UPDATE: have a look at Clinton’s house below. Yep, that’s the big plan. Paint your roofs white. From the Atlantic:
I have no problem with saving energy, especially in the summer when power drain is excessive due to A/C load. California now requires most flat-roofed buildings to be white. As a testament to the potential cash savings, Walmart has installed white roofs on 75% of its stores in the United States. Roofs comprise over 20% of urban surface, so while painting them all white in a city, there’s still a lot of asphalt.
But paint roofs white has a downside as well as an upside. It depends on where you live. If you live in a mostly warm climate, say Miami or Phoenix, you’ll realize energy savings. But if you live in Minot,ND or International Falls, MN your white roof will not absorb as much sunlight in winter, thus requiring more energy for heating.
The point is, painting roofs white natiowide, willy nilly, without regard to the local climate, average temperatures, the number of days of sunshine etc. won’t be a full solution.
An idea like Cool Angle, might work, but is far more involved than a paint job.
=============================================
UPDATE: Reader John provides this image link to the former president’s home. Goose, gander, and all that. We look forward to seeing Bill lead the way.
Source: http://www.zillow.com/howto/FamousPresidentsHomes.htm
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Like others pointed out, it’s not a bad idea, but is it really worth as much as they’re making out? And like someone else also pointed out, what about temperate zones during winter? You don;t need your house cooled, but you need it warmed during winters.
Kasuha says: July 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm
“Uhhh… basic physics lesson here, white surfaces have lower energy radiation too.”
I’d have thought your average home would emit in the infra-red rather than the visible spectrum, unless you have emigrated to the sun. This reminds me of some people who think you should paint your radiators black to make them better ‘black body’ radiators. I’d hope most radiators don’t glow in the dark as that would seem a bit of a safety issue.
Kasuha says: July 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm “Uhhh… basic physics lesson here, white surfaces have lower energy radiation too. So if you have a building which you intend to thermally insulate it’s better to paint it white in any weather conditions.”
No. Only at night where, on a cloudless night, the temperature of space to which one is radiating is a few kelvin. Then, yes, your roof will radiate to space so white is good to retain heat. In a hot climate you might be pleased to lose heat at night, though, so you have a cooler house in the morning and don’t need to turn on the aircon until later in the day. But when it’s cold and you have that big yellow thing in the sky at a colour temperature of a few thousand kelvin then a black roof will absorb much more than it radiates, so the net effect is to heat the building.
So in a colder climate you’re best with a black roof in the day, and a white roof at night. And in a warmer climate you’re best with a white roof in the day and black roof at night. A skin over the roof in a material that can be turned from black to white (by, say, electric potential) would enable the best optimization.
Funny how people with agendas always have to rewrite history to support their cause. 🙁
OT –
Will we be seeing a post about the recent sea ice behavior any time soon? There’s been hardly any lately, compared to the last few years at WUWT. Has something changed?
[Reply: See the latest related post. ~dbs, mod.]
It is so weird how global warming is so much more acute in the summers! If we could get that summer energy usage down we could lick the problem!
Latex or white-wash? That will affect the microclimate of those roof-top temperature stations and we won’t get as many record highs.
/sarc
@Ralph
You said “I have never understood…”
Neither did your ancestors. That is why we have an America and you have the idea that 4-story flats close together are desirable living quarters.
Are these green jobs? Couldn’t we make more green jobs by hiring one group of people to put up black roofs, another group to remove the black roofs and a third group to install white roofs?
In Minot or International Falls, your roof will be covered in snow for most of the winter, so it won’t matter what color it is painted.
“Keynes said that it was better for an economy to pay someone to dig a hole and fill it in again, than to just let them be unemployed.”
One of the many reason’s why Keynes was an idiot. Bastiat refuted this fallacy years before Keynes was even born.
I think they should hire kids to break windows, then hire window installers and repair them with EV glass; unionized of course.
@HenryP.
Don’t you realize this is a preventive measure? 🙂 Heck, think of the possibilities. Black painters for winter and white painters for summer. Unemployment no longer a problem!
Heck, if we paved the streets with gold I bet that would save lots of energy!
dmmcmah says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:44 pm
This sounds fishy and I’m hoping someone can explain why 1998 is now the hottest year on record and why 2006 has displaced 1934.
It is called the Hansen adjustment whereby temperatures are adjusted to better match the models.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/01/27/james-hansens-former-nasa-supervisor-declares-himself-a-skeptic-says-hansen-embarrassed-nasa-was-never-muzzled/
From: Jtheon [mailto:jtheon@XXXXXXX]
Sent: Thursday, January 15, 2009 10:05 PM
To: Morano, Marc (EPW)
Subject: Climate models are useless
Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done.
Byz says:
July 19, 2011 at 12:05 am
the problem is Mr. Clinton want these jobs paid for by the government and when the government pays for jobs there are 3-10 taxpayers that have to pay the salary of that one person that is the problem with Keynes and with any government jobs they are a net drain on the economy. And while the Idea painting roofs white has merit as Anthony said in hot climes painting my roof white would cost me money in the winter and wouldn’t save me enough in the summer to make it the right thing to do.
One degree cooler……and people called it the little ice age
In most of the US, white roofs are a good idea. In North Dakota, there usually isn’t enough sun to matter in the winter, should you have a black roof, and your black roof may be covered with snow for much of the time in any case. And if it gets to 90 degrees in Minot, which it does, you may want that white roof anyway.
There are lots of bad ideas and corrupted IPCC science to mock, and this blog does a great job of it. But leave white roofs alone, they can actually save money and make a house more comfortable in the summer. No, it won’t save a lot of CO2, but almost nothing other that a huge nuclear build out would.
Businesses would already be doing with this their buildings if it saved them money. I suspect there are pratfalls in the white roof meme.
Some that I know about from own research a couple years ago:
– It’s not advisable for mineral shingle roofs. The paint contracts when dries causing the shingles to curl.
– The paint itself is expensive. It isn’t cheap whitewash. Home Depot sells it. Check out the price per gallon and coverage provided. It’s about as expensive as the shingles. The price is commensurate with the life of the product and also with the reflectivity.
– It doesn’t bear a lot of foot traffic. Many flat roofs are used as patio space.
– In cooler weather when interior heating is required a dark roof is an asset not a liability.
– Glare. If the roof is in view the glare on a bright sunny day is blinding.
– Appearance. If a white roof is aesthetically pleasing it’s probably already white.
– Cleaning. If a white roof isn’t kept fairly clean any benefit from higher reflectivity diminishes. A lot of water is required for cleaning and fresh water is a limited resource where conservation measures, especially in hot regions where a white roof makes the most sense, are more vital than conserving energy.
So what I did for most of the reasons above is chose a white-mineral roof shingle for my experiment in high energy efficiency here in south central Texas. The glare is tolerable as the reflectivity is good (not great) and the mineral stones diffuse it somewhat. The greatest single benefit by far was sinking it into a north-facing hillside. The temperature of the ground here below a depth of 3 feet is 72F year round which is ideal for earth-berm construction and/or sunken structures so I took advantage of it.
– The service life of the paint is far less than most roof coatings requiring repainting every 5 – 10 years.
Kasuha says:
July 18, 2011 at 11:34 pm
Uhhh… basic physics lesson here, white surfaces have lower energy radiation too. So if you have a building which you intend to thermally insulate it’s better to paint it white in any weather conditions.
Not really. The colour of the paint on a surface makes very little difference to emissivity – it’s the material that matters. It may be that some white paints are made of materials with low emissivity, but that’s a different matter. I think the ideal material for what you’d want is aluminium, which has very high reflectivity and very low emissivity.
Dons says
Way to go Don!
Byz says:
July 19, 2011 at 12:05 am
Keynes said that it was better for an economy to pay someone to dig a hole and fill it in again, than to just let them be unemployed.
Eventually this became known as “civil service”, or “government work”.
Why not go the whole hog and paint everything white ?
Salamon Parco had a similar idea, paint the Andes white.
http://www.australiangeographic.com.au/journal/peru-mountain-painting.htm
And they used to say painting the Sydney Harbour Bridge was a lifetime job.
Parco has the ultimate “green” job for life.
I also think that not any ol white paint will do.
In order for it to be reflective it has to have some crystaline properties. Like snow.
Aluminium paint might work. But it is expensive.
A better idea might simply not to remove snow in winter. That will help with cooling….
OT Your are probably working on it but the Wallis-Climategate-Police story seems to be getting clearer all the time!
From the economic side, one very big point is missing. The supposed energy savings, translates into cost savings, and that translates into lower profits for the power companies.
Your power rates will go up to compensate for the lost revenue. They’re doing that right now here in Reno.
The energy savings from all the conservation measures have been successful, but income to NV Energy has been reduced as a direct result. They want their money, so they’ve proposed rate increases to offset the losses.
Saving energy may be a sound environmental idea, but it isn’t translating into more money in your pocket.
I care about my pocket book. If I lived in Arizona instead of NE Oregon, you can bet I would have a heat reflective roof.
I have a roof on the ranch house that is 4900 sq ft in surface area. It is black. I chose the color and paid a huge sum to have that roof redone. I stay relatively warm in winter, and thankfully cool in summer.
That said, no one is going to be allowed to dictate to me what color to put on that roof or how much to spend on it. No one.
Clinton is engaging in the two worst actions of liberal politics. He believes in giving tax money away when there is none to give, and growing yet another governmental agency to oversee the new program.