Cheap Plastic Cools Anything

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/02/cheap-plastic-film-cools-whatever-it-touches-10-c

This is one of the first possibly large commercial, rather than military, applications of research into metamaterials that originally began with investigating how to create stealth aircraft and invisibility cloaks. The stuff is amazingly cheap for something that can keep anything ten degrees cooler in direct sunlight. Ten micrometers is about 4,000ths of an inch suggesting it might even be possible to mix the spheres into some sort of clear paint-like substance that can be slapped on anything. Paints are already commonly self-assembling and it would be interesting to see where you could take this idea by adding more structure to the arrangement of spheres. Theoretically, there's no reason you can't just paint your house with something that not only keeps it 10 degrees cooler, but generates electricity as well. Optics and metamaterials are currently making huge advances and inventions like this just get you to thinking about what else is coming down the pipe in the near future.

 

From the looks of it, we may end up having to use this stuff on ourselves.

 

There are already half a dozen ways people have developed to extract C02 from the atmosphere and make plastic or fuel out of it at competitive prices, but nobody's willing to invest in the technology when the oil producing countries would just lower their prices. What is needed are electric vehicles that make the internal combustion engine an expensive dinosaur and they should be on the market within ten years at most. Already the major auto-manufactures have collaborated on building the first experimental carbon composite body factory and someone has developed graphene supercacitors capable of recharging in the same amount of time it takes to fill your tank with equivalent mileage and, eventually, much faster than you can fill your tank with gas. Additionally, scientists have figured out how to make any high performance motor you want using cheap and environmentally friendly materials. Cars account for a good 60% of the air pollution and most of the gas consumed and there's no reason electric vehicles can't also be used to pull the crap out of the air as well.

 

One time, i built a watered powered car. i have seen it with my own two eyes. it can be done.

 

The problem is people are great at screwing anything up and some of us are lucky if we know how to use a toilet.