higher at 60%. Engine emissions is most of the rest.

EVs are heavier so they will have more tire wear. They don't brake as often, so that would go down.

Re: Smog in our brains

#68

Post by legulere »

jdc wrote: post #43
legulere wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Electric cars surprisingly don't reduce particulate matter air pollution by much. A big part of the pollution comes from wear of the tires and the road. It's higher with heavier cars and electric cars generally are heavier because of their batteries. Then you have the effect of reemission of PM already lying on the road that stays the same. Another way of PM emissions that is not tackled at all is agriculture. And it…

Just how great are the PM emissions from car tires? Has anyone quantified the effect?

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231016...

> Non-exhaust emissions already account for over 90% of PM10 and 85% of PM2.5 emissions from traffic.

Re: Smog in our brains

#69

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

verelo wrote: post #51
Houshalter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had adopted nuclear power decades ago, none of that would be an issue. Solar power is only just now catching up to cost effectiveness with nuclear. And only on sunny days, the storage problem is very far away from being solved. Maybe coal is cheaper, but only if you exclude externalities. The amount of radiation released by nuclear is tiny compared to coal. Not to mention mercury, carbon dioxide, etc.

>> "Maybe coal is cheaper" Many make this claim, but I do not buy it. Take Australia as an example: relies on coal for around 85% of electricity production [1], also has some of the most expensive electricity in the western world [2] at around 29c / USD Kilowatt hour (that is over 2x the US national average). [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20070709212140/http://www.iea.or... [2] https://www.ovoenergy.com/guides/ener…

Until Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and The Wilderness Society come out and publicly claim responsibility for the mess Australia's electricity generation is I won't take "Environmentalism" seriously.

I live in Tasmania now, I think most of our electricity comes from hydro. Thirty hydropower stations operating in Tasmania[1], but we still pay ~26 cents a kilowatt-hour here.

1. https://www.hydro.com.au/energy/our-power-stations

Re: Smog in our brains

#70

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

addicted wrote: post #35
Houshalter wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we had adopted nuclear power decades ago, none of that would be an issue. Solar power is only just now catching up to cost effectiveness with nuclear. And only on sunny days, the storage problem is very far away from being solved. Maybe coal is cheaper, but only if you exclude externalities. The amount of radiation released by nuclear is tiny compared to coal. Not to mention mercury, carbon dioxide, etc.

The only reason nuclear is even viable today is because nuclear technokogy isn't as bad today as it was a few decades ago. Every time we have a massive nuclear disaster the defense (a valid one!) Is that the disaster happened from a poorer technology that isn't used anymore today. If we had built out nuclear earlier we would have had a lot more nuclear disasters. The problem with nuclear is solely that by the time th…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't regulatory burden a significant reason for nuclear being so expensive?

As of May 2017, the People's Republic of China has 37 nuclear reactors operating with a capacity of 32.4 GW and 20 under construction with a capacity of 20.5 GW.[1]

Compare:

As of 2016, there are four new reactors under construction with a gross electrical capacity of 5,000 MW, while 33 reactors have been permanently shut down.

I'm lead to believe the reason China can have 5 times the number of new nuclear builds is because China seems to be able to get shit done while infrastructure in the US languishes. I could be wrong, I'm just going by what internet would have me believe.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_China

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_the_United_St...

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