Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Los Angeles is spending $40,000 per mile painting asphalt streets white to try to prevent global warming.
Los Angeles painting city streets white in bid to combat climate change
By Travis Fedschun | Fox News
California officials are hoping their latest attempt to stem the rising tides of climate change leads to a more socially conscious — and cooler — summer.
Officials in Los Angeles have been painting streets white to reduce the effect of urban “heat islands” and combat the effects of climate change.
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The LA Street Services began rolling out the project last May, which preliminary testing shows has reduced the temperature of roadways by up to 10 degrees. The project involves applying a light gray coating of the product CoolSeal, made by the company GuardTop.
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While each coasting could can last up to seven years, they are also pricey, with the estimated cost of $40,000 per mile, the L.A. Daily News reported.
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Outsiders might be tempted to suggest that Los Angeles has more pressing problems than the color of their streets, such as soaring rates of homelessness, drug abuse, crime and financial distress for poor people.
Obviously we outsiders have got it all wrong – the solution to Los Angeles’ horrendous social problems is taxpayer funded truck loads of white paint.
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If we paint everything white then no one will confuse us with that [pruned] San Francisco.
The Mad Queen from “Alice in Wonderland” ordering the gardeners to paint the white roses red, or it’s “Off with their heads!”
Painting it white. Isn’t that racist? Especially in California
I agree … #blackstreetsmatter
Oh dear… 🙂
Safety Data sheet: http://guardtop.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/SDS-CoolSeal-By-GuardTop.pdf
Asphalt is the main ingredient, which must come from unicorns, since it can’t come from petroleum. Wonder what the per mile cost would be if it was applied by legal immigrants paid at the minimum wage?
I found one site that states that Los Angeles is responsible for 6700 miles of road. At $40,000 a mile that is well over a quarter billion dollars and they have to spend that every 7 years.
Hey, it ain’t the California officials money so what do they care.
That number is low by a factor of four Myron. See below link.
How is a road going to stay white or painted for seven years?
That is a good amount of time for a house repaint.
But houses do not have cars and trucks driving on them all the time, or dirt collecting on and in them.
“I see a black road and I want it painted white
No colors anymore, I want then to turn white
I see the girls walk by dressed in their winter clothes
I have to turn my head until their darkness goes.
No more will my highways put out that UHI
I could not foresee this thing with out asking why
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My retinas will burn out before the painting’s done.”
Sorry Keith and Mick.
I wanna see the sun, blotted out from the sky.
Smog from all that solvent going into the air ought to do the trick.
And trap a bunch of heat to boot!
Minor urban warming has nothing to do with Global anything.
For the “Left” is not the color White a Racist Emblem! And now they embrace … White!
Ha ha
How much oil and CO2 goes into the manufacture of this paint?
Paint It Black (White)!
Which is the higher albedo effect I wonder. Should the government make it mandatory for people to shave their heads? Or force us to wear white hats? Millions of little heads walking around in the sun absorbing energy. Shocking!
Just read the MSDS somebody linked above…
Of course, almost everything useful has a Cal prop 65 warning about cancer and/or reproductive harm, but they seldom paint all the streets with it. Could get interesting.
Do you think they will put warning labels on the roads?
Now, does this LA politician understand how “albedo” actually works?
A “white roof” does reflect the sun’s rays from the top of each building, and – for a given level of “clean” – a white roof will continue to reflect more energy than a black-gray-brown roof.
IF – big “IF” there! – the year-round climate requires cooling (HVAC) almost all the year, then the owner/renter does save a limited amount of each year’s cooling electric bill.
But …
If the general climate requires heating part of the year, or if the building is not air conditioned at all (more common than office worker millenniums assume!) such as a manufacturing, warehouse, or repair (like auto repair or commercial fabrication), then there are NO savings during the heating season.
In fact, a white roof INCREASES the heating energy required each winter.
But remember, this is for a white ROOF. The energy refleted never reaches the ground. If all buildings around the “white roof” are near-equal in height, then no other building intercepts the reflected rays of sunlight, and no other building is “super-heated” above the “standard dirty brown roof” case.
But assume you have the taller building, and are surrounded by herds of lower-level white roofs. Presto! You now have MORE sunlight into your windows, your walls, your building every hour of every summer day!
“They” save energy, you pay more for every hour of air-conditioning every day the sun shines.
But streets are (by definition) usually at ground level.
A “white street” does reflect the sunlight from the exposed street. But it refelcts that sunlight not into the “air” above the city, but onto the perpendicular building walls and cars and windows and doors of every building near the street.
Now, exact angle changes each minute of each hour. So, the street heats your building at 10:30 – 12:30 each n=morning, and somebody else’s building from 14:00 to 17:00 each afternoon. SO, your AC bill increases part of the day, your window lighting load increases, his increases at a different time.
I thought black objects and surfaces both absorb and emit energy more rapidly/readily.
No?
Oh, wait…nevermind.
🙂
Most office buildings produce enough heat inside them, that they have to keep the AC going, even as the outside temperatures get down into the 50s F.
(The last time I saw figures was before the advent of LED lights and flat screen monitors.)
Beyond that, in places where it gets really cold, the roofs are covered by snow most of the winter, so the actual color of the roof doesn’t matter. Additionally, during the cold season, there’s a lot less sunshine, so the color of the roof is less relevant.
“… your window lighting load increases, his increases at a different time.” An electric load-leveling scheme?
So will it make it less ‘hot’ or more ‘hot’ for the people? Where tarmac absorbs heat wouldn’t the paint just reflect it into their living space? Not being an “ist” I don’t know.
Heddy Lamar would be proud. Work, work, work, work, work….
Sadly, this is not even remotely the dumbest thing I’ve encountered today.
did you run into kate brown?
Are we sure we’re not all stuck in an alternate dimension? Is there a way to prove you’re not actually in Purgatory?
This is just blowing my mind for all the wrong reasons.
WUWT is about the only thing I can come up with at the moment…….
That’s got to produce an nasty sun glare issue for some unfortunate drivers.
It’s not called LA LA Land for nothing!
Please stop the geoengineering spray over Southern California. LA has had brown skies at 30,000 feet every day for the last month.
Organic materials are the leading cause of smog.
Paint is made from organic molecules, derived from oil.
Smog traps heat and causes a lot of non-global warming.
You will be quizzed on this later.
On the plus side, maybe they are admitting that CO2 has been falsely accused, and the true cause of climate change is streets that are too dark. /sarc
Simple. Just find out who owns the company that makes the paint or the contractor that got the job…then trace the link to the official who commissioned the job.
Does everyone get a free pair of sunglasses?
The reflecting radiation from the white road surface will sunburn the underside of your arms.
No conjecture.
Decades ago, while skiing at Mt. Baker on the July long weekend.
Hot enough to wear a T-shirt with bare arms. Topsides were tanned.
Undersides not.
Mountaineering, I wore zinc oxide on undersurfaces, ears, chin, …
Did they test the idea experimentally?