The Hindustan Times reports:
An unrelenting heat wave has killed more than 1,100 people across the country over a fortnight with southern neighbours Andhra Pradesh and Telangana bearing the brunt, as torrid temperatures melted roads in the national capital and have forced people indoors.
Authorities said on [May 26] most of the victims were construction workers, the elderly, or the homeless, as the weather office predicted the mercury will continue to soar this week with substantial relief expected only when the southwest monsoon hits the Indian mainland around May 31.
[...] The meteorological department issued "red box" warnings for Odisha, Jharkhand, and coastal Andhra Pradesh, signalling high chances of heatstroke, dehydration, and fatality with temperatures inching upwards of 45°C and conditions worsened by constant dry, sweltering winds.
[The state of] Odisha continued to reel, with [the town of] Titlagarh in Balangir district clocking the highest temperature of 47.6°C [117.7°F], while authorities said they received reports of 67 deaths in the past week.
[...] Experts warned [that] no let-up in the heat wave would lead to large-scale power outages in several parts of north India, bringing back memories of a horrific blackout in 2012 that affected nearly 600 million people.
In a separate story, Arne Winguth, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas-Arlington led a study on future environmental conditions in central Texas in the year 2100.
The professor was interviewed by KERA TV:
Winguth's study predicts more cracks and potholes, even buckling and melting of roadways in extreme 125-degree heat.
"The 125° Fahrenheit is a prediction for the future that is predicted for the year 2100. That would be the extreme temperature--that is based on most recent climate assimilation from the National Center for Atmospheric research."
[Editor's Comment: Original Submission]
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:39PM
is about 52 °C.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:06PM
Such information should be in the summary.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:10PM
Now it will get a long thread.
Soylent get your shit together, we are an internatinal crowd.
What is the international unit for temperature?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:29PM
Kelvin. Although no one outside science uses that.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:34PM
From TFS "47.6°C [117.7°F]" - so 125°F will be a bit hotter than that.
Of course, it would help the editors if our international submitters could do this in their submissions in future.
(Score: 4, Funny) by turgid on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:09PM
I demand temperatures to be given in Gas Mark [wikipedia.org] for good measure. Of course, we will need to agree upon a method for extending the scale to describe low temperatures.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:29PM
I am a crackpot
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:45PM
It's not too difficult to live at that temperature but you have to drink like 15 liters of water a day. You will pretty much never stop drinking. Even then your urine will be so dark yellow that it is practically brown.
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(Score: 1, Flamebait) by ikanreed on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:32PM
I appreciate your considered opinion, as an educated medical professional.
That's what you are, right?
Because otherwise I'd say you're talking out your ass about a heatwave that left over a thousand dead who certainly didn't find it "not too difficult to live".
(Score: 5, Touché) by tibman on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:47PM
Not a medical professional, just a quasi-medic. I have stuck IVs into over 20 people who have either fallen unconscious or became delirious from dehydration. If you don't drink then you will die.
Staying hydrated is not difficult but some people will always fail to do it. I am not speaking ill of the dead, some may not have had access to clean water or had other complications.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by bob_super on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:52PM
Question: why would your urine be dark yellow? My blood doesn't need more cleaning when I drink more because of heat. As I overdrink, I usually produce clear urine.
(Score: 3, Informative) by jcross on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:15PM
Because your body is prioritizing sending the water to your sweat glands over sending it to your kidneys, since the heat will kill you faster than a toxic bloodstream. Or another way to put it is that you lose so much of the water you're drinking to sweat that you never manage to get very hydrated.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:33PM
jcross is spot on. Even after 15 liters of water you can't pee enough to fill a coffee cup : ) You sweat so much that your clothes become encrusted like some sort of smelly exoskeleton. I highly recommend the experience!
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(Score: 2, Interesting) by KGIII on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:47PM
I spent a couple of months in Morocco and, while outside, I would sweat so much that not only did what you describe happen but I would find that there was a layer of salt on the inside brim of my hat and on my socks. It was new to me but it turns out that others experienced this on a regular basis. I dislike the heat, there is a limit to how much clothing one can remove while still remaining socially acceptable in most areas.
I retired to Maine, quite north and to the west of the State. I have lived in the southern US before. My observation is that we are now getting weather similar to the NC and VA areas of the country much of the time now. It has steadily been moving to this point. I dare say that AGW is a problem and is real. I make no comments about the veracity of the conclusions drawn by climate scientists but I do say that I, personally, have observed a definite warming trend that has been noticeable for a number of years in my specific area and, while not always warmer, the weather has been altered a great deal since I first wintered in Maine, when I came here for school. in my youth.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 5, Informative) by mrchew1982 on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:06PM
When you drink that much water you also have to be careful about hyponatremia, a.k.a. not enough salt in your system. Most western diets have an overabundance of salt, not so sure about Indian diets.
I first learned about this when my dad worked in a mine in southern Utah. They had areas that were around 120°, they provided "salt pills" to take with their water. He had to stop each hour out to dump the sweat out of his wader boots. Luckily they had showers and laundry on site, so we never had to see that aspect, but the salt pills were interesting. They weren't just straight NaCl, I would imagine that it was pretty much gatorade minus the sugar- in pill form.
Which brings up another awesome thing that *everyone* should know about, WHO oral rehydration solution:
Ingredients:
- 3/8 tsp salt (sodium chloride)
- ¼ tsp Morton® Salt Substitute® (potassium chloride)
- ½ tsp baking soda (sodium bicarbonate)
- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp sugar (sucrose)
- Add tap water to make one (1) liter
there are regional adaptations to locally available ingredients, but that stuff is magic for people suffering from dehydration due to vomiting, diarrhea, or heat exhaustion...
(Score: 3, Funny) by LoRdTAW on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:25PM
It's got what plants crave! It's got electrolytes!
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:58PM
The CDC (NIOSH) agrees with tibman.
Heat Stress [cdc.gov]
Drink water frequently. Drink enough water that you never become thirsty. Approximately 1 cup every 15-20 minutes.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:22PM
eating is also critical. i've seen lots of people who kept drinking water and wondered why they were still dehydrated. [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:52PM
More accurately, salt is needed in addition to water. If you lick your arm and it tastes good, you need salt. (And you can get enough to scrape by from licking it off your skin.) Those flavor packets that come with ramen work great for the purpose, and slip handily into a pocket.
As to the notion that you promptly sweat to death in such temps, millions of humans have lived in hot climates since time immemorial, and survived the experience. I myself lived in the SoCal desert for 28 years, where the average summer high was 115F (and the peak was 122F), and it's hot from sunup to sundown, and I work outdoors. Yes, you need to stay hydrated, but it's not nearly as difficult as various comments here make it sound. Your body is adapted for reasonable conservation of water, and while constant hydration is ideal, a few hours between tanking up is not typically a huge problem. If you get to the "brown urine" stage, you've been seriously underhydrating for considerably more than a few hours.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by tathra on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:49PM
if you're going to go for accuracy, you need sodium, potassium, calcium, and chlorine (commonly referred to "elecrolytes") for your nerves to work. there's more than just salts required to stay hydrated though. speaking from personal experience, if i get dehydrated, simply drinking gatorade or something won't fix it, i have to eat to get rehydrated. this (myth 5) [care2.com] is the best i can quickly find to back up that hydration is more than just water and electrolytes.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:22PM
The fact that we need more than just sodium salt is probably why ramen flavor packets work so well... my guess is they contain a lot of potassium, that being the critical element when someone is to the nauseated stage; consuming a ramen flavor packet and some water effects a cure in about 10 minutes. (I had the fun of beating a former Seattle resident with a cluestick til she figured out life in the desert....)
That article doesn't strike me as very balanced either, in fact looks to me like it comes from the vegan agenda side of things... eating carbs, and more critically, fibre, helps dehydrate you: water is required to metabolize carbs, and fibre retains water in the gut rather than letting the gut resorb it; that water is lost.** Conversely, metabolizing fat releases some water into your system.
Gatorade doesn't rehydrate well because it's too "thick" -- too much salt (here meaning sodium, potassium, et al.) and especially too much sugar; overall, it makes you more thirsty, not less (well, that sells you more Gatorade, eh?) Dilute it by half and it's not so bad. The stuff made as livestock electrolyte (made to treat scouring calves) works best, but tastes like pee.
The formula used to rehydrate kids by relief workers in Africa is one cup of water, a three-finger pinch of salt, and about a spoonful of sugar. I remember when this was first promulgated by relief outfits some decades ago, and how much better it worked than water alone. Suddenly their save rate went way up, IIRC something like 90% vs 10% for plain water.
** Realworld example: Raising fibre in dog food by just one percent =doubles= the amount of water the dog needs to drink. And substituting soybean meal for meat meal doubles or even triples the dog's water requirement, if not more -- I've seen the water needs of a medium-sized dog go from about a gallon a day to over FIVE gallons a day, just from being put on a high-fibre, soy-based diet. Conversely, substitute fat for some of the carbs and the dog's water intake will shrink by up to half.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:53PM
I can speak as someone who was deployed to Iraq.
Yes, you certainly can live in 115 degree heat, you just drink a lot of water. People routinely live in places like that.
Hell, the vehicle I drove would get to 140 inside of it on some days.
You don't need to be a medical professional to know that drinking lots of water will help prevent many heat related injuries. The people that are dying here are those with not enough access to potable water and elderly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:50PM
A thousand in a country of well over billion individuals is a rounding error.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:05PM
Approximately 1% of the deaths in a given week being directly attributable to a sepcific cause isn't a "rounding error".
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:56PM
Funny how you ignored everyone that proved your hostile ignorant snark wrong while openly challenging someone else on a technical issue that is not related.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Thursday May 28 2015, @09:06PM
And you have an extremely disturbed notion of "proof" if you think that a young, fit military deployment into an arid desert with an air conditioned base is "proof I'm wrong". This shit kills people. It objectively was listed as a cause of death for thousands of people in the last week.
Jesus.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:45PM
WRONG!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2015, @09:49AM
Blah blah blah. Seriously, this news has two "noteworthy" items:
- Holy fucking shit almost 50 degrees!!1
- Holy fucking shit only 1000 casualties!!1
To put things in scale, in an Estonia-sized country this would be 1 lost life, and if there was that hot, I'd expect something much worse. Add to that that much of India is extremely poor, which should inflate the count even further.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @10:23PM
You, sir or madame, are a pompous horse's arse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:13PM
Assuming you are able to obtain 15 liters of drinkable water per day without difficulty.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by jcross on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:12PM
It does also depend heavily on the humidity. Not sure what the humidity looks like in this part of India, but if it's high enough, then no amount of water is going to save you because your sweat won't evaporate fast enough to cool you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tibman on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:40PM
That's a really good point. What a bad way to go
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(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Thursday May 28 2015, @11:42PM
Why would heat darken your urine? There should be less toxins in your bloodstream with the constant drinking and pissing. Whenever I drink that much by pee goes pure crystal clear.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday May 29 2015, @02:11AM
So much sweat : ) https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7663&cid=189142 [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Friday May 29 2015, @01:44AM
It's not too difficult to live at that temperature but you have to drink like 15 liters of water a day. You will pretty much never stop drinking.
I lived in Death Valley for nearly three years, including two summers. My first summer there I worked at night and I did not see the temperature drop lower than 92 F from June to late September. Usually by 9 a.m. the temperature was in triple digits and we usually had daily highs in the 110's and several long stretches where it was in the 120's. At that temperature, simply walking the half mile slightly uphill to the housing was taxing, particularly if the wind was blowing. Without drinking constantly, you would feel your heart start pounding harder as your blood thickened. You would not notice the dehydration as sweat evaporated as fast as it came out. If you had a backpack on, underneath would be wet but everything else was dry. When you got inside however, where there was more humidity, it seemed as if the sweat would start pouring out of you. I used to start guzzling water and literally sit naked on top of the AC unit until I stabilized. In Death Valley, with summer humidities sometimes in single digits, the primary risk is dehydration, with heat stroke and death as a final result. I imagine that it is quite a bit more humid in most of India, so the risk of heat prostration, where the sweat does not evaporate fast enough to cool the body, is the greater risk. Same end result though...
(Score: 3, Informative) by martyb on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:46PM
THAT piqued my curiosity, so I read TFS and found this image that showed a melted zebra crossing: http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2015/5/heatwave2.jpg [soylentnews.org].
That reminded me of a quote attributed to Mark Twain: [thinkexist.com]
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Thursday May 28 2015, @01:55PM
yeah, I saw that picture too. Not sure if it's a trick photo of course.
In a related article, No respite from blistering heat wave till May 29; 500 dead and 'red box' warning issued for 3 states [hindustantimes.com] it said:
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:55PM
Not sure how, but your link ended up linking back to the story via an odd URL.
Let's see if this works any better:
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2015/5/heatwave2.jpg [hindustantimes.com]
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:22PM
According to this page, [inchem.org] asphalt has a melting point of 54-173°C. Given that asphalt is dark and therefore can easily get way above the ambient temperature when in direct sunlight, and given that the reported ambient temperature is already close to the lower bound of the melting range, it is totally credible that the roads melted.
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:58PM
The quote is excerpted from one of Mark Twain's published works(1897) titled: "Following the Equator", and is only one of many remarks about the unpleasant heat of summer in India.
It is an interesting read, and chock-full of the usual cutting wit and satire he was [in]famous for.
I would be surprised if it could not be found on Project Gutenberg, if anyone cares.(it may be found either as "Following the Equator", or as "More Tramps Abroad"-it's the same text)
At least I enjoyed it.(it came pre-loaded as one of the '150 free books' on my e-book reader) :-)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:57PM
For some reason your link came up goofy for me, so...
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Images/popup/2015/5/heatwave2.jpg [hindustantimes.com]
Now, I lived in the SoCal desert for 28 years, and I never saw any of our local pavement do that. Not the paint, not the asphalt, not even when it was 122F. Makes me wonder about the quality of roadbuilding in India.
On second thought, having seen the quality of metal goods from India, I don't wonder at all....
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @07:05PM
I've lived in SoCal for a while also, some parking lots here do get hot enough to melt to the point that you can leave footprints in them. The roads don't though.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @09:33PM
I'm in my my 34th year in SoCal.
Next time you pass by a bus stop in SoCal, take a close look.
There is a concrete pad poured there so that on hot days the big heavy vehicle doesn't sink up to its axles in softened asphalt while it waits for a bit.
One day in 2010, John Wayne Airport (a heat island within a larger heat island) recorded 113°F.
(Aptly named) Death Valley has repeatedly registered temperatures over 122°F, [wikipedia.org], but I haven't seen those levels reported near any city--yet.
I grew up in the southeast USA (I always assumed in the most humid part of the state).
My first "hot" day in Cali, I had this odd feeling on my forearm.
It was sweat evaporating so quickly that it gave a different sensation than I was used to.
The amount of moisture in the air definitely makes a difference in how your body deals with heat.
-- gewg_
(Score: 1) by Wierd0n3 on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:37PM
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-23315384 [bbc.com]
because the blacktop is, well, black, it absorbs heat, and can be quite a few degrees above ambient.
one of the reasons that chicago and other major cities are campaigning for light colored roofs.
http://www.energy-seal.com/UserDyn/ACS/pdfs/crrp_city_of_chicago_roofs_program.pdf [energy-seal.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:00PM
2003 French heat wave - 15 000 dead
2010 Russia - crippled harvest and fires
2011 Syria - failed harvest? and uprising
2015 India - 1 100 dead
Is this perhaps a new trend? Where part of the planet will be scorched and thus inhabitable?
Any good statistics?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:08PM
It must be the Illuminati doing it. All that illumnation is giving off too much heat.
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:26PM
That must be it. It is most definitely not because the world is getting hotter overall. Its all just a global conspiracy from the left-wing media, which everyone knows is run by the Jews in their academic Ivory Towers, trying to scare everyone into a panic so they can institute their one-world government and abolish Christianity.
(Score: 1) by Placenta on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:27PM
Deadly heat waves are nothing new. They happened thousands of years ago, before the Industrial Revolution. They're mentioned in many ancient texts, including the Old Testament (like in the books of Deuteronomy and Kings).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 28 2015, @11:22PM
Of course they are nothing new. The question is if there's a frequency trend. Data would be the most valuable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:33PM
Keep digging backwards you will find more of the same (I know of stories from the 70s 60s 50s 40s 30s...). What you are seeing is 2 things. People moving into more barren areas (due to overpopulation in the old areas). Then wondering what happened to all the water during a drought cycle. The second is the internet. Things seem more immediate because instead of reading about a flood that happened 3 months ago in some other country. You read about it today and it is more than likely happening now.
Take for example California. They built many huge dams in the 1930s. That had 2 effects one is 'jobs' building them and the other was to store water for during droughts they knew were coming. The dams are nearly/are empty because the water storage did not keep up with the population and industry growth. Because long term decisions were being made when the dams were full. The dams should be up and down. It was what they were designed to do (lessen flooding and increase possible storage, side effect of power). If they go empty it means you get no water. Unless California is committed to fixing its infrastructure they are basically at peak population. It is hard to argue for more water storage dams when water is going over the top of the current dams.
Cant say it is global warming. But it sure is gesturing wildly at it making things worse.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:21PM
Deg. Celsius all good and all but ...
anyone have the GigaWatthours not used but used-to-grill-people figures?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:35PM
maybe someone can "enlighten" me:
consider for a moment a point on the planets surface that receives "one unit of heat" (from the sun).
modern air-conditioners have a so-called cOP of ~4 and it says that for "one unit of heat" input it can move "4 units of heat".
now what happens if we place a solar panel over this "point" of earth and use the "heat" to power a air-con with COP 4?
it is assumed that the "4 units of heat" originated from the sun ... err?
-
Mr. Thermodyamic Jr.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:06PM
If planet earth is your cool reservoir, what is your hot reservoir? What is the COP for such a machine?
;)
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Entropy on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:11PM
Air conditioners, or heat pumps simply move heat from one area to another. Typically this is from "inside" the house, to "outside" the house. They also generate some heat on their own, we can call this "waste heat". Lets assume energy is "free" for a moment, which is kind of what you were going for with the solar panels.
You'd move say... 4 units of heat from "inside" the house, to "outside". As long as insulation is sufficient to stop this heat from leaking back in quickly then you'd cool the "inside" of the house.(Lets assume insulation is perfect) You would also generate lets say 2 units of "waste" heat thus heating "outside" the house by 6 units.
So on the basis of a wide area, you would actually heat it up slightly, as "burning" that energy(free or not) produces some waste heat, as well as moving heat from "inside" to "outside".
Some of that "inside" heat is waste heat from computers, electronics, humans, and other such things. Lots and lots of things produce waste heat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:43PM
So on the basis of a wide area, you would actually heat it up slightly, as "burning" that energy(free or not) produces some waste heat, as well as moving heat from "inside" to "outside".
Since the source of that energy is a solar panel over the area being cooled there is no net increase in heat because all of that heat would have been present anyway.
The only mitigation to that analysis is reflected energy - how much solar energy would have been reflected back into space that is instead absorbed by the panel.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 28 2015, @05:05PM
Heat can do work, and we have had the means to move it around to where it can do so for some time. Why not, instead of radiating that waste heat back into the air, use it to heat the water in your hot water heater [google.com] or use it to run a small turbine [epa.gov] (or run a stirling engine)?
So much of our world still relies upon wasteful, use-it-once-and-throw-it-away 19th century thinking. Closed-loops and sustainable cycles are just as possible if you go into a system with that ethos in mind. We're starting to change that a bit, with recycling becoming a normal part of societal waste management, and upcycling cast-off goods, but it remains marginal and incremental.
I find it a fun challenge to try to get to zero waste, myself. My ultimate goal is to buy no food, growing all my family needs in a small footprint (aquaponics); buy no electricity, generating all we need through wind and solar; buy no gas, running an EV off the afore-mentioned solar/wind setup; buy no natural gas, getting all we need from a methane digester; and recycle everything we have that we no longer need in its initial form. We recently eliminated our paper waste stream by shredding it into bedding for the kids' guinea pigs (and saving money on the bedding in the process) and then composting that when it's done into garden soil to grow veggies & herbs; it's ridiculously satisfying.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by KGIII on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:23PM
When I drew my house plans (the existing house was not efficient nor what I wanted) I made sure to keep passive solar and other passive efficiency methods in mind. I ended up with a salt-box envelope that has trees to the SSE and an overhang that blocks the peak Sun during the summer months. In the winter the leaves are gone and the Sun is lower in the sky which means the overhanging second floor is not in the way of the lower arc of Sun. The differences these small changes make, such as the orientation of the house which makes solar ideal as well on the long portion of the roof, are immense. I would have liked to put some vacuum tubes down into a concrete pillar in the ground (going below another twenty feet beyond the basement floor) but I am already on ledge for the most part thus it would have been prohibitively difficult to get the size of the pillar as large as I wanted. I would have then circulated the water on a second closed system, given the temperature differences the water would have done most of the circulation on its own as well. Having the house be started at ~60f would be nice. I am not far from it much of the time so heating and cooling are pretty minimal costs financially and environmentally. I often heat with wood which is pretty efficient as I had a mason put in a large Russian fireplace with a bunch of niches in the front/sides for things like bread, warming ovens, and a place to dry out mittens and boots. I almost did a geodesic dome with movable panels that had the windows in them but I could not make efficient use of the space nor could I figure out a way to absolutely ensure that the panels with the windows would not leak for at least thirty years.
Was this more expensive? Yes but not much. The stone and wood came from the property and I harvested the wood and gathered most of the stones myself and a Mr. Deere. The garage is separate and has an attached wood shop and is heated only with a wood stove so my mistakes in the shop make good kindling for my projects in the garage portion.
You are very much correct in that it is a state of mind (much like computer security) and that the efficiencies are potentially significant. Not everyone can afford to do so but those who can probably should. I may even go so far as to say those that do, and who are not as financially capable, should be given a tax-break incentive much like one gets for solar panels or an electric car. While this should probably be done locally, many local governments are suffering financially, it may be better off done at a federal level with decent oversight and a limited scope/duration with the possibility of extending the tax-breaks out further if needed or are beneficial to those who could do the most with them.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday May 29 2015, @03:28PM
That sounds like an awesome setup. It's especially great that you quarried the stone and harvested the timber from the property itself.
If you don't have enough subsoil to do a single pillar setup for a ground-source heat pump, there are also multiple, shorter pillar clusters or the trench method where you lay out your heat exchanging tubes horizontally. 6ft of soil on top is the rule of thumb for the latter.
The geodesic dome made me smile because my architect father swore by them and used them wherever he could. Two other ways to regulate heat gain/loss are exterior, moveable louvers [iriswc.com] (which are better than the interior version that traps heat inside the space) and motorized roller shutters [somfysystems.com]. The former shows up on a lot of LEED-certified buildings, and the latter is quite common in Europe--a house I lived in in Germany had them and it made a big difference in how hot the interior got in the summer. The advantage of the latter over the former is that you can get insulated roller shutters that have a better R-value than even the highest end, argon-filled triple pane window; its keeps you warmer in the winter as well as cooler in the summer, and provides an additional security and privacy benefit.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by KGIII on Friday May 29 2015, @09:07PM
I passed over the shutter idea because of the harsh winters in this area of Maine (I am in the NW mountains, right next to Canada if right next to is some 40 miles as the crow flies). I would also want two of them so that I could adjust for the Sun's arc properly.
I could still add a heat sink but, well, I am on ledge and would have to go some distance away to negate that. It is just not feasible for me. I am fortunate to have an artesian well and I require no electricity to have plenty of pressure. I do have a pump and a separate pump house but it has only been used for testing purposes. Life on the side of a mountain has some nice benefits.
The original house on the property is still here, I have made good use of it and have guests that make use of it at times. Right now it is occupied by someone who was homeless this winter. He has not stolen (I knew him beforehand) my vehicles and he kept my home shoveled and plowed over the winter and kept it from being vandalized (an alarm is here but the police are a good half hour or more away and cameras are easily negated) while I was away for a while. He has done many other things that I would rather not do myself so it has worked out well. I may well encourage him to stay. I need only feed him and give him money when he seems to need some.
As for your father, he was a brilliant man it seems. It is possible to make a geodesic dome too efficient (if there is such a thing) needing to vent air pressure at the top. My thinking was to use springs and/or weight to release the interior pressure but I, obviously, did not get that far. Way back when the Sun still had a price tag hung to its side I was fortunate to take some multi-class Architectural Drafting courses and would have become an architect but opted for Mathematics and Engineering instead. I do not regret it but I sometimes wonder where I would be had I continued on that bent.
Finally, I did not quarry the stones so much as hunt for and pick them up and put them in a trailer behind the tractor. The mason (a very old semi-retired gent was the only one I found that actually knew what a Russian fireplace is) gave me a description of the stone he wanted and that is what I searched for. There is actually a very small quarry here. Many of the local towns had one as there is much granite to be had for the effort of taking it. I have had an offer to monetize it but I can not get past the fact that it is not needed now so the environmental impact is unjust. The company, from Canada actually, just bought a quarry down/over in North Jay, Maine (Google will help if you are interested) so they certainly did not need mine. I am not anti-quarry or anything, quarries are actually one of my favorite places to go when I have ingested hallucinogenics, but I did not see a reason to deal with the pollution or the noise pollution of blasting.
This has been a most interesting conversation. Feel free to respond. Somebody does not like me so I got mod bombed last night (hard, too) but I will reply so long as it is not restricted.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:41PM
> I find it a fun challenge to try to get to zero waste, myself
I hope you are documenting the shit out of your efforts and making them public in some long-term way - like a blog that is backed by archive.org.
One man doing stuff in isolation makes no difference, might as well just continue to live the standard western lifestyle. Making it easy for others to do the same so they don't have to deal with all the trial and error is how you make a difference.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:26PM
Where would you want to move all the heat to?
(Score: 1) by KGIII on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:29PM
Outside? Insulation is your friend - it keeps out heat and cold. If you push the heat outside and have an R Value of, say, 20 then very little will return even though your immediate area around the exhaust would be warmer than the surrounding area. That is my guess, of course, but I see no reason why it could not work except the efficiencies may not be as they are believing.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:45PM
In a separate story, Arne Winguth, Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Texas-Arlington lead a study on future environmental conditions in central Texas in the year 2100.
This is nitpicking, I know, but that sentence should have used led [wiktionary.org], which is the correct past tense for lead [wiktionary.org] as it's used in that context. It's pronounced the same way as the metal, and the metal shares its spelling with led's present tense, so it's an extremely common error.
I think of it like this: if it doesn't involve the metal in some way (as used here [wiktionary.org]) and it's used as a verb, then the correct spelling is "led".
I mention it because the submitter and two editors missed it, so hopefully knowing the difference will help in the future.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:06PM
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:33PM
Yeah, in addition to (or perhaps because of) the confusing relationship the different meanings have, it's also extremely easy to miss in proofreading even when you know the difference. Any time I use it I double check to be certain I used the correct one.
In fact, before hitting submit I read my own comment so many times it's kind of sad because I didn't want to screw it up after correcting the summary. :)
(Score: 2) by rts008 on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:11PM
Don't be too hard on yourself. It is an understandable tendency, after hearing the dangers of tossing rocks and glass houses, and whatnot.
The real problem is when either extreme is used. If problems are never pointed out, not much would ever get fixed, most likely; the same is true of doing nothing but pointing out problems. Neither group seems to ever be part of the 'fixing' group.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:49PM
For what it's worth, my high school Latin teacher moonlighted at the local paper, and said this was by far the most common typo he would catch. It's a real doozy, because "lead" is a different form of the same verb as "led", and "lead" can be pronounced identically to "led" so most miss it when reading through it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday May 29 2015, @05:27AM
For what it's worth, my high school Latin teacher moonlighted at the local paper, and said this was by far the most common typo he would catch.
Yep, I see it all the time in published works, which is what makes me sensitive to it. It's even worse now because of the prevalence of the "I wish I were a real journalist" bloggers on sites, too. Once, I saw the mistake so many times in a short period of time that I started to wonder if I'd been wrong all along about the proper spelling. It was just a weird coincidence, but it helped emphasise how often it gets overlooked, even among capable writers.
(Score: 2) by curunir_wolf on Thursday May 28 2015, @08:47PM
Yea, spelling error easy to miss.
The other error that got me was the sentence structure is wrong for the description. The "in the year 2100" is a modifier for "lead [sic] a study", so the sentence actually claims that the study was conducted in the year 2100. This could have been corrected without restructuring the sentence merely by using the word for instead of in, indicating that the study was about environmental conditions for the year 2100.
So I see your nitpicking, and I raise.
I am a crackpot
(Score: 2) by Marand on Friday May 29 2015, @05:18AM
I noticed that too, though it seemed more like ambiguity than outright error, so I didn't even consider mentioning it. Everyone occasionally writes something and later notices that it could have been written more clearly, so it's usually not worth worrying about unless it's a common problem or particularly egregious example.
Still, that's some professional grade nitpicking. My inner grammar Nazi approves. :)
(Score: 5, Informative) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Thursday May 28 2015, @02:54PM
I don't want to belittle even one death, but how many people normally die during a two week span in India? How much of an increase in deaths is the 1100? How do we put this death toll in perspective if we don't know how much worse it is than usual? How does heat death compare to other forms of death? The media is not helping us by giving a number with no context to understand it.
I found: Deaths of "22,500 per day approximately" from http://www.quora.com/How-many-people-die-in-India-every-day [quora.com]
And: http://www.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_die_in_India_every_day [answers.com]
And this is interesting: 1326 Indians die due to accidents, suicide every day
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/1326-Indians-die-due-to-accidents-suicide-every-day/articleshow/7300325.cms [indiatimes.com]
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:16PM
Now that has to get a +5 Informative
Mod system here is ... *sigh*
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:36PM
Of course the interesting quantity is not just the number of deaths. For example, if 90% of the regular deaths are people dying of old age, but the majority of heat-related deaths is young people dying, it is still significant. OTOH, if those who die from heat are all terminally ill and would have died a few weeks later anyway, it's less of an issue.
A more informative number would be the impact on life expectancy.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Thursday May 28 2015, @04:08PM
I remember the argument happening a few years ago, when Europeans were trying to figure out how many people had died there.
The end result is that you will know a good approximation number of dead people, by the end of the year. The immediate bodies can be counted, but the older people croaking a bit earlier than they would have is a statistical thing which requires comparing to long-term trends. You can't provide that on the spot.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 28 2015, @03:56PM
Since there are 1236 million people in India, we can deduce that their average lifetime with that mortality is about 150 years.