Scientists in Hong Kong have demonstrated a new ultra-white ceramic material that can drastically cool buildings by reflecting sunlight and heat at record highs. The beetle-inspired material gets its ability from its nanostructure, stays tough to the elements and should be relatively easy to scale…
Ultra-white ceramic cools buildings with record-high 99.6% reflectivity::undefined
Trees? Not many. Grasses, herbs, wildflowers, and shrubs? Tons of them.
And you can pretty easily retrofit over an existing sloped roof.
And the weight is no more than a tiled roof.
You know what also cools houses down super efficiently?
Trees
Excellent - how many trees can I grow on my roof? Can they be retrofitted?
/s
Is your roof flat? Many. /s
Trees? Not many. Grasses, herbs, wildflowers, and shrubs? Tons of them. And you can pretty easily retrofit over an existing sloped roof. And the weight is no more than a tiled roof.
Wetness could pose a problem to the structure
Kind of
There are eco apartments (planning idk about practice); grass on the roof and trees growing up the side
Lakehead University Orillia was going to do this for a new building but I don’t know what happened
You know what cools down roofs and generates electricity? Magic!
Another trick: bifacial panels oriented to pick up the reflected light from highly reflective roofs
What about Ultra white ceramic trees?
True though this is still practical for folks who live in deserts and other treeless places