I’ve seen a lot of hare-brained (and hair-brained, too) ideas in my time, but WTF is this?
Creating awnings or special shade structures like the Kansas City Live! roof cover would provide the reflection over roads without causing glare for drivers. A more advanced version of this would use the structure as a platform for solar power and smart road enabling devices.
I have submitted this idea to the GE Ecomagination challenge.
Well, la-dee-forking-da for you!
The Kansas City Live! structure was made out of EFTE which can last for 50-200 years. It cost about $1.8 million and covers about 29,000 square feet or two thirds of an acre.
The EFTE weighs one hundred times less than glass and can be 24-70% of the cost.
Costs for awnings over roads, parking lots and buildings and dark areas could be reduced by using street lights and telephone poles as the anchor
So let’s see. 1.8 mill for 2/3 acre is 2.7 mill/acre.
There are more inexpensive forms of PVC and any large scale implementation could examine ways to reduce costs.
If another 230 million acres could be covered by awning at $1000 per acre in volume then $230 billion cost would be offset by carbon offset 25-31 gigatons and reduced heating costs
WTF??? How did you get from 2.7 million to a thousand? Magical Moore’s law of circus tents? Shit. Let’s just imagine that we can do that with private jets. Then a mass-produced 10 mil jet will cost $3700, and we can all be flying them. I mean WTF? I mean really, Dicky.
This is what’s so dangerous with sociology majors trying to predict the future. They just imagine shit, and then presto! It’s real!
And the carbon offsets are going to “pay” for this? And what reduced heating costs? For the freeking road? What’s the matter with these people?
____________
And in other loony tunes news, it appears the John Podesta is a UFO truther.
John Podesta is a distinguished Washington insider. He is currently the president of the liberal Center for American Progress, and previously served as co-chair of Barack Obama’s presidential transition team (2008-2009) and White House chief of staff for Bill Clinton. Podesta is also a visiting law professor at Georgetown.
Not included on his official resume is a peculiar position he’s long-supported – investigation into UFOs.
It’s worse that it looks.
So it is under the guise of open-inquiry that Podesta defends his support for an organization called the Coalition for Freedom of Information: “Because of this commitment, I have supported the work of investigative journalist Leslie Kean and her organization, the Coalition for Freedom of Information, in their initiative, launched in 2001, to obtain documents about UFOs through the Freedom of Information Act.”
I wonder if he’s equally curious about Obama’s birth certificate?
“The time to pull the curtain back on this subject is long overdue,” Podesta claims, arguing for the academic legitimacy of the book he’s endorsing. “It’s time to find out what the truth really is that’s out there. The American people – and people around the world – want to know, and they can handle the truth. UFOs: Generals, Pilots, and Government Officials Go on the Record represents a pivotal step in that direction, laying the groundwork for a new way forward.”
So do you think the Science is Settled™ on global warming?
The Center for American Progress has made lots of hay denouncing right-wing loonies. “The Conspiracy Nuts Take Over,” ran one such article. Maybe they should launch an investigation of what’s going on in their own organization’s executive suite.
Everything I need to know about UFOs is here.
