Ugo Bardi has an interesting take on CO2 and intelligence: https://senecaeffect.substack.com/p/a-new-interpretation-of-...
The bottleneck might be the air in the room
251–260 of 499 posts
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's not. You generally want to ventilate an office when you reach 1000ppm, but then the IKEA will often warn you already at 700ppm. 700ppm is fine.
you assume that the error will always be in one direction and if sometimes you ventilate a bit sooner than required, at 700, what? businesses will not put $200 meters in every room
Have you looked at the prices of meeting room furniture? A $200 meter is not a significant cost measured against what it costs to furnish the room in the first place. It only becomes significant is you treat it as a line item disconnected from the room it's in
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#253Matches my experience. Basement home offices are the worst offenders.
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#254I really wish a Apple or another major OEM would integrate CO2 monitor into watches or smartphones. Suddenly, everybody would be aware of the CO2 level in the room, get alerts, etc. and the problem will just solve itself. There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood…
> There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood. Raising awareness is the only real solution. Not wrong, but it is perhaps worth noting that there are already standards for proper ventilation. Generally you're looking at 5–10 cfm/person (2.5-5 L/s), depending on the…
I think modern domestic houses its the opposite. At least in Netherlands insulation is such a strong focus, due to climate change I think, that modern appartments have terrible ventilation
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#255That article's message is spot on. If your CO2 levels are that high then you should fix the HVAC system and get it up to code or lobby for fixing the code. In many countries, a full air exchange in any office space every X hours is mandatory. In other countries that's optional and they need to get their act together.
Or just open the window for the world that doesn't have HVAC
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oxygen sensors used in car catalyst systems use a different effect based on electrochemistry. I see no reason that couldn't be minuaritized to grain-of-sand size. The question is if oxygen levels are as good an indicator as CO2 levels... I suspect not.
Electrochemical pile style oxygen sensors continuously deplete themselves whether actively measured or not. Common smart home oxygen piles have a fixed lifetime of a few years, and they're quite sizable (probably about as much volume as a whole smartwatch). Putting the same chemistry in an even smaller package would likely result in lifetime measured in hours
I assume this is because of diffusion of materials at elevated temperature. The sensor would, I think, require a lower temperature than an electrolyzer, since the current would be much lower. But it would be best if lower temperature solid oxide electrolytes could be discovered.
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#257Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, fair points, including the sister comment, it's likely not a drop in O2 levels. But then why can we see problems with concentration in studies of people in poorly ventilated rooms, but not replicate that when just adding CO2 to normal air? What is the CO2 that we can measure in meeting rooms actually a proxy for?
The Satish 2012 study that seems to have started this trend was a small cohort of 22 people split in 6 smaller groups where they also just injected pure CO2 in a small room. There have been several attempts to reproduce, which sometimes found no clear effect, or a significantly smaller effect. This original study has been used to market these CO2 monitors for years, but the evidence is quite thin and doesn't support…
So is this all bullshit?
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Generally" is a vibe measurement to begin with. You won't notice any difference at all between 700ppm and 1000ppm. It's once you start hitting 2000ppm you are getting noticeable brain fog.
I disagree. I feel a very steady and progressive deterioration starting at 600 ppm. It becomes significant at 800 ppm. The studies back up the latter threshold.
Unfortunately it will be hard for you to know how much of that effect is placebo. Unless you tested this with some kind of double-blind setup.
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure that in a room where we replaced nitrogen with co2, we would be dead even if O2 concentrations were the same. Something about partial pressure. I notice AI explanations agree with me (not going to copy and paste them).
EDIT: ignore this; I was confused / misinformed It's about pH. CO2 creates carbonic acid when it dissolves in water. Your blood pH, in turn, controls how much you feel like you need to breathe. So with high CO2, your respiration rate slows down, and that can lead to low oxygen levels. Note that the physiology and biochemistry of this is complicated (e.g. blood is a very good pH buffer and it's actively regulated by k…
You are right about the pH implications, but respiratory acidosis leads to hyperventilation, not hypoventilation. CO2 will kill you regardless of oxygen supply.
Re: The bottleneck might be the air in the room
#260As a cyclist, I've heard a similar argument for years about indoor training, and particularly doing difficult indoor intervals beyond FTP.