Solar Radiation Management Program
Here’s a conversation from Facebook on California’s new building code, mandating that all new construction come along with solar PV on the roof.
Jayn Edmonds begins with this sarcastic remark: How will that work with the ongoing Solar Radiation Management Program?
Sandy Hawkins There is no ongoing “Solar Radiation Management Program.”
Craig Shields True, but I’ll bet that this civilization moves forward with some form of geoengineering in the next 50 years.
Obviously, it’s controversial in the extreme, and everyone hopes it won’t be necessary, but given the current trajectory, it’s hard to imagine how such an approach can be avoided.
For one, it will require some group of people to a) select the technology/ies with the least likely and profound unintended consequences and b) control the Earth’s thermostat. That’s quite a responsibility.
Craig,
Here’s some potentially good news. Carbon removal technologies are being researched by more than 70 major research institutions globally including Mit and Harvard University.
A mere 18 months ago a team of scientists at Harvard University and a company called Carbon Engineering announced a low-cost, industrial-scale method of pulling carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.
Until then conventional wisdom agreed such technology wasn’t economically viable estimating the cost of such plants in the hundreds of millions, operating on only a very small scale and cost over $600 per metric ton removed.
Yesterday, David Keith, a professor of applied physics at Harvard announced,
“What we’ve done is build a direct-air capture process that is,as much as possible, built on existing processes and technologies that are widespread in the world, which is why a reasonable possibility of scaling up now exists.”
David Keith’s Harvard team are working in conjunction with Carbon Engineering Corp, funded privately by investors such as Bill Gates etc. Professor Kieth puts the figure of carbon removal by his system at $94 per ton.
However, a team of Japanese research scientists at Tokyo’s Institute of Technology have announced in conjunction with their Swiss colleagues, a rival working prototype operating at a removal and processing rate of 2 metric tonnes per hour costing only $ 12 dollars per ton !
The Japanese plant and infrastructure is much smaller and modular. The cost of installation once in mass production could be lower than $1 million per unit, placing the total cost of removing all human induced atmospheric CO2 at less than .05% of the Global GDP of industrial advanced nations.
Like all new technologies, Carbon removal, carbon-neutral hydrocarbon fuels, etc are still very much at a pioneering stage. However, reading through the impressive list of renowned scientists and investors working in this field of clean technology it’s obvious this is no scam !
If such technology could really produce such a reliable and efficient result, then surely it’s worth considering? Looking through some of the astute and heavyweight corporate and private investors supporting the various technologies and projects on a global scale it seems rash to simply dismiss the development of Carbon Capture technology unless an ulterior motive exists.
Craig,
Solar insolation management is stupid on a level that borders on Trumpism… Whether you’re talking about the “Pinatubo option” or space-mirrors distributed at L1… the ideas are absolute fairy-tale level in terms of cost verses benefit.
One thing that should, and almost certainly will, take off is painting every surface white. If the roads and parking lots and rooftops were painted white, that would help reduce the “heat island” effect of cities. That is happening now in some cases and will likely be globally ubiquitous at latitudes lower than ~45 degrees.
Other things that will matter – massive desalination projects with multi-km2 “salt pans” for brackish water boil off across any dry region within a few hundred miles of a coast (this will help by bringing in more moisture to the air, as well as more water for human needs); urban farming; more underground building/development; Northern migration/displacement; Netherlands-style dike system to preserve city-islands as the oceans rise around current coastal cities; etc..
But the wild spaces will simply have to be force-adapted to the higher temperature climates. We might seed lands with plants and animals that are native to climates 500 km south, and those would slowly take root and develop… then in 50 years do another transplant from another 500 km south. If we did several thousand such “transplant plugs” over the entire continent of North America, we could preserve a much greater share of natural diversity simply by helping it move North at a faster pace than warming…
The only actual geoengineering strategy that makes any sense at all – other than aforestation – would be cloud formation around Greenland. It’s possible that it might be net beneficial to set up a few dozen GW of nuclear power on Ellesmere and Baffin Islands (and a few other of the Queen Elisabeth Islands)… If we then used that power to fuel thousands of desalination plants which then dumped their brine directly into the arctic basin, and pumped that fresh water through thousands of super-high pressure water cannons at one another… you’d create a stream of steady cloud cover flowing over Baffin Bay, Northern Greenland, and the Greenland sea; as well as a pump dumping billions of tons of heavy brine into the cold water to help “prime” the thermohaline circulation (Gulf Stream). That could stall sea level rise and energize the Gulf Stream for 50 years, which would give us some adaptation time. But obviously this wouldn’t be cheap. Labor for that part of the world is just going to be absurdly expensive, and maintenance will be a very serious thing…
But that’s the least absurd geoengineering project that I can think of off the top of my head. I think the other stuff that I mentioned above is far more relevant and far more likely.
That might be