----- Forwarded message from "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes@...>
-----

From: "Hughes, James J." <James.Hughes@...>
Date: Fri, 16 Mar 2007 10:22:25 -0400
To: lifeboatfoundation@yahoogroups.com,
For discussion of existential risks <existential@...>
Subject: [x-risk] AP: Could Crazy Technology Save the Planet?
Reply-To: For discussion of existential risks <existential@...>

It's a snow day...-J.

http://www.raidersnewsnetwork.com/full.php?news=3744

Could Crazy Technology Save the Planet?

Added: Mar 16th, 2007 6:07 AM

By SETH BORENSTEIN, AP Science Writer

(AP) -- Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious
look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and
the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse. How crazy?

There's the man-made "volcano" that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into
the air. The space "sun shade" made of trillions of little reflectors
between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet's temperature. The
forest of ugly artificial "trees" that suck carbon dioxide out of the
air. And the "Geritol solution" in which iron dust is dumped into the
ocean.

"Of course it's desperation," said Stanford University professor Stephen
Schneider. "It's planetary methadone for our planetary heroin addiction.
It does come out of the pessimism of any realist that says this planet
can't be trusted to do the right thing."

NASA is putting the finishing touches on a report summing up some of
these ideas and has spent $75,000 to map out rough details of the sun
shade concept. One of the premier climate modeling centers in the United
States, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, has spent the last
six weeks running computer simulations of the man-made volcano scenario
and will soon turn its attention to the space umbrella idea.

And last month, billionaire Richard Branson offered a $25 million prize
to the first feasible technology to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the
air.

Simon "Pete" Worden, who heads NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett
Field, Calif., says some of these proposals, which represent a field
called geoengineering, have been characterized as anywhere from "great"
to "idiotic." As if to distance NASA from the issue a bit, Worden said
the agency's report won't do much more than explain the range of
possibilities.

Scientists in the recent past have been reluctant to consider such
concepts. Many fear there will be unintended side effects; others worry
such schemes might prevent the type of reduction in greenhouse gas
emissions that scientists say are the only real way to fight global
warming. These approaches are not an alternative to cutting pollution,
said University of Calgary professor David Keith, a top geoengineering
researcher.

Last month, Ralph Cicerone, president of the National Academy of
Sciences, told the nation's largest science conference that more
research must be done in this field, but no action should be taken yet.

Here is a look at some of the ideas:

---

The Geritol solution

A private company is already carrying out this plan. Some scientists
call it promising while others worry about the ecological fallout.

Planktos Inc. of Foster City, Calif., last week launched its ship, the
Weatherbird II, on a trip to the Pacific Ocean to dump 50 tons of iron
dust. The iron should grow plankton, part of an algae bloom that will
drink up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

The idea of seeding the ocean with iron to beef up a natural plankton
and algae system has been tried on a small scale several times since
1990. It has both succeeded and failed.

Planktos chief executive officer Russ George said his ship will try it
on a larger scale, dumping a slurry of water and red iron dust from a
hose into the sea.

"It makes a 25-foot swath of bright red for a very short period of
time," George said.

The concept gained some credibility when it was mentioned in the 2001
report by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,
which cited it as a possible way to attack carbon emissions.

Small experiments "showed unequivocally that there was a biological
response to the addition of the iron," the climate report said. Plankton
used the iron to photosynthesize, extract greenhouse gases from the air,
and grow rapidly. It forms a thick green soup of all sorts of carbon
dioxide-sucking algae, which sea life feast on, and the carbon drops
into the ocean.

However, the international climate report also cautioned about "the
ecological consequences of large-scale fertilization of the ocean."

Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of
Oceanography, said large-scale ocean seeding could change the crucial
temperature difference between the sea surface and deeper waters and
have a dramatic effect on marine life.

Cicerone, a climate scientist who is president of the National Academy
of Sciences and advocate for more geoengineering research, called the
Geritol solution promising. However, he noted that such actions by a
company, or country, can have worldwide effects.

George, Planktos' CEO, said his company consulted with governments
around the world and is only following previous scientific research. He
said his firm will be dropping the iron in open international seas so he
needs no permits. Most important, he said, is that it's such a small
amount of iron compared to the ocean volume that it poses no threat.

He said it's unfair to lump his plan in with geoengineering, saying his
company is just trying to restore the ocean to "a more ecologically
normal and balanced state."

"We're a green solution," George said.

Planktos officials say that for every ton of iron used, 100,000 tons of
carbon will be pulled into the ocean. Eventually, if this first
large-scale test works, George hopes to remove 3 billion tons of carbon
from the Earth's atmosphere, half of what's needed. Some scientists say
that's overstated.

Planktos' efforts are financed by companies and individuals who buy
carbon credits to offset their use of fossil fuels.

---

Man-made volcano

When Mount Pinatubo erupted 16 years ago in the Philippines it cooled
the Earth for about a year because the sulfate particles in the upper
atmosphere reflected some sunlight.

Several leading scientists, from Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to the late
nuclear cold warrior Edward Teller, have proposed doing the same
artificially to offset global warming.

Using jet engines, cannons or balloons to get sulfates in the air,
humans could reduce the solar heat, and only increase current sulfur
pollution by a small percentage, said Tom Wigley of the National Center
for Atmospheric Research.

"It's an issue of the lesser of two evils," he said.

Scientists at the Center for Atmospheric Research put the idea into a
computer climate model. The results aren't particularly cheap or
promising, said NCAR scientist Caspar Ammann. It would take tens of
thousands of tons of sulfate to be injected into the air each month, he
said.

"From a practical point of view, it's completely ridiculous," Amman
said. "Instead of investing so much into this, it would be much easier
to cut down on the initial problem."

Both this technique and the solar umbrella while reducing heating,
wouldn't reduce carbon dioxide. So they wouldn't counter a dramatic
increase in the acidity of the world's oceans, which happens with global
warming, scientists said. It harms sea life, especially coral reefs.

Despite that, Calgary's David Keith is working on tweaking the concept.
He wants to find a more efficient chemical to inject into the atmosphere
in case of emergency.

---

Solar umbrella

For far-out concepts, it's hard to beat Roger Angel's. Last fall, the
University of Arizona astronomer proposed what he called a "sun shade."
It would be a cloud of small Frisbee-like spaceships that go between
Earth and the sun and act as an umbrella, reducing heat from the sun.

"It really is just like turning down the knob by 2 percent of what's
coming from the sun," he said.

The science for the ships, the rocketry to launch them, and the
materials to make the shade are all doable, Angel said.

These nearly flat discs would each weigh less than an ounce and measure
about a yard wide with three tab-like "ears" that are controllers
sticking out just a few inches.

About 800,000 of these would be stacked into each rocket launch. It
would take 16 trillion of them - that's million million - so there would
be 20 million launches of rockets. All told, Angel figures 20 million
tons of material to make the discs that together form the solar
umbrella.

And then there's the cost: at least $4 trillion over 30 years, probably
more.

"I compare it with sending men to Mars.I think they're both projects on
the same scale," Angel said. "Given the danger to Earth, I think this
project might warrant some fraction of the consideration of sending
people to Mars."

---

Artificial trees

Scientifically, it's known as "air capture." But the instruments being
used have been dubbed "artificial trees" - even though these devices are
about as treelike as a radiator on a stick. They are designed to mimic
the role of trees in using carbon dioxide, but early renderings show
them looking more like the creation of a tinkering engineer with lots of
steel.

Nearly a decade ago, Columbia University professor Klaus Lackner, hit on
an idea for his then-middle school daughter's science fair project:
Create air filters that grab carbon dioxide from the air using chemical
absorbers and then compress the carbon dioxide into a liquid or
compressed gas that can be shipped elsewhere. When his daughter was able
to do it on a tiny scale, Lackner decided to look at doing it globally.

Newly inspired by the $25 million prize offered by Richard Branson,
Lackner has fine-tuned the idea. He wants to develop a large filter that
would absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Another chemical reaction
would take the carbon from the absorbent material, and then a third
process would change that greenhouse gas into a form that could be
disposed of.

It would take wind and a lot of energy to power the air capture devices.
They would stand tall like cell phone towers on steroids, reaching about
200 feet high with various-sized square filters at the top. Lackner
envisions perhaps placing 100,000 of them near wind energy turbines.

Even if each filter was only the size of a television, it could remove
about 25 tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is about how much one
American produces annually, Lackner said. The captured carbon dioxide
would be changed into a liquid or gas that can be piped away from the
air capture devices.

Disposal might be the biggest cost, Lackner said.

Disposal of carbon dioxide, including that from fossil fuel plant
emissions, is a major issue of scientific and technological research
called sequestration. The idea is to bury it underground, often in old
oil wells or deep below the sea floor. The Bush Administration, which
doesn't like many geoengineering ideas is spending hundreds of millions
of dollars on carbon sequestration, but mostly for power plant
emissions.

---

On the Net:

The Earth Engineering Center of Columbia University:
http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/

The National Center for Atmospheric Research: http://www.ncar.ucar.edu/

Planktos Inc.: http://www.planktos.com/

_______________________________________________
existential mailing list
existential@...
http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/existential

----- End forwarded message -----
--
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE