Engineers Working On Beijing Smog Solution - Giant Plastic Bubbles To Seal Out Dirty Air

[hatrack]

O---------------K then!

LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – As China struggles to deal with its ever worsening air quality, the creative minds at a London-based architecture and design company are dreaming of bubbles in Beijing.

Their project, still in the conceptual stage, would create outdoor green spaces covered by giant bubble-shaped domes in the Chinese capital or other places where adverse environmental conditions mean that people are unable to spend time outdoors without risking their health. Bubbles would “allow people to be outdoors regardless of the weather in spaces that don’t really take anything away from the environment,” said Orproject co-founder Rajat Sodhi.

The bubbles would be built from ethylene tetrafluoroethylene, or ETFE, a lightweight and resilient plastic. It is an excellent insulator and also resilient to dust, so a light rain would be sufficient to clean it, according to Sodhi. He said that the inspiration for the project came from research on how veins grow in plants and animals, and a trip to pollution-racked Beijing.

“We were discussing the smog and decided we can’t really combat pollution in the developing world but if we could do something that could at least provide a form of public space where you could go out, that would be clean all year round, (where) the temperature and quality of air are controlled, that could make an impact,” he said.

EDIT

http://www.trust.org/item/20140225153652-lmrxz/?source=hptop

[phantom power]

1. problem solved!

[kristopher]

4. Reinventing the wheel

I'm sure we've explored this territory before the Chinese.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-air-pollution-0428-pictures,0,2118217.photogallery?index=la-smog1984_00326341a

[phantom power]

8. It makes me nostalgic for all those 1990s articles about how they were going to leapfrog us

They were going to use fancy schmancy modern technologies and avoid all the pollution we caused before we... errrrr... outsourced our pollution to China.

[bloomington-lib]

2. They're calling being in bubble "being outdoors".

I wonder how much pollution will be produced making these giant plastic bubbles.

[hatrack]

6. Not to mention that they're plastic, which means more oil pumped, which . . .

Well, you know.

[TexasTowelie]

3. What will they do with the farts?

The smog can't get in, but the farts can't get out.

[Systematic Chaos]

5. Wow, if only LA and New York had these back when those cities had...

...manufacturing!!

But don't you worry! China's gonna pass their own Clean Air Act any day now, and all those plants will not only photosynthesize eight times faster than normal ones with clean air, water and soil, but they'll do it while farting rainbows and My Little Ponies! And then those My Little Ponies will all get together and find a cure for that 8-year-old girl's lung cancer!

[Iterate]

7. I think it's a great idea.

Not to be a contrarian -- I just don't see that the rest of you are thinking of the development potential.

Here's how it goes. First, locate it on cheap land. It will be expensive to build, so you lease out valuable space to medium or small retailers, who in turn will build most of the structure anyway. It will be expensive to heat and mainly, cool, greenhouses being what they are. So part of the lease requires that retailers keep their store fronts open to the center -they'll heat and cool it for you. It will be a destination, so big parking lots are mandatory. Good news -private governance, and no complaining allowed. Congratulations, your cheap land just got to be valuable with little effort.

It might collapse, but meh.

When it goes out of style and gets shabby, peddle it downmarket and build an upscale competitor across town. Rinse and repeat. Two generations later you'll have enough wealth accumulated that the Chinese Thomas "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" Friedman can marry into the family.

It should be great, and big enough to see from space. Now if I could just think of a catchy name for it...

[freshwest]

9. The brainiacs 'decided we can’t really combat pollution in the developing world'?

Study how the UK dealt with its own air quality issues. A static system that does nothing to help the world outside that would have to pay for its existence is not the answer.

Go back to the drawing board, or better yet, sell China some equipment and impress their leaders that regulation is a good thing. This sounds like a libertarian solution for those with leisure to go to the park.

It does nothing to address the health of those who must work in the smog. It's not what the UK did. It doesn't solve the problem.