From the UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA OKANAGAN CAMPUS and the “department of bad science fair submissions” comes this study, complete with ridiculous photo. There’s only one problem, most housing and office infrastructure isn’t setup to handle snow storage, and snow is most often stored in parking lots. What’s even funnier is that they had to use a model to try this….in Canada, a place where snow piles are abundant, even a nuisance.
You’d think if this was a workable idea, they’d actually try it with an HVAC system instead of modeling it. I’m sure they could find a snowpile somewhere nearby. Here is the press release below.
Snow could reduce need for air conditioning
A recent UBC study shows that snow cleared from winter roads can help reduce summer air-conditioning bills.
The UBC study, a computer modelling exercise, found directing a building’s air handling units through a snow dump–snow collected and stored from winter road clearing operations–can reduce the need to use air conditioning during warmer parts of the year.
“What this study shows is that it is possible to use snow to reduce electricity consumption in structures such as apartment buildings,” says Kasun Hewage, an associate professor of engineering at UBC’s Okanagan campus. “We also now know that using material from snow dumps to cool buildings can also help to reduce the greenhouse gasses that air conditioning units emit.”
The study included simulations for large buildings and accounted for the different types of equipment needed in both conventional systems with industrial cooling units and snow-dump based systems, which insulate snow collected during winter months to use during the summer.
“While further research is needed, the potential of this type of system to be used for large buildings and institutions looks promising,” says Rehan Sadiq, a professor of engineering at UBC’s campus in Kelowna. “Aside from making good use of waste material, this type of system could eventually help large organizations such as municipalities recoup some of the considerable costs associated with snow removal.”
The study–done in collaboration with UBC graduate student Venkatesh Kumar–was recently published in the journal Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy.
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So a small house will use an air conditioner that is 2 tons, running half over 12 the time it generates 6 tons of cooling. 6 tons means 6 tons of frozen water has to melt evey day to keep a house cool. Over summer that is 540 tons of snow. Where am I going to keep 540 tons of snow, and probably my twice that to account for outdoor melting.
I just quickly went through their published paper. It is about environmental impacts of snow storage based HVAC systems by considering all the material needs from extraction to end of life, transportation, production energy etc. It seems snow storage systems are practically used in Sweden and Japan in commercial scale. I agree with the authors that this technology is environmentally beneficial, but might not feasible commercially in Canada yet due to relatively low energy prices.
“While further research is needed, the potential of this type of system to be used for large buildings and institutions looks promising,” says Rehan Sadiq, a professor of engineering at UBC’s campus in Kelowna.”
Please sir, can I have some more (Funding)?
I seem to recall some places had outlawed rain buckets because they stole water from the city. I cant foresee these same crazies giving up their snow melt.
In Australia, people who have rain water collection tanks pay water rates. Serial!
Gee the next thing they’ll tax is the air.
While I hate to link to the Grauniad,
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/nov/15/mongolia-ice-shield-geoengineering
How exactly is their research significantly different from what the Mongolians tried on a much larger scale? Without models, even.
And we could use blocks of ice in a box and put our food in it instead of a refrigerator…oh, wait…
The press release keeps referring to this nonsense as a “study” For example they say
“what this study shows.”
The exercise in question is not a study and it in fact, does not “show” us anything.
How is it that a couple guys can make wild speculations, but if they do it near a computer at a public institution, those wild guesses become a “study” that shows us something?!!!
Pathetic.
Boston MA had 108″ of snowfall in 2014/2015, some 2.5 meters. One of their snow dumps (snow farms!) lasted until July!
It had a good layer of insulation from curbside trash, patio furniture used to mark parking spaces residents cleared, drain covers, etc.
The Rockywold/Deephaven Camp on Squam Lake (Golden Pond to movie buffs) still harvests ice for ice boxes in their cabins.
http://rdcsquam.com/about/ice_harvest.html
http://image.oregonlive.com/home/olive-media/width960/img/oregonian/photo/2015/01/13/-f60fb1513dc75444.JPG
Oops – forgot to mention, New Hampshire.
so does removing the ice from the lake cause it to warm up faster when spring finally arrives?
It should actually cause the lake to cool down faster since the ice acts as an insulator and protects the underlying water from getting colder from the air.
IDD. If your comment was (sarc) indicate so. Otherwise your comment was moronic. Put foot in mouth sideways suffer the consequences.
In the early 80’s my engineering firm designed an off-peak HVAC Ice Building Storage System for a College in SE Pennsylvania. The refrigeration (compressors) operated at metered reduced rates between 11:00 PM and 5:00 AM. During that time ICE was fused in a proprietary insulated heat exchange vessel. Chilled water was then circulated on demand during the day to unit ventilators in the building that housed the cafeteria and food prep.
I marvel at the fact that it has taken the World almost 40 years to catch up to measures we considered routine in my practice.
That system didn’t save energy. It just used it at off-peak times.
If they can sell it in California, it is ok with me.
Ice huts of straw was common in older times in Danmark, to save ice from lakes, so that you could make ice cream during the summer. It vanished like the old windmills, when other options became cheaper and more reliable.
‘There’s only one problem, most housing and office infrastructure isn’t setup to handle snow storage, and snow is most often stored in parking lots. What’s even funnier is that they had to use a model to try this….in Canada, a place where snow piles are abundant,’
Seemingly such studies never aim to get realized for practical use;
They just ‘proof’ models running on supercomputers are always needed and this years capacity min. is next years demand.
So the real achievement of this ‘studies’ is – to find employment for computer capacities.
Interestingly claciers are melting but snow piles north of 50° ain’t.
Something odd with global climate, certainly suggests avenues of further investigation.
you mean it doesn’t already?
I mean there’s no /sarc needed. Smile.