I am this weird guy who gets crazy inspirations and inventions in my head and I am lucky enough to have a job where I can make them a reality. Usually I do this with code, but sometimes I get practical inspirations for environmental or urban issues. I usually don't follow up on those because it's not my field.
Recently I saw an article about a vehicle technology that was a concept I did an invention disclosure on several years ago. Unfortunately, I never followed up the disclosure with a patent application, and now the idea is being developed in Europe. I decided, hey, if yah got a good idea, say something next time!
Over the fold if you want to hear a crazy idea I had.
There's a breakthrough I'm grasping for, something about using wind or sun at a croudsourced level that could help lower energy demands significantly. If we banded together, I'm convinced we could have a measurable effect. But I just can't put my finger on it at first.
These big variables keep going through my head...
Sun. Wind. Promising alternative energy sources. Expensive. Unreliable. Hard to harness at scale to make up for the cost.
Clothes dryers: second biggest contributor to your household carbon footprint.
I keep having this feeling if we all hung up clothes on the line to dry it would magically reduce the carbon emissions in the world.
Hmmm. Haven't we already tried that? Did it really help much? I'm not sure what new twist we could put on it that could have a big impact? And, how do you solve the problem of apartments and city dwellers who don't have yards to hang laundry out of? And bad weather? For this kind of crowdsourcing to have a significant impact, we need a really big crowd. So that is the piece missing from the puzzle.
So today I'm taking the delicates off the drying rack. I'm always trying to fill it up, so a big load of wash can be split up and dried faster. Some hats, towels, anything made of synthetic material I'll try to hang on the rack. I can usually get a good quarter of a load on the rack. Which means the rest of my clothes will dry in the dryer in just one cycle and I don't need that extra 10 to 15 minutes it seems like it usually needs. You know that annoying 15 minutes of extra drying? Where your clothers are kind of dry, but still have that weird dampness to them? And you have to throw em back in... just for a few minutes... maybe you remove the things that are totally dry and hang em up.
And then I did a double take on the drying rack.
It's a nice little fold-up white thing with sturdy metal rods. It fits maybe a quarter or third of a full load depending on the size of your washer. Unfortunately it collapses very easily, so it's a pain in the butt sometimes, but I like it. That's useful, but on it's own might not make a huge dent in the overall dryer energy consumption.
When I was traveling recently, our hosts had these sort of indoor drying tables that fold out and hang clothes on lines, not rods, and have a much larger capacity than my little metal one. You could probably fit most of a load on one of those. Now we're talking, that would definitely help.
But people with yards or decks that could accomodate more than just a little indoor rack could do even more! If they have the property for it, they could install much larger drying systems outdoors and eliminate almost all of their drying if they and their families take the time to hang the laundry.
So, adding that to the equation:
small laundry racks in apartments and homes
+
large laundry racks in apartments or homes
+
pre-fab outdoor laundry structures
+
custom outdoor laundry structures, both small and large scale
=
Make up a number.... 35% reduction of dryer energy use. I think we could do better, but 35% of a lot is still a lot.
Why is this a jobs initiative? We can manufacture them here (jobs). Subsidize their purchase and installation (crowdsource) to drive demand. Maybe give the cheap little racks away just to build some excitement (more crowdsource). Local contractors (jobs) can create fancy custom attachments to apartment buildings in urban areas (crowdsource), extensive systems at houses with big yards (more jobs and crowdsource). No need for solar panels or wind mills, the sun and wind are enough to dry clothes much of the year outdoors (reduce carbon emissions, weather sensitive), and indoor racks can ease the burden in almost any situation (reduce carbon emissions year round!).
I'm actually starting to like this little idea. Given the proper incentives this could be kind of popular. I'm no pollster, but that's my instinct.
Is it worth it? Good question, one I don't know the answer to. I'm just a crazy idea guy. Maybe you know the answer, or know information relative to the savings possible based on societies where there are different levels of adoption of air drying. Actually, that would be weird if someone knew that.
If something like this... a broad initiative that reduces energy, consumption & pollution and increases jobs... can work, why not more similar ideas? There's this really amazing carbon cleaning tool that could be spread across the country, through every community, at a relatively low cost. They're highly technical. Obviously some higher power created them. They're called trees!!! We've been cutting them down for generations, but they can help lower temperatures and are designed to capture carbon! Why not do the same with them? Get a tree corps to plant them throughout our cities and country and create jobs at the same time? Oh, yeah, that other cool invention I have? Gardens! They help provide food at a local level, reducing carbon necessary to ship food great distances.
I'm not a legislator. I'm not an economist. I don't know how to add these things up and show what the carbon reduction would be, nor do I know what the economic impact would be or number of jobs. But they seem like common sense to me. And if someone can come up with the right mix, I think they would be inspirational and a rallying point.
OK, thanks for listening to my crazy idea. Fire away, boys and girls.