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AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #200 on: August 15, 2017, 05:47:59 PM »
(I don't think there's any chance at all of implementing (a).  And I don't think (d) is a real issue.)

The main point of my post, is that if mankind does not have the will-power now to restrict emission with the global economy in reasonably good shape; what chance is there that mankind will have the will-power to implement partially effective & partially damaging geoengineering a few decades into the future when climate change and geopolitical tension will have likely damaged the world's capability to implement & sustain a global geoengineering effort.  Furthermore, even if/when some partially effective geoengineering effort is mounted, it might well trigger a war between those who benefit from the geoengineering and those who are damaged by the same effort.
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #201 on: August 15, 2017, 06:19:13 PM »
(I don't think there's any chance at all of implementing (a).  And I don't think (d) is a real issue.)

The main point of my post, is that if mankind does not have the will-power now to restrict emission with the global economy in reasonably good shape; what chance is there that mankind will have the will-power to implement partially effective & partially damaging geoengineering a few decades into the future when climate change and geopolitical tension will have likely damaged the world's capability to implement & sustain a global geoengineering effort.  Furthermore, even if/when some partially effective geoengineering effort is mounted, it might well trigger a war between those who benefit from the geoengineering and those who are damaged by the same effort.

As the level of pain increases so will the amount of resolve to do something about global warming.

We are seeing that happen right now.

Geoengineering "lifeboats" will be launched if the pain gets bad enough.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #202 on: August 15, 2017, 06:56:37 PM »
As the level of pain increases so will the amount of resolve to do something about global warming.

We are seeing that happen right now.

Geoengineering "lifeboats" will be launched if the pain gets bad enough.

Use of your "lifeboats" sound suspiciously like "othering"; intended to leave those negatively impacted by such geoengineering efforts to fend for themselves.  If those "others" (say China) have the means to "shoot" at your "lifeboats", then everyone may wind-up being losers.
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #203 on: August 15, 2017, 08:01:30 PM »
As the level of pain increases so will the amount of resolve to do something about global warming.

We are seeing that happen right now.

Geoengineering "lifeboats" will be launched if the pain gets bad enough.

Use of your "lifeboats" sound suspiciously like "othering"; intended to leave those negatively impacted by such geoengineering efforts to fend for themselves.  If those "others" (say China) have the means to "shoot" at your "lifeboats", then everyone may wind-up being losers.

How would one country put up a sunscreen that would lower only that country's temperature?

How would one country dump ground up stone into the ocean to sequester carbon without lowering the carbon content of the ocean for everyone?

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #204 on: August 15, 2017, 09:22:42 PM »

How would one country put up a sunscreen that would lower only that country's temperature?

How would one country dump ground up stone into the ocean to sequester carbon without lowering the carbon content of the ocean for everyone?


Thank The FSM that we have such a powerful deliberative body as the United Nations to weld us into a strong, global government in times such as these.
Now that all of the major players have willingly sacrificed a tiny portion of their sovereignty for the greater good of all humanity, the way out of our predicament becomes clear.


Free trade between all signatories of the Paris Accord, as well as strong sanctions against any rogue nation that pulls out, or misses their target, will break the rogue nation's economy and thereby force compliance even by the most recalcitrant.


Forced to live without Chinese crew socks, Canadian Tar Sands goop, and new model BMW's for the oligarchy, the rogue nation will begin to feed on itself and the very act of self cannibalization will lower her carbon footprint.
When forced to eat locally grown blueberries as opposed to imported Kiwi Fruit, the unwashed masses will rise from their collective couches, storm the halls of power in their electric scooters, and, demanding the latest I-Phone models, will wrest the levers of government from their evil, Koch inspired overlords.


Ramen
Terry

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #205 on: August 16, 2017, 01:37:14 AM »
How would one country put up a sunscreen that would lower only that country's temperature?

How would one country dump ground up stone into the ocean to sequester carbon without lowering the carbon content of the ocean for everyone?

First, Cao et. al. (2017) present some of the most advanced thinking/modeling on 'sunscreens'; and they conclude that even using a cocktail of both SAI and CCT (see definitions in the abstract below), would still result in changes in precipitation patterns that would result in some countries being subjected to increased drought impacts and some countries being subjected to increased flood impacts.  Thus even if one country managed to use geoengineering to keep themselves in a Goldilocks situation; other countries would be negatively impacted.

Long Cao, Lei Duan, Govindasamy Bala & Ken Caldeira (2017), "Simultaneous stabilization of global temperature and precipitation through cocktail geoengineering", Geophysical Research Letters. DOI: 10.1002/2017GL074281

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074281/abstract;jsessionid=CD4EEF992F073831F2A191EFA5491888.f03t02

Abstract: "Solar geoengineering has been proposed as a backup plan to offset some aspects of anthropogenic climate change if timely CO2 emission reductions fail to materialize. Modeling studies have shown that there are trade-offs between changes in temperature and hydrological cycle in response to solar geoengineering. Here we investigate the possibility of stabilizing both global mean temperature and precipitation simultaneously by combining two geoengineering approaches: stratospheric sulfate aerosol increase (SAI) that deflects sunlight to space and cirrus cloud thinning (CCT) that enables more longwave radiation to escape to space. Using the slab ocean configuration of National Center for Atmospheric Research Community Earth System Model, we simulate SAI by uniformly adding sulfate aerosol in the upper stratosphere and CCT by uniformly increasing cirrus cloud ice particle falling speed. Under an idealized warming scenario of abrupt quadrupling of atmospheric CO2, we show that by combining appropriate amounts of SAI and CCT geoengineering, global mean (or land mean) temperature and precipitation can be restored simultaneously to preindustrial levels. However, compared to SAI, cocktail geoengineering by mixing SAI and CCT does not markedly improve the overall similarity between geoengineered climate and preindustrial climate on regional scales. Some optimal spatially nonuniform mixture of SAI with CCT might have the potential to better mitigate climate change at both the global and regional scales."

Plain Language Summary: "Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide cause increase in both global temperatures and precipitation. Solar geoengineering has been proposed as a means to counteract this climate change by deliberately deflecting more sunlight from the Earth's climate system. Numerous climate modeling studies have shown that proposed solar geoengineering schemes, such as injection of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, can cool climate, but the amount of precipitation change per degree of temperature change is greater than that for CO2, meaning that such proposals cannot simultaneously globally restore both average temperatures and average precipitation. It has also been suggested that the Earth could be cooled by thinning cirrus clouds, but the amount of precipitation change per degree of temperature change for this method is less than that for CO2. Our climate modeling study shows, for the first time, that a cocktail of these two approaches would decrease precipitation and temperature in the same ratios as they are increased by CO2, which would allow simultaneous recovery of preindustrial temperature and precipitation in a high CO2 world at global scale. We show that although the average temperatures and precipitation can be recovered at global scale, substantial differences between the geoengineered and natural climates persist at regional scale."

See also: "Could 'cocktail geoengineering' save the climate?"

https://phys.org/news/2017-07-cocktail-geoengineering-climate.html

Extract: "The team—which includes Carnegie's Ken Caldeira, Long Cao and Lei Duan of Zhejiang University, and Govindasamy Bala of the Indian Institute of Science—used models to simulate what would happen if sunlight were scattered by particles at the same time as the cirrus clouds were thinned. They wanted to understand how effective this combined set of tools would be at reversing climate change, both globally and regionally.

The good news is that their simulations showed that if both methods are deployed in concert, it would decrease warming to pre-industrial levels, as desired, and on a global level rainfall would also stay at pre-industrial levels. But the bad news is that while global average climate was largely restored, substantial differences remained locally, with some areas getting much wetter and other areas getting much drier."

Second, if putting ground-up stones into the ocean is such a cost effective solution that one country would volunteer to do it for the good of the whole world; then why doesn't that country implement that form of geoengineering right now?
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rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #206 on: August 16, 2017, 04:46:14 AM »
Thank The FSM that we have such a powerful deliberative body as the United Nations to weld us into a strong, global government in times such as these.
Now that all of the major players have willingly sacrificed a tiny portion of their sovereignty for the greater good of all humanity, the way out of our predicament becomes clear.

Free trade between all signatories of the Paris Accord, as well as strong sanctions against any rogue nation that pulls out, or misses their target, will break the rogue nation's economy and thereby force compliance even by the most recalcitrant.

The United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom have veto powers over any substantive UN Security Council Resolution, which would include sanctions. So the UN will be unable to sanction a climate-denying US as the US will simply use its veto. Such as act could also be treated as an act of war, and the US has by far the biggest military in the world.

sidd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #207 on: August 16, 2017, 04:51:24 AM »
How much would Caldeira, Cao et al be willing to bet that monsoons don't fail ? Their calculations are not finegrained enough to predict monsoon effects.

rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #208 on: August 16, 2017, 04:59:09 AM »
Given the short period that most of the proposed geo-engineering aerosol particles will stay in the atmosphere, there will most probably be proposals for short-duration/large-scale tests. Each time extending the period of the test to see the effects. Any bad effects, the test stops and the particles in the atmosphere are flushed out within a few weeks.

Add promises of food aid etc. and it does look like a viable option. Not one I actually want to see, but given the political realities quite likely at some point.

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #209 on: August 16, 2017, 05:23:27 AM »
Thank The FSM that we have such a powerful deliberative body as the United Nations to weld us into a strong, global government in times such as these.
Now that all of the major players have willingly sacrificed a tiny portion of their sovereignty for the greater good of all humanity, the way out of our predicament becomes clear.

Free trade between all signatories of the Paris Accord, as well as strong sanctions against any rogue nation that pulls out, or misses their target, will break the rogue nation's economy and thereby force compliance even by the most recalcitrant.

The United States, China, Russia, France and the United Kingdom have veto powers over any substantive UN Security Council Resolution, which would include sanctions. So the UN will be unable to sanction a climate-denying US as the US will simply use its veto. Such as act could also be treated as an act of war, and the US has by far the biggest military in the world.


Sorry, sarcasm had been my intent, but not well expressed.


I'll try to be less opaque in the future
Terry

rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #210 on: August 16, 2017, 09:01:33 AM »
Being British I should have spotted that, too much time in Canada perhaps?

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #211 on: August 16, 2017, 05:06:21 PM »
Given the short period that most of the proposed geo-engineering aerosol particles will stay in the atmosphere, there will most probably be proposals for short-duration/large-scale tests. Each time extending the period of the test to see the effects. Any bad effects, the test stops and the particles in the atmosphere are flushed out within a few weeks.

Add promises of food aid etc. and it does look like a viable option. Not one I actually want to see, but given the political realities quite likely at some point.

While I concur with you that: (a) decision makers will find it irresistible to deploy some limited form of solar geoengineering; and (b) that currently we are most likely too far from any major tipping point for a limited deployment of solar geoengineering to do irreversible damage to the climate state.  That said, in the coming decades we will move from a CO₂-eq of over 521 ppm to something closure to the 680 ppm experience during the last equable climate, and as the two following reposts indicate, it is conceivable that the perturbation from a limited solar engineering deployment (say circa 2045 to 2050) might flip the NH atmosphere into an equable pattern:

First repost:
"I note that the first attached image shows how the atmosphere can abruptly bifurcate from our current saddle-node into an equable atmospheric pattern; while the following reference (and the associated second attached image) indicate that such a bifurcation could occur as soon as the CO2-equiv concentration reaches about 680ppm.  I note that our current CO2-equiv well exceeds 520ppm.  Furthermore, if Hansen's ice-climate feedback due to the possible collapse of the WAIS were to occur in the next few decades then we might bifurcate into an equable climate pattern sooner rather than later (which would be stupid for us to allow to happen).

Jagniecki,Elliot A. et al. (2015), "Eocene atmospheric CO2from the nahcolite proxy", Geology, http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G36886.1


http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/early/2015/10/23/G36886.1

ftp://rock.geosociety.org/pub/reposit/2015/2015357.pdf

Edit: For those who do not know, it is easier to flip the northern hemisphere into an equable pattern (than the southern hemisphere), which is exactly what a collapse of the WAIS would do, due to the bipolar seesaw effect."

Second repost:
"The linked reference demonstrates for systems that can change abruptly, like Earth's climate (see the first attached image), why it is a bad idea for denialists to point at the large-noise in Earth's climate record to feel comfortable in the Holocene saddle-node that we have been resting in, as the second attached image shows that these large-noise fluctuations can kick us out of our comfortable saddle-node sooner, rather than later.

Corentin Herbert, and Freddy Bouchet (2017), "Predictability of escape for a stochastic saddle-node bifurcation: when rare events are typical", arXiv:1703.01450v1

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1703.01450.pdf

Abstract: "Transitions between multiple stable states of nonlinear systems are ubiquitous in physics, chemistry, and beyond. Two types of behaviors are usually seen as mutually exclusive: unpredictable noise-induced transitions and predictable bifurcations of the underlying vector field. Here, we report a new situation, corresponding to a fluctuating system approaching a bifurcation, where both effects collaborate. We show that the problem can be reduced to a single control parameter governing the competition between deterministic and stochastic effects. Two asymptotic regimes are identified: when the control parameter is small (e.g. small noise), deviations from the deterministic case are well described by the Freidlin-Wentzell theory. In particular, escapes over the potential barrier are very rare events. When the parameter is large (e.g. large noise), such events become typical. Unlike pure noise-induced transitions, the distribution of the escape time is peaked around a value which is asymptotically predicted by an adiabatic approximation. We show that the two regimes are characterized by qualitatively different reacting trajectories, with algebraic and exponential divergence, respectively."

Extract: "These results open new prospects for the analysis of time series exhibiting abrupt transitions such as those encountered in climate dynamics.""
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rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #212 on: August 16, 2017, 08:53:13 PM »
Is there any known process for the large scale reduction of cloud formation? If this could be done during the Arctic fall/winter it would allow for a greater escape of heat back out to space. Then aerosols and cloud brightening in the Arctic summer (a greater amount than in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere) to reduce incoming radiation (with light-coloured particles that would not reduce albedo when they fall out of the atmosphere). This would help stabilize the Arctic/Rest of Northern Hemisphere temperature gradient.

The "too clever for their own good" geo-engineers may have this kind of thought process. Once you start down the rabbit hole .....

Reminds me of my late brother-in-law's 20+ medications, half of which were to treat the side-effects of the other half.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #213 on: August 17, 2017, 04:20:41 PM »
Al Gore feels that big money has hacked democracy, and to effectively combat climate change democracy first needs to be 'unhacked' (or he is suggesting that our socio-economic institutions need to be geoengineered as a jerry-rigged 'solution' to counter-act mankind's inability to overcome its addiction to monopoly-extraction of power/resource without due-process/mindfulness) :

Title: "Al Gore Q&A and video interview: Fixing democracy to combat climate change"

https://theconversation.com/al-gore-qanda-and-video-interview-fixing-democracy-to-combat-climate-change-82426

Extract: "Well, big money has hacked our democracy even before Putin did. And it accompanied the transition from the printing press to television, when all of a sudden candidates – especially in the US – were made to feel they have to spend all their time begging rich people and special interests for money so they can buy more TV ads and their opponents.

And that’s really given an enormous unhealthy and toxic degree of influence to lobbyists and special interests. Now just as television replaced the printing press, internet-based media are beginning to displace television and once again open up the doorways to the public forum for individuals who can use knowledge and the best available evidence.

If you believe in democracy as I do and if you believe in harvesting the wisdom of crowds, then the interaction of free people exchanging the best available evidence of what’s more likely to be true than not will once again push us toward a government of by and for the people."
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #214 on: August 17, 2017, 04:27:02 PM »
Quote
Al Gore feels that big money has hacked democracy, and to effectively combat climate change democracy first needs to be 'unhacked'

Are you suggesting we pause the growth of RE and EVs until we reform our government?

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #215 on: August 17, 2017, 04:38:39 PM »
Quote
Al Gore feels that big money has hacked democracy, and to effectively combat climate change democracy first needs to be 'unhacked'

Are you suggesting we pause the growth of RE and EVs until we reform our government?

No.  But I am suggesting that the growth of RE and EVs will be ineffective at preventing a climate change related socio-economic collapse this century; if for no other reason than because technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.

Edit: If the people on the 'trunk' of the first attached image of an 'elephant graph' are the exemplar of technology use in the world, then the people on the rest of the 'elephant graph' represent a huge appetite for today's technology (whose use requires consumption of resources); and if you create new technology then the appetite of the people on the entire 'elephant graph' increases.

Edit 2: The second attached image shows the change in the date of 'overshoot day' with time.  Which emphasizes that the Earth Systems are being overtaxed not only by GHG emissions but by many, many technological dis-utilities.

Edit 3: While certainly sustainable technology can make a contribution, effectively combating climate change requires modifications to our crony (monopolistic) governmental/economic systems.
« Last Edit: August 17, 2017, 05:33:02 PM by AbruptSLR »
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #216 on: August 17, 2017, 05:33:04 PM »
Quote
No.  But I am suggesting that the growth of RE and EVs will be ineffective at preventing a climate change related socio-economic collapse this century; if for no other reason than because technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.

We have seen a flattening of electricity usage.  Efficiency is allowing us to satisfy our desires while not using more electricity. 

EVs may bring a small increase in miles driven due to lower per-mile costs.  But if we keep increasing our percentage of renewable generation we should still see a noticeable drop in CO2 as we use far less petroleum.


Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #217 on: August 17, 2017, 05:37:23 PM »
”…technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.”


But technological fixes can also reduce a person’s (or a community’s) carbon footprint, such as solar ovens replacing wood or dung fires; or small solar panels powering lights in place of kerosene lanterns.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #218 on: August 17, 2017, 05:37:44 PM »
Quote
No.  But I am suggesting that the growth of RE and EVs will be ineffective at preventing a climate change related socio-economic collapse this century; if for no other reason than because technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.

We have seen a flattening of electricity usage.  Efficiency is allowing us to satisfy our desires while not using more electricity. 

EVs may bring a small increase in miles driven due to lower per-mile costs.  But if we keep increasing our percentage of renewable generation we should still see a noticeable drop in CO2 as we use far less petroleum.


WHEN?

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #219 on: August 17, 2017, 05:41:44 PM »
”…technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.”


But technological fixes can also reduce a person’s (or a community’s) carbon footprint, such as solar ovens replacing wood or dung fires; or small solar panels powering lights in place of kerosene lanterns.


I'm sorry, but I don't see dung fires or kerosene lanterns contributing significantly to the problems we face.


Terry

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #220 on: August 17, 2017, 05:42:24 PM »
Quote
No.  But I am suggesting that the growth of RE and EVs will be ineffective at preventing a climate change related socio-economic collapse this century; if for no other reason than because technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.

We have seen a flattening of electricity usage.  Efficiency is allowing us to satisfy our desires while not using more electricity. 

EVs may bring a small increase in miles driven due to lower per-mile costs.  But if we keep increasing our percentage of renewable generation we should still see a noticeable drop in CO2 as we use far less petroleum.
Attached is BP's statistics on worldwide energy consumption by source.  Some key Earth Systems may reach tipping points before 2050 and this graph seems (to me at least) to indicate that simple technological fixes (including physical geoengineering) will not sufficiently address our collective (worldwide) overshoot problem by that time to prevent a worldwide socio-economic collapse by 2060.

Edit, w.r.t. abrupt tipping points for key Earth Systems, see the linked article entitled: "Tipping points are real: Gradual changes in carbon dioxide levels can induce abrupt climate changes".

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170623100414.htm

Extract: "According to their findings, the increased CO2 intensifies the trade winds over Central America, as the eastern Pacific is warmed more than the western Atlantic. This is turn produces increased moisture transport from the Atlantic, and with it, an increase in the salinity and density of the surface water. Finally, these changes lead to an abrupt amplification of the large-scale overturning circulation in the Atlantic. "Our simulations indicate that even small changes in the CO2 concentration suffice to change the circulation pattern, which can end in sudden temperature increases," says Zhang.

As climate researcher Gerrit Lohmann explains, "We can't say for certain whether rising CO2 levels will produce similar effects in the future, because the framework conditions today differ from those in a glacial period. That being said, we've now confirmed that there have definitely been abrupt climate changes in the Earth's past that were the result of continually rising CO2 concentrations.""

See also:
Xu Zhang, Gregor Knorr, Gerrit Lohmann, Stephen Barker. Abrupt North Atlantic circulation changes in response to gradual CO2 forcing in a glacial climate state. Nature Geoscience, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/NGEO2974

« Last Edit: August 17, 2017, 06:17:38 PM by AbruptSLR »
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TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #221 on: August 17, 2017, 06:56:44 PM »
ASLR


Your first graph makes it appear as though increased use of renewables has had absolutely no effect on the use of coal, oil, or any of the other fuel options.
Is it possible that this will continue into the future, and that as renewables increase their share of the pie, the pie of greenhouse generating fuels simply expands, regardless of the state of the renewables floating above it?
Could renewables simply cut the cost of coal, oil and gas, until they again offer the least expensive means of generating and distributing electricity?


Free wind or solar power isn't free if Billion$ are required to modernize the grid, install and maintain battery backup, or renew solar farms after a severe hail storm. Perhaps regions other than Northern Canada would benefit from very inexpensive diesel or LNG, if it saved the community from the expenses and losses inherent in running hot cables for very long distances?


I'm well aware that this conflicts with many cherished beliefs, but it was once believed that nuclear power would be so cheap that metering would be a waste of resources. Are we now claiming that solar and wind will be so cheap that the alternatives will simply be blown out of the field?


Terry

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #222 on: August 17, 2017, 07:00:30 PM »
Quote
No.  But I am suggesting that the growth of RE and EVs will be ineffective at preventing a climate change related socio-economic collapse this century; if for no other reason than because technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.

We have seen a flattening of electricity usage.  Efficiency is allowing us to satisfy our desires while not using more electricity. 

EVs may bring a small increase in miles driven due to lower per-mile costs.  But if we keep increasing our percentage of renewable generation we should still see a noticeable drop in CO2 as we use far less petroleum.


WHEN?

When?  As the numbers of EVs, electric buses and electric trucks increases a bit more. 

Tesla is going from < 100,000 EVs per year to 500,000 EVs per year right now.  China is starting to pump out EVs and will almost certainly produce more per year than Tesla.  Nissan is bringing out a new Leaf that is likely to sell in much higher rates than their first, limited range Leaf.

I can't give you the month when we'll see a drop in petroleum use but I won't be surprised to see it happen within the next five years.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #223 on: August 17, 2017, 07:01:26 PM »
Quote
Could renewables simply cut the cost of coal, oil and gas, until they again offer the least expensive means of generating and distributing electricity?

No.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #224 on: August 17, 2017, 07:04:13 PM »
Quote
his graph seems (to me at least) to indicate that simple technological fixes (including physical geoengineering) will not sufficiently address our collective (worldwide) overshoot problem by that time to prevent a worldwide socio-economic collapse by 2060

Please pay attention to the technological shift that is now firmly underway.

Do not mislead yourself by putting a ruler on the line of history and drawing the future as an extension of the past.


numerobis

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #225 on: August 17, 2017, 07:29:20 PM »
Quote
it was once believed that nuclear power would be so cheap that metering would be a waste of resources

Part of the issue is that meters got cheaper.

But the bigger issue is that while it is indeed pretty cheap to fuel a nuclear power plant, construction, maintenance, and disposal are fantastically expensive and wipe out all the gains and end up expensive despite cheap fuel. What we're seeing with wind and solar is that construction, maintenance and disposal are more expensive than fossil fuels but the cost has come down so much that now the total cost is often below that of a fossil fuel plant.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #226 on: August 17, 2017, 07:32:32 PM »
Quote
What we're seeing with wind and solar is that construction, maintenance and disposal are more expensive than fossil fuels but the cost has come down so much that now the total cost is often below that of a fossil fuel plant.

In general, you can't build any fossil fuel plant and produce electricity as inexpensively as using wind turbines.  Solar panels are right at the verge of being the second cheapest new generation, starting to push CCNG into third place. 

rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #227 on: August 17, 2017, 07:54:39 PM »
EVs may bring a small increase in miles driven due to lower per-mile costs.  But if we keep increasing our percentage of renewable generation we should still see a noticeable drop in CO2 as we use far less petroleum.

We may see a drop in anthropogenic CO2 emissions, but this will only slow the rise in CO2 atmospheric concentrations. We would need to cut emissions by 70%+ to stabilize atmospheric concentrations, let alone reduce them. Also, other greenhouse gases (methane, N2O and F-gases) will continue to increase. We also have evidence from the latest El Nino that significant carbon sinks, such as the Amazon, can become sources without that much more of a temperature change.

We already left the safe zone, whether that is 350ppm (Hansen) or 450ppm (UN IPCC) CO2e and urgently need to get back within it. At the current rate CO2e concentrations are going up by 3.5ppm per year, and are already at 520/600+ depending on the warming period used for methane. The higher number is more relevant for the warming during the next couple of decades.

A reduction in atmospheric CO2 concentrations will require 70%+ cuts in emissions, and/or technologies to suck the CO2 out of the air. An offsetting factor will be any problems with natural sources/sinks, including outgassing of CO2 from the oceans. Reductions in SO2 from coal burning will also have to be offset, as any reductions will create a net warming. Then, in addition we will need to reduce methane, N20 and F-gases.

This is a monumental task, which requires large-scale government intervention through such things as high carbon taxes, cutting all fossil-fuel subsidies, funding of alternatives (Tesla would not exist without government funding), and infrastructure changes. Without that we probably have 20 years at best before massive geo-engineering becomes an imperative rather than an option.

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #228 on: August 17, 2017, 08:20:19 PM »
Quote
his graph seems (to me at least) to indicate that simple technological fixes (including physical geoengineering) will not sufficiently address our collective (worldwide) overshoot problem by that time to prevent a worldwide socio-economic collapse by 2060

Please pay attention to the technological shift that is now firmly underway.

Do not mislead yourself by putting a ruler on the line of history and drawing the future as an extension of the past.


Ouch!
I'm not convinced that we have until 2060, nor that the technological shift that is now underway is enough to save society from collapse.


If nukes start flying everything is off the table, so we have to start with the belief that those in power, worldwide, are sane. - this belief is sometimes difficult to maintain -


Assuming they can keep their collective fingers off the buttons, we then need to believe that at least the worlds largest nations can cooperate together in the fight against Global Warming. - recent developments in Washington make this an increasingly unlikely proposition -


Societies in the past have collapsed when outside forces or internal turmoil simply tore a nation apart. Do we want the recent events in Ukraine, the bloodbath in France, or Americas own civil war as examples. In today's interconnected world, with last minute inventorying, the sudden loss of any of the major players to internal conflict could bring down the whole house of cards.


We haven't even considered the floods of refugees, the floods that Hansen wrote of, or the floods of litigation that sunken cities will create. These will all tear at the very fabric of society.


Will India wait until the 50's have past to begin machine gunning drowning Bangladeshis? Will our own BOE await the 60's? A good storm next year could do to Miami what Katrina did for New Orleans, will Trump's response pull the country together, or will Pence's response be an improvement?


Evs are good, but will they become ubiquitous before road maintenance ends.
Solar and windfarms are good, but will the grid still be maintained when the last smoke belching coal plant is mothballed?
Gigafactories spewing out high tech batteries are wonderful, but will trade with China allow lithium into our market?


I don't know the answer to these questions, and neither does anyone else. I do know that if any of these scenarios, or a myriad of others play out, it could be over well before the 2060 baby seizes old 2059's scythe.


Tell the children to sleep peacefully.
Terry

Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #229 on: August 17, 2017, 08:23:39 PM »
”…technological 'fixes' just wet people's appetite for more technology and more consumption.”


But technological fixes can also reduce a person’s (or a community’s) carbon footprint, such as solar ovens replacing wood or dung fires; or small solar panels powering lights in place of kerosene lanterns.


I'm sorry, but I don't see dung fires or kerosene lanterns contributing significantly to the problems we face.


Terry


The desire of the large third world population to improve their standard of living is a common theme, with the implication that this will greatly increase the carbon footprint of that segment of the population.  I was just pointing out that third world's appetite for technological growth can occur in a way that actually lessens their emissions.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

TerryM

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #230 on: August 17, 2017, 08:29:20 PM »

The desire of the large third world population to improve their standard of living is a common theme, with the implication that this will greatly increase the carbon footprint of that segment of the population.  I was just pointing out that third world's appetite for technological growth can occur in a way that actually lessens their emissions.


Understood
I was being a bit of an ass.


Apologies
Terry

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #231 on: August 17, 2017, 08:59:39 PM »
Quote
The desire of the large third world population to improve their standard of living is a common theme, with the implication that this will greatly increase the carbon footprint of that segment of the population.

Why do you assume the developing world will chose a high carbon footprint when a low carbon footprint path is cheaper?

BTW, kero is a very inefficient way to produce light so the carbon footprint of kero light is much higher than that of coal or NG electricity.  Plus kero creates a lot of black carbon.
--

Would the economics of RE/EV absolutely get us to ~zero carbon emissions from energy and transportation by 2050?  I don't know.  Do we have until 2050?  I don't know.

What I do see that is very probable is an abandonment of fossil fuels by 2050 based on economics alone.

Am I saying that governmental action wouldn't drive the process faster?  Of course not.

I'm simply trying to bring a little reality to the hair on fire crowd.

CO2 emissions from agriculture, concrete and other sources are not covered in my analysis.

Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #232 on: August 17, 2017, 09:50:55 PM »
Quote
The desire of the large third world population to improve their standard of living is a common theme, with the implication that this will greatly increase the carbon footprint of that segment of the population.

Why do you assume the developing world will chose a high carbon footprint when a low carbon footprint path is cheaper?

<snip>

Of course I don't assume that.  But increasing carbon emissions from a modernized third world is a common rejoinder around these parts. ;)
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #233 on: August 17, 2017, 11:23:25 PM »
I'm simply trying to bring a little reality to the hair on fire crowd.

CO2 emissions from agriculture, concrete and other sources are not covered in my analysis.

I would like to think that all parties in this discussion are being honest in their points of view; however, it would appear that the fundamental question is what is reality (as in what is the truth and what is 'fake news').  This fundamental question/difference between the 'hair on fire crowd' and the 'Pollyanna crowd' has been hashed back and forth in the "climate porn" vs. "not alarmed enough" thread. Nevertheless, in addition to your analysis not including "... CO2 emissions from agriculture, concrete and other sources ..."; I strongly suspect that your analysis does not include the following:
- AR5 carbon budgets are based on TCR (transient climate response) rather than on ECS (equilibrium climate sensitivity); but the industrial era began circa 1750 which is 300 years before 2050 (meaning that it is Pollyanna nonsense to be using TCR).
- ECS is a function of global temperature and the longer that we wait (I have been waiting since Kyoto) to stop global warming more and more positive feedback mechanisms kick in and the more natural emissions occur that your analysis does not consider.
- The global increase in kleptocratic governance is slowing the effort to resist climate change, and many governments are already under-reporting their GHG emissions w.r.t. Paris commitments.

I could go on and on but I suspect that my 'hair on fire' issues may just be taken as 'climate porn'.
« Last Edit: August 18, 2017, 01:26:08 AM by AbruptSLR »
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #234 on: August 18, 2017, 01:05:18 AM »
ASLR,
You just made me lose a bet with myself.
I thought for sure you would quickly post the results of a study showing that modernization of the Third World would cause increased carbon emissions. ;D

But I guess we've gone off topic long enough.
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.

AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #235 on: August 18, 2017, 01:34:56 AM »
ASLR,
You just made me lose a bet with myself.
I thought for sure you would quickly post the results of a study showing that modernization of the Third World would cause increased carbon emissions. ;D

But I guess we've gone off topic long enough.

Sigmetnow,

I am curious to see whether you will become an ASIF Empress when you reach 10,000 posts. Also, I very much appreciate your various posts to date.  I certainly wish the people living in the Third World all the best; but I am concerned that by underestimating our growing mutual climate risks that we are not doing them any favors  :-\

All the best,
ASLR
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #236 on: August 18, 2017, 05:14:35 PM »
The linked article entitled: "Investigating the Enigma of Clouds and Climate Change", indicates that net positive cloud feedback may well be at the higher end of the CMIP5 assumed range; and that we need to carefully consider international ethics before we consider geoengineering measures like cloud brightening:

http://e360.yale.edu/features/investigating-the-enigma-of-clouds-and-climate-change

Extract: "In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Marvel discusses what is known about the behavior of clouds in a warming world (they are migrating more toward the poles), explains why strict controls need to be imposed on geoengineering experiments with clouds …
..
e360: What are the consequences of this poleward and upward motion of clouds?

Marvel: Both of them give rise to what I think is the most confusing part of climate jargon. We call it a positive feedback, and you think “positive feedback” — that sounds great. I like getting positive feedback. But when climate scientists talk about a positive feedback, we mean some process that changes in response to warming, that accelerates that warming. So both of those changes are what we would call a positive feedback, meaning it enhances the warming.

Marvel: With geoengineering, I’m always very concerned because if I want to do an experiment on human subjects, as a university researcher, I have to go in front of a review board and convince them that all of my human subjects have given informed consent to participate in this experiment. And with a lot of geo-engineering experiments, I worry about how that consent is going to be obtained.  There are starting to be organizations thinking about this; there’s something called the Climate Geoengineering Governance Project, that’s starting to think about how would we design an international law regime to actually regulate this. And I think that’s something worth thinking about.

Marvel: People ask me, “Aren’t you just depressed all the time? How do you keep going in the face of this?” We’re all going to die. You know, there’s not a lot of good news there. But we all manage to find happiness and fun in our lives anyway. And I do have hope, I do think that we are an amazing species; and we do a lot of terrible things, but we also do a lot of very good things. I do have hope in human ingenuity."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #237 on: August 18, 2017, 09:37:41 PM »

Sigmetnow,

I am curious to see whether you will become an ASIF Empress when you reach 10,000 posts. Also, I very much appreciate your various posts to date. 
<snip>

All the best,
ASLR

I'm holding out for Galactic President.  ;D
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #238 on: August 19, 2017, 07:22:29 PM »
As just one of many many examples of what could go wrong with the implementation of solar geoengineering circa 2040, the first linked article discusses how the "8.2 ka event" (see below) had a major impact on weather around the world including in California; and if a synergistic series of collapses of key marine glaciers in both Greenland and West Antarctica were to occur in the say timeframe; then the interaction between the geoengineering and the ice-climate feedback mechanism would likely produce extreme weather around the world for decades:

Title: "Wet and stormy weather lashed California coast... 8,200 years ago".

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170620093206.htm

Extract: "The Golden State's 150-year stretch of unusually wet weather appears to have been marked by particularly intense winter storms and coincides with a climate anomaly in Greenland ice cores first detected in 1997. Before this "8.2 ka event" was discovered scientists thought the world's climate had been unusually stable during the Holocene, the geological epoch that covers the last 11,700 years of Earth's history.

Since then researchers have associated the distinctive, 3.3-degree Celsius temperature dip in the Greenland ice cores with a catastrophic event: The drainage of two giant glacial lakes (Lake Ojibway and Lake Agassiz) located in northeastern North America caused by the collapse of massive ice sheet that covered much of the continent during the last ice age. In short order, the two lakes dumped enough melt water into the North Atlantic to disrupt the world's oceanic and atmospheric circulation patterns and raise the sea level by somewhere between two to 10 feet. The tremendous freshwater flood has been associated with an extended cold snap in Europe, increased drought in Africa, weakened monsoons in Asia and strengthened monsoons in South America.


Climatologists are particularly interested in this prehistoric event because it can provide insight into what would happen if global warming reaches a point where glaciers in Greenland and other parts of the globe melt rapidly enough to dump large amounts of fresh water into the ocean. In 2003, for example, the Office of Net Assessment at the U.S. Department of Defense produced a study of prospective climate change specifically based on this event."

Also see:

Jessica L. Oster, Warren D. Sharp, Aaron K. Covey, Jansen Gibson, Bruce Rogers, Hari Mix. Climate response to the 8.2 ka event in coastal California. Scientific Reports, 2017; 7 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-04215-5

&

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/apr/14/new-study-shows-worrisome-signs-for-greenland-ice
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AbruptSLR

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #239 on: August 23, 2017, 12:25:52 AM »
While I certainly hope that policy makers manage to implement the proposed negative emissions scheme by stopping deforestation and forest degradation; alternatively this information could be used in a risk assessment to see how much damage would be done if such deforestation and forest degradation were to continue and/or accelerate:

R. A. Houghton & A. A. Nassikas (21 August 2017), "Negative Emissions from Stopping Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Globally", Global Change Biology, DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13876

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.13876/abstract?utm_content=bufferd39be&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Abstract: "Forest growth provides negative emissions of carbon that could help keep the earth's surface temperature from exceeding 2°C, but the global potential is uncertain. Here we use land-use information from the FAO and a bookkeeping model to calculate the potential negative emissions that would result from allowing secondary forests to recover. We find the current gross carbon sink in forests recovering from harvests and abandoned agriculture to be -4.4 PgC yr−1, globally. The sink represents the potential for negative emissions if positive emissions from deforestation and wood harvest were eliminated. However, the sink is largely offset by emissions from wood products built up over the last century. Accounting for these committed emissions, we estimate that stopping deforestation and allowing secondary forests to grow would yield cumulative negative emissions between 2016 and 2100 of about 120 PgC, globally. Extending the lifetimes of wood products could potentially remove another 10 PgC from the atmosphere, for a total of approximately 130 PgC, or about 13 years of fossil fuel use at today's rate. As an upper limit, the estimate is conservative. It is based largely on past and current practices. But if greater negative emissions are to be realized, they will require an expansion of forest area, greater efficiencies in converting harvested wood to long-lasting products and sources of energy, and novel approaches for sequestering carbon in soils. That is, they will require current management practices to change."
“It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.”
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Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #240 on: September 05, 2017, 10:53:13 PM »
Copying in a comment in another thread...

Quote
Efficient Air-Conditioning Beams Heat Into Space
By Prachi Patel
Posted 5 Sep 2017 | 14:00 GMT
Radiative system could send heat from AC condensers out into space, reducing energy needed to cool buildings Photo: Aaswath Raman

Air-conditioners work hard in hot weather, hogging energy. With a warming climate and more people across the world cranking up ACs, more efficient cooling systems are going to become critical to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

 Stanford researchers have developed a cooling system that could cut the energy used by conventional building air-conditioning systems by over 20 percent in the middle of summer.

 Conventional air-conditioners use a refrigerant to absorb heat from inside a house and release it outdoors. Fans blow air over condenser coils to vent heat into the air, which takes a lot of energy. “The efficiency of cooling systems depends on air temperature,” says Aaswath Raman, an applied physicist at Stanford. “If the air is warmer then the system works harder and uses more electricity to reject that heat into the environment.”

 The Stanford team’s passive cooling system chills water by a few degrees with the help of radiative panels that absorb heat and beam it directly into outerspace. This requires minimal electricity and no water evaporation, saving both energy and water. The researchers want to use these fluid-cooling panels to cool off AC condensers.

 They first reported their passive radiative cooling idea in 2014. In the new work reported in Nature Energy, they’ve taken the next step with a practical system that chills water. They’ve also established a startup, SkyCool Systems, to commercialize the technology.

Radiative cooling relies on the fact that most objects release heat. “The sun heats up objects during the day, and at night the Earth’s surface or building roofs all radiate that back to the sky,” Raman says. Problem is, radiative cooling doesn’t work during the day while the sun’s beating down on the Earth, or when the ambient air temperature is very high.

So Raman and electrical engineering professor Shanhui Fan made panels containing layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide on top of a thin layer of silver. These radiate in a unique way: They send heat directly into space, bypassing the Earth’s atmosphere. The panels do this by emitting heat at infrared wavelengths between 8 and 13 micrometers. To these waves, the Earth’s atmosphere is transparent. What’s more, the panels reflect nearly all the sunlight falling on them."

http://skycoolsystems.com/

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #241 on: September 05, 2017, 10:54:34 PM »
Copying in my reply...

Quote
made panels containing layers of silicon dioxide and hafnium oxide on top of a thin layer of silver. These radiate in a unique way: They send heat directly into space, bypassing the Earth’s atmosphere. The panels do this by emitting heat at infrared wavelengths between 8 and 13 micrometers. To these waves, the Earth’s atmosphere is transparent. What’s more, the panels reflect nearly all the sunlight falling on them

OK, this is interesting.  If the panels are cheap enough to make then we might be able to make some building roofs with them.  Take some cheap wind and solar and reject some extra energy back outside our atmosphere (cheap wind at night).  In addition to creating some very efficient albedo when the Sun is striking them.

Could be a geoengineering solution.

ghoti

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #242 on: September 06, 2017, 08:35:55 PM »
These systems require clear skies and low humidity otherwise they can't radiate to the sky. Most conventional A/C is needed under hot humid conditions. Smoggy skies likely also block radiation to the sky.

Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #243 on: September 15, 2017, 05:27:21 PM »
Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1)

http://www.pnas.org/content/103/46/17184.full

Quote
If it were to become apparent that dangerous changes in global climate were inevitable, despite greenhouse gas controls, active methods to cool the Earth on an emergency basis might be desirable. The concept considered here is to block 1.8% of the solar flux with a space sunshade orbited near the inner Lagrange point (L1), in-line between the Earth and sun. Following the work of J. Early [Early, JT (1989) J Br Interplanet Soc 42:567–569], transparent material would be used to deflect the sunlight, rather than to absorb it, to minimize the shift in balance out from L1 caused by radiation pressure. Three advances aimed at practical implementation are presented. First is an optical design for a very thin refractive screen with low reflectivity, leading to a total sunshade mass of ≈20 million tons. Second is a concept aimed at reducing transportation cost to $50/kg by using electromagnetic acceleration to escape Earth's gravity, followed by ion propulsion. Third is an implementation of the sunshade as a cloud of many spacecraft, autonomously stabilized by modulating solar radiation pressure. These meter-sized “flyers” would be assembled completely before launch, avoiding any need for construction or unfolding in space. They would weigh a gram each, be launched in stacks of 800,000, and remain for a projected lifetime of 50 years within a 100,000-km-long cloud. The concept builds on existing technologies. It seems feasible that it could be developed and deployed in ≈25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5% of world gross domestic product (GDP) over that time.
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #244 on: September 15, 2017, 06:47:37 PM »
Quote
Feasibility of cooling the Earth with a cloud of small spacecraft near the inner Lagrange point (L1

This, to me, sounds like something that might be able to keep us from cooking while we re-sequester carbon.  We've waited so long to deal with the cause of climate change that we very well may need some symptom relief.  And this approach seems to have minimal downsides.  Some 'global dimming' which would reduce plant growth but probably less than extreme heat making much of our agricultural lands unusable.

rboyd

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #245 on: September 15, 2017, 08:19:32 PM »
Cost of a "few trillion dollars" for a speculative technology that we may need? Crushing huge amounts of certain types of rock and spreading the powder over the tropics to draw down carbon and increase ocean ph values seems like bargain in comparison.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #246 on: September 15, 2017, 09:28:58 PM »
If we've got two potential geoengineering solutions then that's great.

Now let's work to develop those ideas.  Figure out how to minimize the cost and determine any downside to both.

We know how to eliminate most fossil fuel use but we also need to deal with the heating we will have created even if we stop using fossil fuels ASAP.
---

Might it work to manufacture and fly the shields from the Moon with its lower gravity force?  Even if we had to ship all the fuel up?  (I'm way out of my knowledge pool here....)

Archimid

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #247 on: September 15, 2017, 10:05:25 PM »
Quote
Cost of a "few trillion dollars" for a speculative technology that we may need? Crushing huge amounts of certain types of rock and spreading the powder over the tropics to draw down carbon and increase ocean ph values seems like bargain in comparison.

Ok, but what if crushing rocks end up being a very bad a idea for some unknown reason? There is no planet B. If a trillion dollar swarm of satellites causes unintended consequences, they can be just deorbited and scraped. No harm done.

Yeah, it is expensive, but it is reversible and chemically inert. 
I am an energy reservoir seemingly intent on lowering entropy for self preservation.

Bob Wallace

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #248 on: September 20, 2017, 11:47:05 PM »
An accidental discovery that might allow us to separate carbon from atmospheric CO2.  Eventually.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/08/170809140311.htm

Quote
Scientists working toward the elusive lithium-air battery discovered an unexpected approach to capturing and storing carbon dioxide away from the atmosphere. Using a design intended for a lithium-CO2 battery, researchers have developed a way to isolate solid carbon dust from gaseous carbon dioxide, with the potential to also separate out oxygen gas through the same method.

...

The researchers encountered the carbon fixation strategy when they tried to recharge a lithium-CO2 battery prototype. Instead of fully regenerating lithium ions and CO2 from the lithium carbonate and carbon produced during battery discharge, as would have taken place with a reversible Li-CO2 battery, the lithium carbonate decomposed, yielding additional carbon, as well as oxygen gas that was not isolated due to rapid reaction with the battery electrolyte.


"What is impressive about this work is the possibility to convert one-third of the CO2 species to carbon with a high theoretical energy efficiency above 70%,"

...

Looking ahead, the researchers are also excited by their system's potential to perhaps lead to a pathway for converting carbon dioxide into pure carbon and oxygen gas. "Attaining the release of oxygen gas upon charging, coupled with the accumulation of solid carbon, would realize an electrochemical carbon dioxide fixation strategy analogous to photosynthesis," says Zhou.



Sigmetnow

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Re: Geoengineering, another rush for money?
« Reply #249 on: September 24, 2017, 03:45:25 PM »
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An accidental discovery that might allow us to separate carbon from atmospheric CO2.  Eventually.

It would be interesting if, for the sake of the environment, the next generation of "eco-hippies" drives a slightly-less convenient lithium-CO2 EV, rather than today's closed-loop lithium battery EVs. :) (Beyond whatever large-scale projects that may happen.)
People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.