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Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

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Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#181

Post by dgellow »

sschueller wrote: post #92
35mm wrote: post #65

Instead of relying solely on air conditioning, which often adds to greenhouse gas emissions if run on fossil power, there are a number of passive solar design strategies that work without additional energy: - Solar chimneys draw cool air in when it’s sunny via pressure differential - Building orientation along with natural shading from deciduous trees prevent excessive solar insolation heating the building - Building…

Somehow this has been lost over the years. I can especially see this in Zürich Switzerland where new office buildings being built are awful and there seems little thinking about temperature. Everything is managed by complex air systems to move air from one area to the other. On the other hand you go into a 200+ year old building and you notice it's cool in summer although there is no air conditioning. The building is…

Older European buildings are horrible to heat in winter, they are massive waste of energy.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#182

Post by pimlottc »

sofixa wrote: post #170
halfdan wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public transport hasn't solved the problem of "the last mile". How do I get to/from the train station/bus stop? Frequently you still need a car to even get there and then you will need parking - which is often limited and costs a lot. Then there's timeliness. Deutsche Bahn is known for frequently their trains are delayed. In summer, even on the Intercity connections (IC, ICE) trains will be filled to the brim and air…

> How do I get to/from the train station/bus stop? By foot, bike, trotinette. If it's too far, that isn't good public transit and/or you live too far.

> trotinette

I believe we call that a scooter in English. Had to look it up.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#183

Post by Retric »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #165
iknownothow wrote: post #156

Just a personal anecdote to provide some context of how hot it really is. I'm from the south of India and now live in Europe. My body tolerates heat quite well compared to my European friends. I remember tolerating 38-40C indoor temperatures and sleeping through it with heavy sweating. But air temperature of 42C is where I draw the line. It is almost biologically impossible to survive this. So this story isn't just a…

This is also known as the wet bulb temperature, and it is a function of the humidity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature If I were in a position of decision making in India, I would invest in large deployments of passive radiative cooling films: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applicati... These reflect nearly all the sunlight energy and cool their surroundings night and day by co…

That doesn’t seem to line up with the marketing you linked. “10-20% energy savings when integrated with building refrigeration and HVAC systems.”

PV on the roof can normally provide 100% of the energy needed for AC.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#184

Post by dgellow »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #154
OccamsRazr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was in Europe for one of the heatwaves of recent years, and whose appartment was in one of these older buildings designed this ways with thick walls etc., I can attest that this only works up to a point . This design relies on there being cold air for the building to retain. However, in a heatwave it doesn't even get cold at night. The result is your apartment gradually heating over a period of days /…

I grew in Southern Europe (around 30C every day in summer, more in full sun) when no-one had aircon at home and no-one had aircon in cars. It's hot, you live with it. I'm sure it's worse on the other side of the Med. It's one of the reasons the traditional 'siesta' exists and towns and villages are virtually dead until 5pm. The issue I have with aircon is that it makes people ignore the local climate and, worse, acti…

> It's hot, you live with it.

For the average person, yes. But old and vulnerable people do die from it.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#185

Post by jillesvangurp »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #165
iknownothow wrote: post #156

Just a personal anecdote to provide some context of how hot it really is. I'm from the south of India and now live in Europe. My body tolerates heat quite well compared to my European friends. I remember tolerating 38-40C indoor temperatures and sleeping through it with heavy sweating. But air temperature of 42C is where I draw the line. It is almost biologically impossible to survive this. So this story isn't just a…

This is also known as the wet bulb temperature, and it is a function of the humidity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature If I were in a position of decision making in India, I would invest in large deployments of passive radiative cooling films: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applicati... These reflect nearly all the sunlight energy and cool their surroundings night and day by co…

A wet bulb related crisis in India is used as a plot point in Kim Stanley Robinson's latest novel Ministry for the Future. The way he describes the wet bulb event is quite scary. (edit: corrected author and title, I confused this with Neal Stephenson's latest Termination Shock).

Imagine something like that happening in a slum. It's the combination of humidity, temperature and poverty that is deadly. Think mass casualties (millions of people). No air conditioned environments to escape the heat. Limited access to clean water. Flaky electricity systems that cause what little capacity there is to cool anything to fail. Temperatures at night drop a little but not by enough to provide much relief. Robinson does a great job of making you believe how real this would be and what it would look like.

The human body loses the ability to cool it self with 100% humidity. Sweat no longer evaporates. Basically, people start dropping like flies once that gets out of control. It's not survivable for more than a few hours. Any water you'd use for cooling no longer evaporates and would in any case have an ambient temperature that is close to or higher than your body temperature. Instead of cooling your body, it would just heat it up quicker.

This is a very near future science fiction novel that describes a very scary reality that we might be dealing with on a regular basis pretty soon. North West US and Canada actually got a sneak preview when temperatures in the US and Canada hit record highs last summer.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#186

Post by mensetmanusman »

Retric wrote: post #183
mensetmanusman wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also known as the wet bulb temperature, and it is a function of the humidity. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wet-bulb_temperature If I were in a position of decision making in India, I would invest in large deployments of passive radiative cooling films: https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/energy-conservation-us/applicati... These reflect nearly all the sunlight energy and cool their surroundings night and day by co…

That doesn’t seem to line up with the marketing you linked. “10-20% energy savings when integrated with building refrigeration and HVAC systems.” PV on the roof can normally provide 100% of the energy needed for AC.

It’s a per-unit-area comparison:

https://www.betonconsultingeng.com/passive-radiative-cooling...

“”SkyCool arrays work by cooling a fluid that moves below the panels and is pumped through refrigeration systems. The cooling helps reduce the run time of motors in the refrigeration system to reduce electricity consumption. All told, the SkyCool system can reject heat at about 100 watts per square meter, saving between 450 and 550 kilowatt-hours per square meter every year—twice the average production of a solar panel.—Brooks Johnson, Star Tribune, 12 March 2022“”

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#187

Post by bombcar »

jseban wrote: post #180
OccamsRazr wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was in Europe for one of the heatwaves of recent years, and whose appartment was in one of these older buildings designed this ways with thick walls etc., I can attest that this only works up to a point . This design relies on there being cold air for the building to retain. However, in a heatwave it doesn't even get cold at night. The result is your apartment gradually heating over a period of days /…

Yeah it's a temporary effect and once the walls have heated up, it actually makes it worse since it retains the heat at nighttime as well. You need to drill down to access the constant temperature in the ground, to be able to really counterbalance the differences in the air temperature. Once you've drilled down I guess you can make a passive or minimal energy circulation system that would be much more energy efficien…

It’s called a geothermal heat pump and they’re quite efficient in the places they can work (which is basically anywhere that has enough temperature differential during the year).

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#188

Post by javajosh »

K0balt wrote: post #98
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is that what it will take? Probably. That said, the brunt will be born by the poor. America may face a deep recession. India, starvation and a political reboot.

Even if all humans on the planet went to zero emissions tomorrow it is too late. We are now inside a feedback loop that will push temperature rise to +20c and sea levels up 200m or more within 200 years. Photosynthesis drops off to zero long before then. Geoengineering is the only way we don’t go extinct along with most animals.

Well you're in luck because it's likely we'll have a nuclear war soon, and that will put plenty of aerosols in the atomosphere, and cool things down.

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#189

Post by [deleted] »

atq2119 wrote: post #173
refurb wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the last time this happened was 1901 (but 1901 was hotter), it doesn't sound "more common"? It's literally more than 100 years since the last time this level of heat occurred. Sounds similar to 100-year floods?

My understanding is that 1901 wasn't particularly hot. They mention 1901 because that's when systematic collection of weather data began.

[deleted]

Re: Nearly the hottest place on Earth, India swelters under intense heat wave

#190

Post by sofixa »

gundamdoubleO wrote: post #54
jokoon wrote: post #50

And here in the western world, people still don't like using public transport and their bikes (when they can). It's difficult to be optimistic, but it seems there is nothing that will truly limit fossil fuel consumption. Maybe some oil producing countries could get in some sort of alliance, and artificially limit the amount of oil they extract, in return for subsidies? Those countries could also put a tariff on oil.…

Not sure where you mean by "western world" but public transport and cycling are very popular and normal options where I live.

Many Americans make sweeping assumptions about the "western world" only based on what they see in the US ( lack of public transit, only SUVs, political partisanship, etc.).

Public transit is pretty great in most big French cities ( including mini metros in not huge cities like Rennes, Lille Toulouse).

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