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Self-Cleaning Buildings to Fight Smog
bryan8m writes "Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and bathroom tiles, scientists hope to paint up cities with materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain. The idea: UV rays hitting the titanium dioxide coated cement and concrete trigger a catalytic reaction that destroys the molecules of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides."
Wouldn't it be smarter to cover the buildings with solar panels, use that to power half the building and cut down of the amount of smog created by the power plants instead? Your car puts out NOTHING compared to a 250Mw coal plant.
-- Please insert another quarter
the way to fight polution is at the source. stop corporations from producing polution. if that is done, then the people won't have to spend tax dollars cleaning up the mess.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
The rationale here being the DC will ionize the air, charging the impurities, thereby encouraging them to head for and adhere to these pollution-destroying buildings.
Incidentally, ionizing the air is NOT a new concept. Its been happening in nature since Earth began... especially during thunderstorms when the air is so charged it breaks down - we call it lightning.
I have often wondered if dirgibles, charged from being moored to the business end of a large vandergraff generator ( several stories tall ) would do the trick.
If a small electrostatic generator drops the crap out of the air in a room, would a bigger one clear stagnant air over an entire city... such as the Los Angeles basin?
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
Keyword here is catalytic reaction. A catalyst is a substance that initiates a chemical reaction but is not consumed itself in the reaction. The catalyst in the paint would stay in existence, it would simply break down pollutants when they came in contact with the material when UV radiation was hitting it. As long as the pollutants were reduced to innocuous materials there wouldn't be an issue with toxic waste disposal.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
Seems to make more sense to cut off the sources of the polution than to remove them from the environment. Improving engine efficency and adding proper safty equipment to power plants will do far more than coating everything in sight with titanium oxide. The self cleaning properties may be enough of a reason to use the coatings so the polution fighting is simply a side benefit. Why aren't the offenders held accountable for the polution in the first place? If power companies and auto companies were required to clean up their own messes their profits would disappear overnight. Nuclear power is generally referred to as the cheapiest cleaniest source but that's mostly because the US government generally picks up the clean up bill. The nuclear clean up programs are running billions of dollars a year with no end in sight. Oil companies are releasing massive amounts of hydrocarbons a year with no accountability. Alternative sources will start looking cheap when the government stops picking up the bill for cleaning up coal, oil and nuclear messes. Secondary costs of health care, global warming and clean up aren't ever factored into costs of energy. If sea levels rise five feet due to global warming the world will loose trillions of dollars in coastal property. Depreciate that cost into your gallon of gas.
Traffic is the primary cause of pollution in inhabited areas and car emissions are harder to control than those of a single 250 MW coal plant.
The owls are not what they seem
It's not about cleaner houses, it's about cleaner air!
They try to make a house work like a tree to actively reduce the amount of pollution in the air. That the house stays clean is just a nice side-effect
See pictures of tits
and reduce the pollution? Technologies like this just make it seem like pollution is alright. Out of sight, out of mind.
How about buildings with living roofs or use solar panels and wind turbines to reduce reliance on the local smog producing powerplant.
Or move on over to and build a community to reuse energies wasted by other nearby businesses (like the heat that would otherwise be lost through restaurant ovens can be used to help heat the floor above, etc).
Or, you know... we can just pretend it is not there. Either way...
Outside of certain cities, such as Athens and Tehran, motor pollution is not such an issue anymore, as we all have catalytic convertors fitted to our cars (at least we do in the EU). Unfortunately, its still pumping out CO2. What is required is a catalyst which turns CO2 into Carbon and Oxygen. Unfortunately outside of plants and trees we don't have one. I suspect the worlds largest polluter will have to do better than this.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
Interesting factoid of the day:
About 3 million people die every year from air pollution. That's about an order of magnitude greater than the number of people who have died in the entire history of nuclear power and nuclear weapons, including Chernobyl, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki.
However, if you ask a random person which causes more deaths, what do you think they'll say?
>> Organic compounds are broken down into carbon dioxide and water, while the nitrogen oxides yield nitrate salts.
> Carbon dioxide and water are easy enough to take care of. Not sure what to do with the nitrate salts. Fertilizer?
Ok, let me get this straight. We've now got a process that allows you to paint an urban building with a substance that automatically transforms the ambient pollution into nitrate fertilizer?
Congratulations, you're only a step or two away from creating the world's first self-exploding skyscraper!
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