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Originally Posted by Jasoncw
4. Curtain walls are just wall assemblies hung from the floor slabs. They don't have to be glass. And I don't see why if you were removing a curtain wall you couldn't replace it with a stone/concrete veneer or insulation or anything else. I don't see why the floor slabs wouldn't be able to hold it.
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I think the author was trying to deceptively focusing on walls that achieve a large thermal mass through having a large mass. Massive amounts of insulation don't stop heat transfer, they just slow it down. Walls with high thermal mass phase shift it, absorbing heat during the day and releasing it at night. New phase change materials are in the works that can effectively do this while being much lighter than a thick concrete or masonry wall.
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6. Is the cost of operating elevators vertically any less than the cost of transporting people horizontally? In the scenario where elevators are too expensive to operate because of energy costs, so will just about every other energy-dependent form of transportation.
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As far as I was aware, elevators are just about the most energy efficient
manner of transporting people. Thanks to the counterweights, the motors are mostly just accelerating the cabs, not actually having to supply the extra force to lift them.