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(London Times) Cool New Versace hotel in Dubai finds ingenious way to deal with global warming: Refrigerate the beach   (timesonline.co.uk) divider line 60
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Schadenfreude ist die schoenste Freude [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 06:36:32 PM  
completely and utterly useless without pics.

 
Iron Chef Scottish 2008-12-14 06:37:23 PM  
The more I read about Dubai, the more I think that it might be the worst place on the planet.

 
Mugato [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 06:40:08 PM  
Those people have way too much money.

 
tiamet4 2008-12-14 06:40:29 PM  
Well it's a good thing they're developing this technology now. If they keep this up, every beach will need to be refrigerated

\Reading that article all I could think about was my mom screaming "Close the fricking door! Do you think I'm paying to cool all of outside?"

 
wireman2 2008-12-14 06:40:45 PM  
I'm going to go make myself a drink now...then... I might make myself a country...

 
Jack_Knopf 2008-12-14 06:40:59 PM  
Yeah, the Americans are ostentatious (linked for the dumbarse Farkers).

 
UnoriginalAndrew 2008-12-14 06:42:32 PM  
...Or you could vacation somewhere that remains under 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. And has natural ocean breezes. And an ocean. Just a thought.

 
jmr61 2008-12-14 06:42:47 PM  
Enjoy it while you've got it Dubai.

The higher you fly, the farther you fall.

 
BarnabyJones 2008-12-14 06:42:53 PM  
Uhh, that's pronounced: "Ver-sase"?

www.movie-list.com

 
Wise_Guy 2008-12-14 06:43:51 PM  
I guess you can run pipes under the sand carrying basically saltwater, like an ice rink does.

 
Mugato [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 06:46:14 PM  
About 60% of Dubai's huge power bill is for air-conditioning; each person living there has a carbon footprint of more than 44 tons of CO2 a year.


...and they discontinued the inhalant in my asthma spray.

 
uttertosh 2008-12-14 06:49:41 PM  
They're worried about all the green house gasses that powering a refrigerated beach would produce. Now, if there was some way of capturing energy from some other readily available, carbon neutral source... something that is in copious quantities in Dubai a isn't oil...

Nope, can't think of a thing. Any of you farkers shed some light on a possible solution?

 
Dellirium 2008-12-14 06:50:02 PM  
We have so much money, we pee oil on the peasants!


Hahahahaha!

 
Mouser 2008-12-14 06:51:39 PM  
I liked the link on the page:

Have more sex to save the planet
(new window)

 
OrangeMandrake 2008-12-14 06:51:46 PM  
tiamet4:
\Reading that article all I could think about was my mom screaming "Close the fricking door! Do you think I'm paying to cool all of outside?"


I smile a bitter smile when I think of my grandmother saying the same thing of heat in the winter.

/heating the whole outdoors by burning oil? Yes, yes we are.

 
letrole 2008-12-14 06:52:41 PM  
jmr61: Enjoy it while you've got it Dubai.

Dubai is predicted to run out of oil in 2016. So, the crown prince decided to develop a new economy based on tourism, which unfortunately is utimately based upon the extravangence allowed by an oil based economy.

Circular Reasoning - Evil Cycle - Ultimate Irony

All set to collide in eight years time.

 
Jack_Knopf 2008-12-14 06:52:50 PM  
UnoriginalAndrew: ...Or you could vacation somewhere that remains under 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. And has natural ocean breezes. And an ocean. Just a thought.

Vegas was built in the middle of a sand dune.

 
Impudent Domain 2008-12-14 07:02:43 PM  
U don't think they will make it eight years LETROLE, That place is hated with a white hot burning hatred by the radical Islamicists.

It represents the triumph of sick secular western culture to them.

I'll bet that it is a prime candidate for one of the first nukes they can get their hands on.

 
pxlboy [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 07:02:51 PM  
letrole: jmr61: Enjoy it while you've got it Dubai.

Dubai is predicted to run out of oil in 2016. So, the crown prince decided to develop a new economy based on tourism, which unfortunately is utimately based upon the extravangence allowed by an oil based economy.

Circular Reasoning - Evil Cycle - Ultimate Irony

All set to collide in eight years time.


this.

 
otterrr 2008-12-14 07:06:49 PM  
Dubai is pretty much the coolest place to visit via Google Earth.

 
TheChemist 2008-12-14 07:09:13 PM  
Jack_Knopf: Yeah, the Americans are ostentatious (linked for the dumbarse Farkers).

Why? Are you under the impression that this resort will be mainly inhabited by the locals? This is celebrity and Bill Gates territory. Some of whom are American, some of whom are not.

\Lived in the UAE for eight years.
\\Dubai sucks.

 
All Apologies 2008-12-14 07:14:50 PM  
Wall-E, it's coming.

 
mr. excitement 2008-12-14 07:18:30 PM  
Schadenfreude ist die schoenste Freude: completely and utterly useless without pics.

 
glacierexpress 2008-12-14 07:26:22 PM  
The more I read about Dubai, the more I think that it might be the best place on the planet.

 
Gyrfalcon [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 07:30:25 PM  
Jack_Knopf: UnoriginalAndrew: ...Or you could vacation somewhere that remains under 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer. And has natural ocean breezes. And an ocean. Just a thought.

Vegas was built in the middle of a sand dune.


Even Vegas doesn't attempt to refrigerate the entire desert.

 
Haoie 2008-12-14 07:38:29 PM  
Ironically, this is helping melt the arctic.

 
TheDirtyNacho 2008-12-14 07:40:08 PM  
Note that it is refrigerating the sand itself - not the air. This doesn't seem too difficult to accomplish - run some pipes through the sand - and since a hotel owns a relatively small plot of beach, it wouldn't take much.

Depending on how much of a temperature decrease you want, you could probably do it simply by circulating the coolant through a heat exchanger, requiring a low power pump instead of a compressor. This would cool the beach to about air temperature.

This is nothing compared to Dubai's indoor ski slope

 
Mugato [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 07:44:19 PM  
Gyrfalcon: Even Vegas doesn't attempt to refrigerate the entire desert.

The pipes would run into all the bodies.

 
letrole 2008-12-14 07:48:47 PM  
Mugato: Gyrfalcon: Even Vegas doesn't attempt to refrigerate the entire desert.

The pipes would run into all the bodies.


Not true.

The bodies are mostly buried back east.

Birds, soiling own nest, and all that.

 
pxlboy [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 07:52:22 PM  
TheDirtyNacho: Note that it is refrigerating the sand itself - not the air. This doesn't seem too difficult to accomplish - run some pipes through the sand - and since a hotel owns a relatively small plot of beach, it wouldn't take much.

Depending on how much of a temperature decrease you want, you could probably do it simply by circulating the coolant through a heat exchanger, requiring a low power pump instead of a compressor. This would cool the beach to about air temperature.

This is nothing compared to Dubai's indoor ski slope


un-f*cking-believeable.

 
Dubai Vol 2008-12-14 07:52:54 PM  
Hadn't seen this one. I bet the local power board hasn't seen it either. I have customers that can't even get the power for regular air conditioning in their factories. The infrastructure is not keeping up with growth. Constant traffic jams, etc. The sewage plant can't keep up eithere, so the drivers (yep, no pipes, sewage is trucked to the plant) are dumping it down the storm drains, where it flows into the ocean. E Coli beach, now refrigerated, but still can't go in the water.

And, one more time: Dubai's economy isn't dependent on oil, OR tourism. The heart of the Dubai business model is as a trading and logistics hub, and every major internatinal corporation has its regional headquarters here-Microsoft, Oracle, Mercedes, GM, you name it. Why? becasue Dubai s the only city in the Gulf that is virtually the same as a European city. Booze and pork, with a side order of hookers, loads of bars, and plenty of freedom. Over 90% of the workforce in Dubai are foreigners, like me.

Tourism is a new twist: it was always a cheap winter destination from Europe, now they are looking to move upscale, and making a mess. Four years ago Dubai was great, not any more.

 
Mouser 2008-12-14 07:54:48 PM  
glacierexpress: The more I read about Dubai, the more I think that it might be the best place on the planet.

If you have money, or at least rich friends.

I've been to Dubai. There are three classes of people there:

1. The Emiratis, who sit around rolling in the luxury brought in by the emirate's oil wealth and fairly savvy business practices.

2. Foreign businessmen, mostly Europeans and Americans, who help the Emiratis turn that oil wealth and trade revenue into luxury for them.

3. Foreign laborers, mostly Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other denizens of 3rd World hellholes, who do all the shiat-work in the country and are treated as little more than slaves.

You'll never be part of class 1. With hard work and luck, you might have a shot at being part of class 2. Pray to whatever God you worship that you never become part of class 3.

members.cox.net

FYI, this is ruler of Dubai. I'm pretty sure the resemblence to Zod is not coinicidence.

 
m0llusk [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 08:01:52 PM  
Sounds like a great place for a cash bonfire.

 
Mikeyworld 2008-12-14 08:02:56 PM  
Just wait until the bubble breaks on this economy. There's gonna be an archaeologist's garden with no shade.

 
Nick Nostril 2008-12-14 08:21:13 PM  
Livin' the dream. Livin'...the...dream.

 
honrudean 2008-12-14 08:22:06 PM  
My sister just moved back from there. I wish I could've checked it out before she left. I probably couldn't live there for an extended period, or a lot of these international mega metros for that matter, but wouldn't it be nice to check out for a while?

It sounds like they have a lot of interesting sights to see to make up for their lack of interesting culture. "We used to be desert people, but now we're rich, look at our STUFF!"

 
equusdc 2008-12-14 08:30:48 PM  
Yeah, enjoy the beach, just don't kiss your wife in public.

I'd rather summer in farking Libya, tyvm.

 
Dull Cow Eyes 2008-12-14 08:35:35 PM  
Do you know who else got rich off slaves?


/sadly, it's a long list

 
itsfullofstars 2008-12-14 08:42:06 PM  
Nobody there has figured out that oil's heyday is in the rearview mirror. Instead of focusing on sustaining it as an energy source, Dubai continues to build artificial ski resorts and refrigerated beaches in the desert.

This city is going to crash hard and when it does it will be so disconnected from the world economy the rest of the world wont give a fark.

 
TeddyRooseveltsMustache [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 08:52:21 PM  
www.doodlemyshoes.com

For when you want to walk across a beach without burning your feet, with the option of quickly converting your feet for amphibious duty.

 
duncanblackthorne 2008-12-14 09:16:15 PM  
Utterly stupid. They're actually creating more waste heat in the process.

 
Dil Doe 2008-12-14 09:22:21 PM  
Dubai is basically just the city version of a drug-dealer's BMW tricked out with gold trim, rims, and hood ornament.

 
themagus 2008-12-14 09:34:10 PM  
a friend of mine has spent a lot of time in the UAE
it sounds like the biggest shiathole in the farking world

 
safety-math 2008-12-14 09:45:20 PM  
I'm sure Donatella's enjoying the weather.
i2.photobucket.com

 
NittLion78 2008-12-14 09:54:23 PM  
Iron Chef Scottish: The more I read about Dubai, the more I think that it might be the worst place on the planet.

I'm beginning to agree with you.

 
pedobearapproved 2008-12-14 09:54:43 PM  
wait wait wait...heat exchange produces CO2?

I just don't think TFA gives enough information to judge the actual environmental impact, it just sounds like a way that the environmental movement can sound self important and remain anti capitalistic by using buzz words that most people key in on.

If it was me, I'd pumped cold water from deep in the ocean up under the beach, run it through pipes, and deposit it back into the ocean, AND power all that with tidal or undersea current power generators...hmmm? How's your environment now?

 
whidbey [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 09:58:27 PM  
"Dubai is like a bubble world where the things that are worrying the rest of the world, like climate change, are simply ignored so that people can continue their destructive lifestyles"

Yup.

 
johnnyboog 2008-12-14 10:05:26 PM  
pedobearapproved: wait wait wait...heat exchange produces CO2?

I just don't think TFA gives enough information to judge the actual environmental impact, it just sounds like a way that the environmental movement can sound self important and remain anti capitalistic by using buzz words that most people key in on.

If it was me, I'd pumped cold water from deep in the ocean up under the beach, run it through pipes, and deposit it back into the ocean, AND power all that with tidal or undersea current power generators...hmmm? How's your environment now?


Piping system with pump, heat exchanger and refrigerant.

 
verbaltoxin [TotalFark] 2008-12-14 10:28:14 PM  
I hate Dubai and the rest of that stinking, disgusting peninsula.

 
Oznog 2008-12-14 11:45:45 PM  
Mouser: glacierexpress: The more I read about Dubai, the more I think that it might be the best place on the planet.

If you have money, or at least rich friends.

I've been to Dubai. There are three classes of people there:

1. The Emiratis, who sit around rolling in the luxury brought in by the emirate's oil wealth and fairly savvy business practices.

2. Foreign businessmen, mostly Europeans and Americans, who help the Emiratis turn that oil wealth and trade revenue into luxury for them.

3. Foreign laborers, mostly Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, and other denizens of 3rd World hellholes, who do all the shiat-work in the country and are treated as little more than slaves.

You'll never be part of class 1. With hard work and luck, you might have a shot at being part of class 2. Pray to whatever God you worship that you never become part of class 3.


Better than the Nigerian government model. "Government" takes in billions for oil, but the nation and its citizens are in abject poverty as the money simply disappears into private hands. The locals in the Niger Delta are viewed as squatters more than anything else really and they have no problem polluting the area so it can't be used or uprooting them for oil development. Most have never seen prosperity and are unaware of what's been taken. There have been uprisings but one thing that money DID buy was a lot of military.

 
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