Is a “refrigerated beach” ever truly “sustainable”?
Versace, the renowned fashion house, is to create the world’s first refrigerated beach so that hotel guests can walk comfortably across the sand on scorching days…. The beach will have a network of pipes beneath the sand containing a coolant that will absorb heat from the surface.
The swimming pool will be refrigerated and there are also proposals to install giant blowers to waft a gentle breeze over the beach.
The scheme is likely to infuriate environmentalists. The revelation comes as more than 11,000 politicians, green campaigners and others are gathered in Poznan, Poland, for the latest talks on cutting greenhouse gas emissions…. However, Soheil Abedian, founder and president of Palazzo Versace, said he believed it is possible to design a refrigerated beach and make it sustainable. “We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on,” he said. “This is the kind of luxury that top people want.”
Via Towleroad.
“Top people?”
Two words: Carbon Footprint.
Who the hell wants a cold beach or swimming pool?
Although it seems like they could use this technology to power something with the beach heat, like a giant boiler.
agree with flamingo. i was annoyed enough before the phrase “top people” came into play. i hope it backfires and burns them all to a crisp. yay!
Is a “refrigerated beach” ever truly “sustainable”?
Solar power?
Will someone on Slog please talk about getsnuggie.com and the cult following that HOPEFULLY will ensue?
I think it could be made carbon neutral if we used the bodies of dead CEOs to burn and run the furnaces needed to generate the electricity for the project.
That or burnt the fat we liposuctioned from them.
Refrigerated Beach is an anagram for A Chafe Beret Girder.
Ugh, this beach idea makes me sick.
Jesus. Isn’t it enough that you have the money to just laze around on a sunny beach somewhere? Now you need to manipulate time and space to try and avoid physical reality?
Anyone that would spend good money on this is not a “top” person…unless by “top” you mean “insufferable prick/bitch with control issues.”
In the spirit of saying “Fuck you” to the planet, why don’t we go ahead and heat Lake Washington? Year round boating… who’s with me? I’m sure we could make it sustainable… right?
two words — heat exchange
Of course. As 11 said, the heat they’re removing from the beach is energy. A heat pump could be used to turn it into hot water, for example.
Right?
Eight words: First against the wall when the revolution comes.
This beach sounds like an ideal location for a Dethklok performance.
Maybe the “Top People” intend to power it by burning the homeless people for fuel.
What a bunch of cocks.
Donatella has lost her fucking mind.
flip-flops are SO declasse’, darlings.
If they don’t want to walk on a hot beach, why don’t they send me to their tropical paradise, and they can stay home and walk barefoot in the snow?
And the revolution can’t come soon enough.
No.
(And to those who cite heat exchangers: all heat exchangers are frighteningly inefficient.)
This hotel–in Dubai–epitomizes the phrase unsustainable.
@16, I’m sure Donatella has never spent one moment of her day worrying about the potential negative impacts to the environment of cooling sand on the beach in Dubai.
Every CEO that dies is that much less a drain on the world’s resources.
Do your part!
Instead of blaming the people who are building this thing, why not stand in front of the mirror and get a look at who made them rich enough to afford it.
Why don’t the “top people” just lie down on the “bottom people?”
Why would top people walk across a hot beach when there are lots of poor people available to carry them to the walter?
Water, I’m not sure who this walter is.
Um guys, since the beach is right next to an enormous cold reservoir THE SIZE OF AN OCEAN, I don’t see how cooling the sand requires any continuous expenditure of energy.
The blowers, yeah, that’s pretty dumb.
If “coolant” just means “water,” this might be a good way to heat water for the hotel – run it through pipes under hot sand, and then you have a cooler beach surface AND hot water for showers with very little electricity expended. I will judge it inefficient when I see the design. Passive solar water heating is a good thing to use, though.
True, gember.
Some of the most recent renovations of Club Med resorts in Europe (and other non-English locations) involve the use of passive and active solar extensively.
Generators are noisy.
The sun is quiet (well, unless you’re sitting on the surface, in which case you just vaporized …)
on the way out of iraq, i suggest the american military flattens dubai.
if you are a western corporation that works there, you are a whore.
@29 – don’t you say bad things about my Canadian friends, Max!
“We will suck the heat out of the sand to keep it cool enough to lie on…”
Do you know what I use to make the sand cool enough to lie on? A towel.