Cholera epidemics stopped by drinking cleaner water, not with vaccines or “herd immunity”.
Covid is going to be stopped by breathing cleaner air. twitter.com/MackayIM/statu…
There's already a huge investment going on in replacing HVAC systems for energy reasons, so there's probably good hybrid approaches. I've had several people reach out before/after the pandemic with ideas in this space.
Is there much headroom for innovation in hvac? The mechanical/electrical parts seem kinda done besides some geometry optimization, but non-ghg heat exchanger chemicals seems hard
I've since forgotten the ideas, but my impression was that there were plenty of interesting ones.
I remember public ideas of regulating where the heat/cooling goes, whole building systems that manage solar/waste heat, and similar.
Though I’m pessimistic about those sideshow innovations if the basic problem of high-forcing effect gases isn’t solved. EU recently banned refrigerants with >150 forcing effect of CO2. But ones in use are still like 80-100x I think, so small leaks have huge effects.
Whether innovation or law change still benefits from the retrofits, so there's not as much risk in deploying them I wouldn't think if they actually work.
Replacing building HVAC is expensive as fuck. Often disrupting tenants, leading to rent loss, etc.