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Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
81–90 of 91 posts
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you're describing is a dramatic reduction in human freedom. Right now I have the freedom to use as much energy as I can afford and people like you don't get any say in how I use it. Why not focus on generating more energy efficiently than imposing controls on other people? This seems like more about having control over other people than an actual concern for the environment or energy usage. Would you vote to ban…
When lower energy alternatives are better and widespread, people use them. Why should we not strive for efficiency as a society? I at no point argued for banning something, just offering better alternatives.
What do you think "democratic decisions" will do? You already hinted at banning certain types of vehicles you don't like. I'm wondering what other things other people enjoy you would like to ban?
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like the idea, but it does seem like a hard thing to be sure of. I suppose a secondary question is: does it look nice? :)
I liked the idea until I realized it wasn't self sustaining and needs a monthly subscription to replace the algae =(
In some ways I don't mind it since it seems expected and I also like the idea of using the remains as compost feed. But I was a little worried about the expense of renewing it plus the waste from doing so. It looks like the algae and nutrients come in plastic bottles.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
When lower energy alternatives are better and widespread, people use them. Why should we not strive for efficiency as a society? I at no point argued for banning something, just offering better alternatives.
What do you think "democratic decisions" will do? You already hinted at banning certain types of vehicles you don't like. I'm wondering what other things other people enjoy you would like to ban?
You’re the one that keeps talking about banning things. I’d much prefer efficient and better alternatives were developed, which would convince people to use them.
Ultimately what you think is fun is irrelevant to whether it’s sustainable for us as a species. Just because a small minority of humans insist on having fun destructively doesn’t mean the rest of us shouldn’t be allowed to convince them otherwise.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#85This 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…
And the PIT airport is under construction with passenger areas being replaced with removal of the mini-train. I hope they didn't pay for this green washing demonstration.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would assume the electricity used to power the pumps and lights ends up emitting substantially more than 250g of CO2 per day as well.
If only there was a large parcel of land nearby to an airport terminal where a renewable power source could be installed. Hmm, where could we find a large piece of relatively flat land with little to no trees to shade the sunlight? Hell, you could even cover the remote parking areas bringing extra value by providing covered parking and still leave the majority of that flat, cleared, open space unadulterated.
I’m guessing they don’t want to put stuff in the areas around runways, because that’s where planes go when something bad happens. I wouldn’t want to be escaping a plane directly into a chopped-up field of HV solar panels.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trains are only viable regionally in the US, unless you want to spend 72 hours traveling for greater cost than a plane ticket that would have taken you 4ish hours to go from NY to LA. Even if we did build high speed rail the whole way, the number of stops along the way would only cut that to 24ish hours. Most people would choose the plane.
Look how many flights are from east coast city to east coast city. Just eliminating these would be massive. But our rail system is outdated, our government won't allow realistic trains to be built. We don't need a million stops. We need metro to metro.
The east coast is large too. New York to Miami is over 1000 miles. People do take trains — it tends to be routes like NYC to DC or Boston, Philly to DC, etc.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trains are only viable regionally in the US, unless you want to spend 72 hours traveling for greater cost than a plane ticket that would have taken you 4ish hours to go from NY to LA. Even if we did build high speed rail the whole way, the number of stops along the way would only cut that to 24ish hours. Most people would choose the plane.
I haven’t been to the US, but it can’t be all that special. Plenty of countries have high speed trains instead of most domestic air travel, even similarly sized ones like China. Especially if you count the time to get to the airport and through security, high speed trains are highly competitive or even better than planes in total travel time.
The US is far less dense than China. China’s population is heavily concentrated on the eastern half of the country. The US has pockets of high density, spread all over the country, hundreds or thousands of miles apart. Major hubs include the Northeast, the Atlanta area, the Chicago area, the Texas triangle, Denver metro, Phoenix metro, SoCal, Bay Area, coastal Northwest, Miami.. building a HSR train network spanning the whole system would be massively expensive, and the density of the US makes it really hard to justify.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look how many flights are from east coast city to east coast city. Just eliminating these would be massive. But our rail system is outdated, our government won't allow realistic trains to be built. We don't need a million stops. We need metro to metro.
The east coast is large too. New York to Miami is over 1000 miles. People do take trains — it tends to be routes like NYC to DC or Boston, Philly to DC, etc.
The problem with any train system isn't the distance - it's the stops and slowdowns.
The fastest bullet train could make that (NYC - MIA) trip in less than 4 hours. (286 mph). That's great time. But once everyone adds a stop, and you have to slow down to a crawl through certain areas, and freight gets first pass, you can see why rail sucks in this country.
Re: Pittsburgh Airport installs an algae air purifier
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
The east coast is large too. New York to Miami is over 1000 miles. People do take trains — it tends to be routes like NYC to DC or Boston, Philly to DC, etc.
The problem with any train system isn't the distance - it's the stops and slowdowns. The fastest bullet train could make that (NYC - MIA) trip in less than 4 hours. (286 mph). That's great time. But once everyone adds a stop, and you have to slow down to a crawl through certain areas, and freight gets first pass, you can see why rail sucks in this country.
On land, it’d more like 1200 miles, so closer to 5 hours. Almost double the flight time.