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GAIA Host Collective
You must really enjoy the humidity.
Speaking of humidity.....
Here in the Asphalt Wonderland of the Valley of the Sun: the heat island effect plus global warming is making Phx very hot and dry this year. This low relative humidity [currently 14% and dewpoint at 50 degrees, projected high today of 113 F] makes for an effective and long swamp cooling season.
Yet most Phx businesses and homeowners are not willing to convert over to swamp-cooling to take advantage of the tremendous energy savings [a fraction of A/C costs]. This makes absolutely no sense to me. If Phoenicians were legislatively compelled to have both cooling sytems on their buildings, we could dramatically reduce electrical usage and GHGs, partially reduce our summer smog warning days, and then profitably sell this excess energy over the national grid to the high-humidity Southern areas.
When I take trips down into Mexico, many people do not even have swamp-cooling, much less A/C, yet they are perfectly acclimated to this lifestyle. They will work in the sun and much higher humidity than Phx all day for $6/day, then go home to an uncooled house. Wiping the sweat off one's brow and drinking lots of water is entirely doable, and has been done for uncounted years before the advent of the industrial age.
This is the appropriate future model for Phx, yet I see no effort by our local leaders to gradually shift us to this lifestyle, starting with mandatory swamp-cooling. My emails to the city council go ignored, yet presenting an early, but modest lifestyle shift is the best way to prepare Phoenicians for the postPeak future. Additionally, many wealthy locals would choose to relocate elsewhere, freeing up much land that could be converted over to humanure and permaculture farming.
Most of the time, I feel like an Easter Islander warning people not to cut down that last stand of trees. Unless the American mindset changes soon, I really believe most Americans will gladly ship off their children to die on foreign shores so that they can misguidedly mourn in thermally controlled comfort. Time will tell if we are so greedy that not only will we wreck their future habitats, but we will also prevent their chance to live in the mess.
Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
did you take into account the extra electricity needed to help manufacture those swamp coolers from raw resources( for example all the way to extracting the iron ore or boxite from the ground and not starting at the point of manufacture of the unit which some alt energy 'solutions' start their calculations) to installation and maintenance?
also did you account for the extra watter usage the swamp coolers will add to the city?
your original plan of just abandoning the city to the desert sounds better.
Thxs for responding. If everyone in Phx switched to swamp, the water evaporated to cool the inside of the buildings would be much less than our current usage on our numerous golf courses or our incredibly plentiful carwashes.
A swampcooler takes a fraction of the energy to manufacture compared to an A/C unit, and is a similar fraction of the cost, and many people in Phx already upgrade their A/C units to a higher SEER when the economics makes it worthwhile. So, the financial outlay required for a swamp is a no-brainer.
A properly tuned swamp will only require a water bleedoff of a few gallons a day to help reduce hard water buildup and prevent water stagnation--most people waste much more water than this by stupidly running the bathroom tap while they brush their teeth. This water can be routed to outside landscaping or a garden versus the standard practice of most A/C units routing their condensation to the sewer.
Maintenance can be easily done by the homeowner, it basically requires periodically changing the pads--no more difficult than changing an A/C air filter except you must go up on the roof. My swamp is an advanced design and I only replace the pads about every five years when the hard water buildup becomes excessive. I yearly oil the motor and the squirrel cage bearings, check the v-belt and small water pump, turn on the water flow, remove the insulated cutoff panel and upduct panels, then I am good to go.
When winter comes, I re-insert the panels, shutoff the water, drain the resevoir, and flip off the thermostatic control in the house. Piece of cake.
Compare this with the specialized hi-voltage training, knowledge of electronic and mechanicals controls, and all the fancy tools required to be a licensed, certified A/C technician. When a Phx homeowner's air conditioning unit breaks down here during the summer--they really get hot under the collar when presented with a legitmate bill!
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
I try to live in places where you don't use AC.