A push to replace old, heat-trapping paving materials with
new, cooler materials could actually lead to higher electricity bills for
surrounding buildings, engineers at the University of California, San Diego,
have found. Researchers published their findings Oct. 29 in the new Journal of
Urban Climate.
The new paving materials are designed to lower the overall
temperature of the areas where they are used—something that the study, which
was focused on local solar radiation and energy consumption, was not designed
to measure.