Energy Secretary Asserts Huge Climate Benefit of Painting Your Home’s Roof White
The U.S. Secretary of Energy, Steven Chu, at a climate meeting in London yesterday, proposed the idea of painting home and building rooves a reflective white in order to reflect back the sun’s rays into the atmosphere.
His estimate is that the combination of painting homes and buildings along with making roadways a similar white would have the impact equal to removing every car off the road for 11 years. Driving lighter colored, reflective cars would also contribute to the effort. as cars would stay cooler in general, require less air conditioning to stay cool, and in turn use less fuel and generate less pollution.
“If you look at all the buildings and make all the roofs white, and if you make the pavement a more concrete-type of colour than a black-type of colour, and you do this uniformly… It’s the equivalent of reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said.
How Does It Work?
Instead of existing rooves and roads that essentially absorb the sun’s rays and contribute to the heat island effect, much of the sun’s rays are reflected back into the atmosphere away from earth.
Take a building for example. Dr. Chu’s estimates are that a building could see a 10-15% decrease in electricity use because the building requires less energy to stay cool. By reflecting much of the sun’s rays, the building does not get as hot and require as much cooling as a result.
Driving lighter colored, reflective cars also contributed to the effort. Cars would stay cooler in general as a result of reflecting way the sun’s rays and require less air conditioning to stay cool which in turn means the cars use less fuel and generate less pollution.
Reducing the Urban Heat Island Effect
As many know, the concentration of road, buildings, and constructed surfaces across cities can create a heat island effect as heat from the sun is not reflected back or dissipated thus allowing for the heat to intensify.
Dr. Chu’s assertion is that this effect could be minimized through the changes as the sun’s infrared rays are reflected through the “insulation” of greenhouse gases back into space.
Will People Take Action?
It’s probably not enough to compel many people and businesses to make the changes to their homes, buildings, and future car purchases if the potential benefit of going ‘whiter’ was simply to reflect rays back into space. However, if there is a tangible dollar savings on electricity and fuel usage, then this concept could catch on quickly.
After all, individuals, families, and businesses could make the decision to make an immediate change in order to recoup savings.
The cost to doing so may be more expensive if the paint is specially designed and applied but as long as the potential savings are immediate, measurable, and provide a fast payback period, there will be a clear motivation to taking action.
It Doesn’t Take a Climatologist with a Ph.D to Make a Change
This is a fascinating concept whose appeal lies in the fact that it is a change that the average person could choose to make to sow potential benefits for everyone and reap potential benefits for themselves.
This will be something to watch for more information on as this gains attention.
For more insights on this development, check out The Independent.
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