Geoengineering Desert Mirrors For $280 Billion

[Eclipse Now]

Hi all,

what do we all think of this one as a quick, cheap solution for cooling the earth even if we continue (stupidly) to increase Co2 emissions?

 

The team's calculations suggest that covering an area of a little more than 60,000 square kilometres with reflective sheet, at a cost of some $280 billion, would be adequate to offset the heat balance and lead to a net cooling without any need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide. However, they caution that it would be necessary to control the area covered very carefully to prevent overcooling and to continue with efforts to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm

[belovelife]

why not use that to create electricity, and reduce ther amount of coal being burned

[Eclipse Now]

why not use that to create electricity, and reduce ther amount of coal being burned

Because $280 billion would STOP global warming for this entire planet. Do you know how many trillions it would take to even attempt to use deserts (solar thermal or solar PV) to stop coal? If you were talking about nuclear power, I might be tempted. Let's say a big GenIV IFR costs $5 billion. That's only 56 reactors, or Australia off coal, oil, and gas. (If we electrify transport as we are going to have to). How many reactors would it take to move the world off coal and oil and gas?

 

$280 billion dollars is a drop in the bucket when talking about changing the global energy infrastructure over. It probably represents annual global kick-backs to the fossil fuel industry through government tax incentives. That's money we are in essence subsidising the global fossil fuel industry each year. (Australia's fossil fuel kick backs have been calculated at around 10 billion a year). That's just the kick-backs to these behemoth multinationals: let alone the cost of actually getting them to change over their infrastructure!

[lawcat]

why not use that to create electricity, and reduce ther amount of coal being burned

 

This is the correct answer. Gotta stop the insanity, weather modifications, chemtrails, population control, all that nonsense has got to stop.

[belovelife]

but if that light is focused on a tower, and it boils water, then it creates electricity,

 

 

 

i agree that global warming has gotta stop, however, if we use this as a resource, then we kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak

[Eclipse Now]

This is the correct answer. Gotta stop the insanity, weather modifications, chemtrails, population control, all that nonsense has got to stop.

1. What if it's already too late? The latest climate research is suggesting we've left it too little too late for 'conventional' means of solving this, even thought I TOTALLY agree we need clean energy.

 

2. There's a difference between population control (as you so provocatively call it) and good population policy. For instance, demographers state that if Australia just ended their 'baby bonus' then our natural population increase might stabilise. That and if we stopped stealing skilled workers from developing countries that needed their doctors and plumbers so much more than we do.

[belovelife]

remember, if we really need to, we can make a sattelite the opens up like an umbrella, and acually shade the north or south poles, this would allow for the ice caps to reform also, and reduce the total light soming to the earth, it would just have to be close to the sun, like a lagrange point between the earth and the sun, and be able to acceptincoming particles to stabalise its orbit

 

[Turtle]

Hi all,

what do we all think of this one as a quick, cheap solution for cooling the earth even if we continue (stupidly) to increase Co2 emissions?

 

 

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm

 

it's an interesting idea. i can't find any reference to a specific reflective film. ?? nor any mention of how the pricetag was derived. ??

 

still, it's an interesting exercise in armchair engineering. :smart:

 

1) film should be white i think; not "silvered". tyvec perhaps? (even reflection)

 

2) film should be intermittently spaced to allow circulation and desert dweller travel. (ecological impact)

 

3) film should be installed & maintained by armies of workers. (jobs)

 

4) films should be financed by films about installing and maintaining films. (fun)

 

let's pirate a desert and get started. :smilingsun:

Edited November 25, 2012 by Turtle

[Eclipse Now]

Yes, but has that large space-umbrella been costed? And how fragile would it be? And how prone to drifting? We could also use "White Skies" quite cheaply and inject particles into the stratosphere, but all these sunlight moderation technologies have side-effects like shutting down the Indian monsoon. At least the desert one doesn't do that, but might damage some of the world's desert ecosystems.

 

I'm convinced that it's already too late to stop Global Warming feedbacks occurring. Action has been too little too late. And given the passion with which Denialists continue to propagate their myths, even on this website, I'm not hopeful that the necessary action will ever be ramped up in time. I don't think we've even got 10 years to get this right. We need to wake up tomorrow with a war-time economy mentality and roll out an emergency level of clean energy like safe, clean, reliable, waste-eating GenIV nukes. I don't see that happening soon.

[CraigD]

what do we all think of this one as a quick, cheap solution for cooling the earth even if we continue (stupidly) to increase Co2 emissions?

 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081222114546.htm

Toyama and Stainer’s proposed ground-based sunlight reflector (paper’s abstract here) promises benefits similar to space-based ones, and greatly reduced cost and engineering uncertainty. However, I’ve not found a free or inexpensive source for their paper, so, like Turtle, can’t see their calculations, so am not sure it their cost estimates are reasonable and correct.

 

From common data, it’s somewhat possible to intuitively reality-check the ScienceDaily article’s numbers:

• T & S calculate that covering 60,000 km² will have the desired cooling effect.
  The average albedo of the Earth is about 0.3. The albedo of desert sand is about 0.4. A good reflector has an albedo of nearly 1.0. So covering desert sand with it decreased the albedo of that part of the Earth by a net 0.6.
  
• Worn asphalt has an albedo of about 0.12. Clean concrete has an albedo of about 0.55. So replacing asphalt with concrete (which you keep clean or paint to maintain the same reflectivity) increases the albedo of the surface by a new 0.43.
  
• So covering desert sand with a good reflector is about 1.40 times as effective at reflecting sunlight as replacing asphalt with concrete.
  
• The US has about 158,000 km² of roads and parking lots (I estimate about 40% of the world’s). Assuming half of them are concrete, half asphalt, replacing all the asphalt with concrete have about 0.95 times the cooling effect of T & S’s proposed plan.
  

I can’t guess from this whether their calculations are correct or not, but get a sense the scale of their effort is plausible – on the order of the paving work done in the US. I find it interesting that replacing low-albedo artificial surfaces, such as roads and parking lots, with high-albedo ones, could have an effect similar to what T & S calculate could cure or greatly relieve global warming.

 

:thumbs_up In general, I’m in favor of work toward developing “planetary engineering” techniques that can change climate. I’m aware of two main approaches: sunlight reflectors, which effectively make the Sun dimmer; and atmospheric carbon removing (sequestration).

 

Space-based sunlight reflectors are one such technique, at first analysis an safe, easily controllable one, but with present spaceflight technology, likely prohibitively expensive.

 

Carbon sequestration systems are promising, and of two main kinds: ones that store carbon emissions that would ordinarily be released into the air underground, and ones that increase the uptake of carbon from the atmosphere, such as “iron fertilization” of far offshore oceans to increase the rate of phytoplankton carbon uptake. However, emission sequestration systems are troubled in that there’s few if any cost incentives or legal requirements for carbon emitting businesses to build and use them, And while iron fertilization is potentially very cost-effective, control of its carbon uptake rate and impact on ocean ecosystems is uncertain and troubled.

 

On a high level, since the undesirable climate change occurring now is due not to increased sunlight, but by increased atmospheric greenhouse gases, primarily CO₂ and CH₄, carbon sequestration seems a better approach than sunlight reflecting, but I expect feasibility is more of a driver than high-level idealness. Also, such solutions are not exclusive, either/or schemes – reflectors, carbon sequestration, and emission reduction approaches can be implemented at the same time as a comprehensive approach.

 

No matter what solutions are used, the more we understand and can model climate, the more effectively solutions can be designed and implemented. Denialism and alarmism are both enemies of the science of this, and need to be publicly opposed, while practically ignored. :) I'm optimistic that this is happening now, though regret that the details of it seem too complicated for an amateur like me to understand. :(

 

why not use that to create electricity, and reduce ther (sic) amount of coal being burned

I can think of two main reasons:

• Solar power panels aren’t reflective. They don’t’ reflect sunlight away from the Earth, so don’t reduce its heating effect.
  
• Solar power panels are much more expensive than the reflectors Toyama and Strainer propose. They propose 60,000 km² of reflector could be deployed at a cost of $280,000,000,000, or about $0.005/m². Photovoltaic panels cost about 1 million times this ($5000/m²), while even lower cost solar power systems are not much less expensive
  

 

Because $280 billion would STOP global warming for this entire planet.

Though I’ve not read their paper, from its abstract, I’m fairly sure Toyama and Stainer are not claiming their “remedial concept ... to 'stop' or at least minimise, global warming and cool Earth” (notice their use of quotes around “stop”) is a permanent fix that would STOP global warming. Also, as atmospheric greenhouse gases concentrations are continuing to increase, and will, until their net emission rate (emission rate – removal/sequestration rate) is reduced (possibly to less than zero), sunlight reflecting schemes will also need to increase their effective “size”, and with it, cost and impact.

 

I’m optimistic that ground-based sunlight reflectors can be an important, perhaps “game-winning” component in controlling global warming. However, a permanent solution must include stopping the increase in and eventually reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases. Even if it proves a breakthrough, I expect ground-based reflectors will be a temporary, stopgap measure, until greenhouse gases can be effectively controlled.

[belovelife]

• 
  I can think of two main reasons:
• Solar power panels aren’t reflective. They don’t’ reflect sunlight away from the Earth, so don’t reduce its heating effect.
• Solar power panels are much more expensive than the reflectors Toyama and Strainer propose. They propose 60,000 km² of reflector could be deployed at a cost of $280,000,000,000, or about $0.005/m². Photovoltaic panels cost about 1 million times this ($5000/m²), while even lower cost solar power systems are not much less expensive

 

.

 

 

but if you reflect the power at a tower that boils water, you can run a steam turbine, for a fraction of a the cost and resources of a solar pannel power plant, plus upkeep is more simple also

[Eclipse Now]

What do I do, as a lay-person, when different 'experts' say different things? The wiki I quoted has since been edited to compensate for a MAJOR shortcoming: it's not a one-off area: it's PER YEAR!

 

As my friend wrote:

 

"However, when we dig down into the sources for the Wikipedia article, we find a slight modification to the calculations not captured by the Wiki: "To offset all new forcing over the period 2010-2070 will require the covering of nearly 67,000 square miles per year"

 

Yes, first they are talking about square miles (1 sq mile = 2.61 sq km). But far more importantly, this is what is required *per year*. The total area required is not 67,000 sq miles, but close to eight million square miles - and that is just to counter (a *very* low ball estimate of) likely warming between 2010 and 2070. To counter all anthropogenic warming since pre-industrialisation, the figure is roughly 16 million square miles, which is an area larger than *all* the world's deserts combined (excluding polar regions).

 

from here: http://www.global-warming-geo-engineering.org/Albedo-Enhancement/Surface-Albedo-Enhancement/Calculation-of-Coverage-Areas-to-Achieve-Desired-Level-of-ForcingOffsets/Desert-Area-Coverage/ag29.html

 

 

So who do I trust? T & S or this Alvia Gaskill?

 

 

I’m optimistic that ground-based sunlight reflectors can be an important, perhaps “game-winning” component in controlling global warming. However, a permanent solution must include stopping the increase in and eventually reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases. Even if it proves a breakthrough, I expect ground-based reflectors will be a temporary, stopgap measure, until greenhouse gases can be effectively controlled.

I agree with everything you say here: I tend to write overly provocatively and emotively to make a point. However, with the natural feedbacks kicking in at about 2 or 3 degrees warmer, we're in SERIOUS danger. We're like overweight diabetic smokers who have just been told we have lung cancer. Now while lifestyle changes are still good, they don't cure the cancer. On current energy expenditure trajectories we're already heading for the tipping points, and then nature just takes over and dumps far more Co2 into the environment than humanity ever has. 3 degrees of warming could become 9 or 12 or whatever the final new norm is. That's game over. So I think we'll see White Skies with SPICE, and shiny deserts, and biochar schemes, and ocean ships spraying clouds, and ocean fertilisation, and EVERYTHING we can throw at it before this story is over.

Edited November 26, 2012 by Eclipse Now

[belovelife]

especially with the methane bubbling in the arctic

 

 

 

from what i know, thats the snowball

[Eclipse Now]

The methane is only 1 feedback. There are others like the loss of Amazonian rainforest, soils all over the planet cooking up and releasing Co2, glaciers retreating and changing albedo, the Arctic summer ice disappearing and going from a 90% mirror to 90% solar absorbent ocean, and many more. Which is why we need geoengineering. It's already too late to just 'hope' that clean energy will save the day. It won't. Coal plants built today and last year have a few decades locked in to their contracts, so I don't see how society is going to get the economic guts to close them down and put in a S-PRISM instead. I wish they would!

[belovelife]

The methane is only 1 feedback. There are others like the loss of Amazonian rainforest, soils all over the planet cooking up and releasing Co2, glaciers retreating and changing albedo, the Arctic summer ice disappearing and going from a 90% mirror to 90% solar absorbent ocean, and many more. Which is why we need geoengineering. It's already too late to just 'hope' that clean energy will save the day. It won't. Coal plants built today and last year have a few decades locked in to their contracts, so I don't see how society is going to get the economic guts to close them down and put in a S-PRISM instead. I wish they would!

 

how about bulding verticle farms in the amazon to grow livestock feed, at the same time, the exhaust from a coal power plant could be vented into the facility to heat and add co2 to the system to promote growth,

 

then the amount of amazon forest the would be removed would be replaced by jobs to build and work in such facilities

 

 

verticle farms with aquaponics

[Eclipse Now]

how about bulding verticle farms in the amazon to grow livestock feed, at the same time, the exhaust from a coal power plant could be vented into the facility to heat and add co2 to the system to promote growth,

then the amount of amazon forest the would be removed would be replaced by jobs to build and work in such facilities

verticle farms with aquaponics

I'm sorry but it's wishful thinking. Where does the light come from?

http://www.monbiot.com/2010/08/16/towering-lunacy/

[belovelife]

I'm sorry but it's wishful thinking. Where does the light come from?

http://www.monbiot.c...owering-lunacy/

 

 

a decent desighn and positioning of the building