h a l f b a k e r yA riddle wrapped in a mystery inside a rich, flaky crust
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Goal: reduce energy used for heating and cooling.
North uses a lot of energy to heat buildings.
South uses a lot of energy to cool buildings.
Build a giant refrigerant pipeline, big enough to make
friction low and
distributed grids to pump the heat around. Take or deliver
heat.
system
would look a little like our arteries and veins.
[link]
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It might be most efficient, in the long run, to
undermine the USA and install ammonia-filled heat
pipes, converting the continent into a sort of giant
heatsink. |
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As a bonus, this could be used to cool Yellowstone
and postpone a very embarrassing supervolcano
event. |
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//postpone a very embarrassing supervolcano
event// Nothing doing! We've already got tickets. |
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I'd hate to imagine what the diameter of a pipe would have to be, such that a journey of a thousand or so miles wouldn't heat up the contents enough to be a pointless exercise. [ ] |
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I dunno. I'm sorta hot and cold on this idea. |
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Having a good enough speed of air current, like in an
aerodynamic tube, would probably transfer the air quicker
than it would take for it to cool down. Someone needs to do
the math. |
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I'm not going sofar as to say "baked", but isn't this how weather and ocean currents work? Warm tropical air and water move north keeping the UK warm(ish), and polar air moves south keeping North Dakota a hellishly cold wasteland. |
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I think an evacuated heat pipe would be better, if they can go that far. |
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I think [MB] has it right with using heat transfer fluids rather than air. |
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Wouldn't it be easier to use the hot air generated in D.C. to heat the north? |
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no thanks, we already get enough of that from our own hot-air generators in Ottawa. |
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If we keep screwing with the weather long enough, maybe the jet stream will turn sideways? |
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I want my winter back. Who took it? |
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I wonder what would happen if you just dug a very
wide, very very long tunnel from north to south? |
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Temperature differentials ought to do something,
but it would also create a Coriolesque centripugal
force, driving air towards the equator. Maybe. |
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//Coriolesque// That's a noun, not an adjective. It's
a form of music hall performance involving a woman
sitting on a child's swing -- the kind suspended by a
single rope. The rope is twisted so she spins round,
slowly at first, removing an article of clothing on
each rotation. As the performance continues, she
pulls in her arms and legs, increasing the speed of
rotation so that, by the time she's nude, she's
moving too fast to see clearly. |
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Well, who would've imagined such a thing? |
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Ah. According to Google, you did. |
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This is baked on a very small scale, variable refrigerant flow systems can use areas that have a constant cooling load (like computer rooms) to provide heat for areas that have a heating load. Basically, some coils act as condenser coils and others act as evaporator coils, making for a very efficient system. So, just make the system a million times larger, and run some pipelines, and there you have it. |
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// It might be most efficient, in the long run, to undermine the USA // |
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Yes, I've often thought so. |
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I just stumbled across this quote by Nicola Tesla (while searching for tension in rotating rings): |
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"Another one of my projects was to construct a ring around the equator which would, of course, float freely and could be arrested in its spinning motion by reactionary forces, thus enabling travel at a rate of about one thousand miles an hour, impracticable by rail. The reader will smile. The plan was difficult of execution, I will admit, but not nearly so bad as that of a well-known New York professor, who wanted to pump the air from the torrid to the temperate zones, entirely forgetful of the fact that the Lord had provided a gigantic machine for this very purpose." |
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Now there's an honorary halfbaker candidate for you. |
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