Melting temperatures need more electricity for skaters

            At the Rosa Parks Circle during several weeks each winter, the city of Grand Rapids installs a chilling frame before flooding the space to create a temperature-controlled skating rink, complete with skates to rent and hot drinks to purchase. First-timers are invited to lean on slender skating frames (like walkers but with no wheels, just runners). Pop-music plays from overhead speakers and floodlights dispel the winter dark. Adding color to the scene are the nets of lights on the surrounding trees of the city center park. Later in February a few dozen ice sculptures will line the diagonal street in the distance (Monroe Center St), It is hard to know how much electrical power is consumed for lights, chilling the rink and freezing the sculpture blocks of ice, provide the soundtrack, and prepare the hot drinks. But there is some irony from generating electrical power by fossil fuels which contribute to global warming and therefore cause winter event organizers to use even more electrical power to compensate for rising temperatures, thus producing a vicious cycle: more electricity used leads to weather that calls for even more electricity.

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Taken in: United States / Michigan / Grand Rapids / Grand Rapids (show map)

Taken on: January 26, 2024

Tags:

canon g9x ii powershot

49503

downtown grand rapids

rosa parks circle

ice rink

public skating « less

Sets appears in: • art in public • civil society more » • scenes around the society • man and land « less

Camera: Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II, ISO 2000 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon PowerShot G9 X Mark II
ISO:	2000
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Manual
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
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