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So, I am currently in Washington, and it's September. For
reasons completely underknown to me, you Americans
have chosen to build your capitol in a place which is
inconveniently warm for much of the year.
The result, of course, is that practically every single room
in the city, as well as
every vehicle, is air-conditioned to
within a ninch of its life.
All this aircon is probably one of the reasons why it is so
damned hot outside - all that pumped heat has to go
somewhere. It must also be incredibly inefficient,
energetically, and has the added additional drawback that
life can really only take place indoors.
So.
Clearly, it would make little sense to try to air-condition a
garden or a terrace: the smallest breeze would simply
disperse the coolth. Moveovermore, the cold air would
simply sink and spread out sideways, bringing warmer air
in to replace it. You would, at best, create a shallow
puddle of coolth.
Scale this up, though, and things start to look better. The
larger the air-conditioned volume, the slower the coolth
will be dissipated by wind or sinkage.
For something the size of Washington, I very strongly
suspect that the energy needed to air-condition the whole
city (up to, say, 200ft above ground) would be much less
than that needed to air-condition each of the cars and
buildings individually. Plus, the streets would be habitable
as well - a complete bonus.
Obviously, the waste heat would have to be dumped
somewhere, but this should not be a problem. Massive
vertical tubes of lightweight polythene could carry the
waste hot-air up to a height of several hundred metres -
the airflow alone would support the tubes, a la spacehose.
It should even be possible to recapture some of the energy,
either turbinically or using the temperature differential
between the top of the tube and the surrounding (cool,
high-altitude) air.
Burning of Washington
https://en.wikipedi...rning_of_Washington
It can be very hot at times ... [8th of 7, Sep 21 2016]
Similar to idea
http://www.ebay.com...hn=ps&ul_noapp=true
Extra points for having a deranged Trump likeness on the hot air exhaust portion. [whatrock, Sep 22 2016]
Space Hose
Turns out to be an N-Prize idea, too [notexactly, Sep 23 2016]
[link]
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// chosen to build your capitol in a place which is inconveniently warm for much of the year. // |
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It is, however, fortuitously placed to allow ships to sail up the Potomac and disembark troops, if you should want, just as an example, to attack and loot the city and burn the White House ... |
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But the Americans have had the good sense to mitigate
the extremes of temperature you get in Washington
D.C. by providing an alternative, back-up Washington
in the
north-west of the country with a very different
climate - that's where you should be. |
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and also, it's not hot there all year long...duh. Do you see any
palm trees? |
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/Massive vertical tubes of lightweight polythene could carry the waste hot-air up to a height of several hundred metres - the airflow alone would support the tubes, a la spacehose./ |
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I like this. I suspect cleaners bags originally are produced in exactly such a tube. Assuming the expelled air is hotter than the ambient there would be a buoyancy factor also. This aspect of the project could be done with existing air conditioning units. |
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//to within a ninch of its life. |
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<...flicks through SI system of units manual with a puzzled expression..> |
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<..later thought, impact of chandelier on derrière affects typing performance.....huh?> |
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NB I claim my prize, you cunningly concealed "Cacti Irony" as City Aircon... |
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The solution, of course, is simply to wait until Trump is
elected, cover all of Washington in an airtight, clear dome,
and wait. Concerns over oxygen
supply and temperature will soon resolve themselves. |
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Encircling the city with a wall a la Trump would help in
retaining the coolth, though, as a local resident, I strongly
suspect someone would immediately start filling it with
water. |
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//The larger the air-conditioned volume, the slower
the coolth will be dissipated by wind or sinkage.// -
so a planetary air-con system would be even more
efficient? |
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Just some reflective heat sinks a few thousand miles above
the polar ice caps. That's all we need. |
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Per [8th]'s link, attempts to destroy gunpowder with water resulted in an explosion. It seems that your expertise could have been useful, [8th]. |
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" In the afternoon of August 25, General Ross sent two hundred men to secure a fort on Greenleaf's Point. The fort, later known as Fort McNair, had already been destroyed by the Americans, but 150 barrels of gunpowder remained. While the British were trying to destroy it by dropping the barrels into a well, the powder ignited. As many as thirty men were killed in the explosion, and many others were maimed.[32] " |
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// your expertise could have been useful, [8th]. // |
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Yes, we could have recorded it in 3D and Dolby ... |
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We love it when you humans screw up badly. SO funny. |
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Good luck in Washington..... I thought it was a tip, and as
boring as a sink full of damp newspapers featuring
headlines about new nail fungus treatments. |
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Tell me more of this "spacehose" please. The concept you
mention in passing reminds me of solar updraft towers, and
also of an idea I came across many years ago and have since
been unable to refind (searching here, [wbeaty]'s site, and
anywhere else I can think of) for causing rain on a desert
island using a buoyancy- or updraft-supported clear plastic
tube that would somehow create a raincloud at the top. I
have been trying to refind this idea because it may be
applicable to one of my own as-yet-incomplete ideas. |
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[xenzag] have you ever considered working within the tourism industry? Your natural energy and enthusiasm that would place you well among its citizenry I'm sure. |
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I rather like the architectural solutions arrived at by the Moors and their neighbours, high-walled courtyards featuring splashing water features, the evaporation of which draws heat out and away, leaving behind only coolth. |
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// I thought it was a tip, and as boring as a sink full of damp newspapers featuring headlines about new nail fungus treatments. // |
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To be able to give such a positive review, you obviously restricted you visit to the "nice" parts of town. |
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How about a liquid N2/O2 misting system, citywide? |
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Timing and location of coolth deployment will serve to minimize the need for a coolth barrier along the border of the lowered entropy zone. Incoming and outgoing waves of air will meet within the city, rather than one giant blob of coolth being airdropped in the middle. |
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Generating the coolth requires adding hot air somewhere, and since government facilities are already at maximum, might I suggest sending blobs of the stuff straight up (capturing some energy on the way). This will not only remove heat, but provide much needed thermal updrafts for glider pilots. |
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When warmth and coolth meet mightn't rain resulth? |
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hmm, how would the air conditioning actually be achieved?
Building sized condensers? They'd make a racket shirley?
Also, perhaps the biggest problem with this kind of weather
(for I suffer similarly) is that it doesn't cool down at night...
because the air over the east coast at night originated in a
carolina armpit or some such horror. Might a series of two
way lightweight tunnels be constructed? Exchanging the cool
arid air of, say, Colorado (Denver, currently 13C). They
would benefit from the heat, humidity and subsequent rain,
Washington gets the cool and dry. |
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//Good luck in Washington..... I thought it was a
tip, and as boring as a sink full of damp
newspapers// |
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Actually, I was very favourably impressed by
Washington, given my somewhat jaundiced view of
many parts of the US. First and foremost it is a big
city, with the usual features of big cities - which
you either like or don't like. |
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However, many parts of the city are respectably
old, and some of the buildings are truly elegant -
there's a lot of stone and columns and greekery
going on there. Maybe a little bit grandiose in
places, but elegant nonetheless; and who would
begrudge a little grandiosity for a nation's capital?
The strip that runs from the Lincoln memorial up
through the Washington monument is quite
spectacular. There's also the Georgetown area,
which is a bit like an English market town; it's a bit
chi-chi nowadays, but then again so are many
English market towns. |
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Beyond that, many of the restaurants are quite
civilized (albeit overpriced), and the people are
generally friendly and polite. There may be parts
of the town that are otherwise, but I didn't find it
so. |
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//Tell me more of this "spacehose" please.// It
came up here, I think (and it wasn't my idea, btw).
The idea is that you have a
flexible tube, and you pump air up it (or let hot air
rise up it). The airflow supports the structure
partly by pressure and also by friction on the
walls. The result, at least on paper, is that you
can make the hose of any height you like without
using remarkable materials. So, you could make a
sort of floppy space elevator, for instance. It's a
bit like those flappy inflatable things they
sometimes use for advertising. |
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// flappy inflatable things they sometimes use for advertising. // |
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My grandchildren live there, so for me, it's the center of the
Universe. I love DC. But then, I'm stuck in the bowels of the
country in the REALLY hot part of the Midwest. |
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Being stuck in a bowel must be especially taxing in
hot weather. |
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Washington strikes me as being what New York could
have been if it had the funding. |
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Kind of lucky for New York, then. |
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It's probably time to dismantle D.C. en masse and rebuild it somewhere that isn't prone to heatwaves, snowstorms and hurricanes - somewhere with a mild, pleasant climate, away from seismic faults, volcanos, tornados and other extreme weather events. |
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Is there actually anywhere like that in the lower 49 ? |
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// the REALLY hot part of the Midwest // |
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That's probably all the burning crosses the KKK keep lighting ... |
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I believe the KKK has switched to solar-powered LED
crosses, rather than actual burning ones. More
environmentally responsible. |
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// Is there actually anywhere like that in the lower 49 ? // |
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I'm thinking Arizona. Blisteringly hot summers, chilly
winters (no humidity to moderate temps), flat, arid,
bleached, scrub vegetation, it looks kinda like Mars. Only
the bold and rugged, brave politicians (are there any?) will
live here. Put an end to all this damn over-indulgent upper-
echelon self-important mollycoddling. And Arizona is an
open carry state. |
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Then we can blow up DC and start over. |
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Edit: Oops, did I say that? What I meant was, dismantle the
District and rebuild it to current specs. |
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// Then we can blow up DC // |
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And somewhere a chime tone pierces the air, and an NSA intern hurries over to check on something ... |
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" It's just the Halfbakery again ... " |
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