I guess the “problem” with trees is obvious: it takes decades for them to produce the desired cooling effect in urban areas.
You plant a dozen young trees today, you can begin to reap the cooldown 10 years later at best.
Also, they need a lot if water, and many of them just don’t make it - urban surroundings are just much hotter and more stressful (smog, salt…) then standing with other trees in a forest.
I fail to see though how these artificial “trees” provide any kind of benefit at all.
I think the problem is putting them in those dumb tanks where a tree would be, as if to say “do this instead”. The principle would be fine if they got a bit more creative with it and played to its strengths, e.g. if you make a train platform out of it, or the railings of an overpass, or the external wall panels of buildings etc.
Ofc OOP didn’t actually provide a source so we’ve no idea what the creators were actually thinking…
Thanks for that. It looks from that like a relevant detail OOP missed out is that these thing (purportedly) claim to produce as much oxygen as 15 trees, which isn’t nothing.
The roots destroy sewer systems etc too. There’s a bike path I take to work where the pavement is all distorted by the roots, making it very unsafe, but I still prefer that the trees are there.
That’s why you have to properly select the species that will be planted, there are many different species which have roots that won’t cause this type of damage and you can most likely get by with native plants for better adaptability
I guess the “problem” with trees is obvious: it takes decades for them to produce the desired cooling effect in urban areas. You plant a dozen young trees today, you can begin to reap the cooldown 10 years later at best. Also, they need a lot if water, and many of them just don’t make it - urban surroundings are just much hotter and more stressful (smog, salt…) then standing with other trees in a forest. I fail to see though how these artificial “trees” provide any kind of benefit at all.
I think the problem is putting them in those dumb tanks where a tree would be, as if to say “do this instead”. The principle would be fine if they got a bit more creative with it and played to its strengths, e.g. if you make a train platform out of it, or the railings of an overpass, or the external wall panels of buildings etc.
Ofc OOP didn’t actually provide a source so we’ve no idea what the creators were actually thinking…
A cursory search for “liquid trees micro algae” led me here: https://liquidtrees.org/urban-solutions
Thanks for that. It looks from that like a relevant detail OOP missed out is that these thing (purportedly) claim to produce as much oxygen as 15 trees, which isn’t nothing.
The roots destroy sewer systems etc too. There’s a bike path I take to work where the pavement is all distorted by the roots, making it very unsafe, but I still prefer that the trees are there.
That’s why you have to properly select the species that will be planted, there are many different species which have roots that won’t cause this type of damage and you can most likely get by with native plants for better adaptability