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Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

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41–50 of 91 posts

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#41
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have to go that far. Choosing to not have children or choosing to have fewer children would be a good start. From what I understand, taking better care of the children we have so they have a better chance to reach healthy adulthood is the best way to suppress child birth rates. I say we because parents don't own their children. The children belong to all of us, the community.

That thought is considered sacrilegious for some reason. If we would just start shrinking back to healthy population levels, a lot of problems would disappear. But nooo, an impossible reduction of everyones climate footprint by 10% is offset within 10 years of population growth instead.

One of the reasons that “overpopulation” as a concept faces criticism is that not all humans are created equal so far as resource consumption goes. Less people in the global north would do far more good for the climate than less people in the global south, because the former have a several times higher per capita consumption. Some of the people concerned about “overpopulation” seem to think the problem is the latter group though, and in that context the outcome of “depopulation” would be pleasing to fascists.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#42

If you really want to have a less CO2-heavy stuffy indoor air, what you can use is an air-to-air heat exchanger. The idea is to get fresh air from outside, but transfer heat from the outgoing Co2-rich air to the incoming fresh air so you don't waste the heating (reverse in case of air conditioning, I suppose). If the problem is Co2 in the outdoor air, I'm afraid that's a much bigger problem that you're not gonna solv…

CO2 or Oxygen levels are normally never a problem, not even on mount Everest (where the air pressure is the problem). It's for sure not a solution but an interesting research field to remove toxic chemicals...for long duration spaceflight/bases ;)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#43
post #9

This is super interesting! Sounds from the article like the main point is to remove CO2 from the air to improve air for humans. That's already really exciting. In essence it's a CO2 scrubber right? So how does this compare to devices built with the goal to remove CO2 with the goal to reduce climate change? Edit: To answer my own question, this probably does little. They have a home use version that supposedly removes…

Good math. Another way to ballpark this - the airport tank holds 500 liters of spirulina. Algae extract around 0.5kg co2 per 1000 liters ( https://mdpi-res.com/d_attachment/sustainability/sustainabil... ). So this tank removes around 0.25kg of co2 per day. By comparison, an average human exhales 1kg co2 per day. So you need four of those tanks to offset a single passenger passing by. This does virtually nothing for t…

> By comparison, an average human exhales 1kg co2 per day. So you need four of those tanks to offset a single passenger passing by.

Passing by takes less then 24 hours.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That thought is considered sacrilegious for some reason. If we would just start shrinking back to healthy population levels, a lot of problems would disappear. But nooo, an impossible reduction of everyones climate footprint by 10% is offset within 10 years of population growth instead.

One of the reasons that “overpopulation” as a concept faces criticism is that not all humans are created equal so far as resource consumption goes. Less people in the global north would do far more good for the climate than less people in the global south, because the former have a several times higher per capita consumption. Some of the people concerned about “overpopulation” seem to think the problem is the latter…

I live in the UK (and am in my late 20s), and I know quite a few people who are seriously considering not having children of their own (or in other cases reducing the number that thy would otherwise have) on the basis of overpopulation.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#45
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> planting trees is not nearly enough to stop climate change The solution will be a mix of approaches, none of them in isolation doing the whole job. > For outdoor air pollution, planting trees can actually increase it Only if by doing so you remove vegetation to plant them.

> Only if by doing so you remove vegetation to plant them. That is not correct. Read the article I linked that explains it. Biology isn't as simple as "CO2 => biomass".

I read the whole article and I can't find the part that backs up your statement. Not saying it might not be there, but telling people to figure it out on their own isn't super helpful.

In fact most of the article seems to agree that planting trees is a net good for removing CO2 and that the biggest problem is finding enough room to plant all the trees that are needed.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#46
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t it offset one passengers CO2 for a whole day and not just a single passenger passing by? I’m sure that’s what you mean but the wording is a bit confusing.

It sounds like it would offset one person staying in the airport for a quarter of a day, yes. Though, with how many people pass through an airport, it means that this would do, instead of almost nothing, four times almost nothing.

Really it's about the average occupance of the airport over 24h, which is going to be far greater than 0.25.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#47
post #20
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The irony is strong in this one: Not building airports would definitely improve the situation as a whole.

Of course, depopulating the earth will also accomplish that.

Or just building trains instead. Far lower energy consumption per distance travelled per person.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#48
post #42

If you really want to have a less CO2-heavy stuffy indoor air, what you can use is an air-to-air heat exchanger. The idea is to get fresh air from outside, but transfer heat from the outgoing Co2-rich air to the incoming fresh air so you don't waste the heating (reverse in case of air conditioning, I suppose). If the problem is Co2 in the outdoor air, I'm afraid that's a much bigger problem that you're not gonna solv…

CO2 or Oxygen levels are normally never a problem, not even on mount Everest (where the air pressure is the problem). It's for sure not a solution but an interesting research field to remove toxic chemicals...for long duration spaceflight/bases ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_Clean_Air_Study

The crucial part of this study is the following quote: "These results are not applicable to typical buildings, where outdoor-to-indoor air exchange already removes VOCs at a rate that could only be matched by the placement of 10–1000 plants/m2 of a building’s floor space."

In general, the amount of plants needed is just too high to be practical. At least among those plants tested in this study. This also applies to plants commonly sold as "air cleaners" (the common ones were all tested in this study). They do little to nothing for non-sealed rooms. Specific algea may be better suited.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#49
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best way to fix the CO2 problem is stop producing it, not to try to clean it up. I'd have to disagree. Stopping the production is important, but that doesn't solve the problem, it just doesn't make it worse. A true fix would always include removing some CO2 from the atmosphere, however that may be done.

I said the "best" way, not the "only" way. Multiple approaches are needed, but it's far cheaper and easier to avoid CO2 production than to sequester carbon (even if plants are used to capture it).

If it doesn't solve the problem (which it doesn't! Many glaciers are already gone, there's nothing we can do about it), it's not even a bad way, it is just no way to _solve_ the problem.

It's the best way _to not make it worse_. Carbon Capture doesn't save us from making it worse. It can however undo parts of the damage.

The solution isn't to just freeze the status quo, that's what I'm saying.

Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier

#50
post #28

This is super interesting! Sounds from the article like the main point is to remove CO2 from the air to improve air for humans. That's already really exciting. In essence it's a CO2 scrubber right? So how does this compare to devices built with the goal to remove CO2 with the goal to reduce climate change? Edit: To answer my own question, this probably does little. They have a home use version that supposedly removes…

I feel like i would rather have the airport full of plants. Airports are stresful and noisey. Imagine how calming it would be with greenery all over the place absorbing the noise.

Yes, with garbage, ripped leaves, contraband stashed(people afraid and backing out), people hiding in bushes, bombs in the trees, and so on.

I guess it could be in some inaccessible way, greenery 20 feet up, or behind baracades with alarms.

But humanity is humanity, and part of airport security is probably the above.

(Also, according to a movie I watched, the next pandemic will come from plants, so we will have to kill them all, you see...)

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