Stop Global Warming With Smog?

lkypnk writes, "The AP is reporting that Nobel Prize winning scientist Paul Crutzen has suggested deliberately spreading a layer of particulate matter in the upper atmosphere to help reflect some of the sun's energy in an effort to combat global warming. He reminds us that the eruption of the volcano Pinatubo in 1991 cooled the planet by as much as 0.9 degrees; he believes his computer simulations show a similar effect from deliberate injection of sulfur into the atmosphere by humans. Whatever the feasibility of the idea, as the president of the National Environmental Trust has said, 'We are already engaged in an uncontrolled experiment by injecting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.'" From the article: "'It was meant to startle the policy makers,' said [Crutzen]. 'If they don't take action much more strongly than they have in the past, then in the end we have to do experiments like this.' ... Serious people are taking Crutzen's idea seriously."

Comments

NOVA episode

[aarku]

NOVA did an excellent episode about this. The theory is that pollution is greatly masking the effects of global warming.

Re:NOVA episode

[acherrington]

yeah, nova did a really great job covering this a few months back. What the person here is talking about is implementing a concept of Global Dimming. I can't really I say that I support the idea though. Instead of getting rid of the greenhouse gases, we are going to continue to literally mask the problem. Why not just solve the base problem?

Global dimming is the gradual reduction in the amount of global hemispherical irradiance (or total solar irradiance) at the Earth's surface, observed since the beginning of systematic measurements in 1950s. The effect varies by location, but worldwide it is of the order of a 4% reduction over the three decades from 1960-1990. This trend has reversed during the past decade. Global dimming creates a cooling effect that may have partially masked the effect of greenhouse gases on global warming.

Re:NOVA episode

[The_Wilschon]

Instead of getting rid of the greenhouse gases, we are going to continue to literally mask the problem. Why not just solve the base problem?

Because we know how to do this. Getting rid of already extant greenhouse gases is going to be a much trickier problem. I've heard an awful lot of moaning and doom-and-glooming over global warming, and precious little in the way of actual solutions. Especially the type of solutions that are implementable. Telling everyone to stop driving their cars and stop using electricity generated from greenhouse-producing generators is about as effective as telling the tides not to come in. Besides, even that would only decrease (albeit significantly) our production of greenhouse gases. It wouldn't do much at all to reduce their actual concentration in the atmosphere. However, global dimming type projects could very well counter the effects of the greenhouse gases, giving us enough time to figure out a way to actually reduce those gases. Or, giving us time to implement long-term reduction plans, such as replacing gas-burning cars as quickly as possible, planting more trees, and waiting for the trees to eat up all the CO2. And the dimming would mitigate the warming effect that forests have by virtue of their lower albedo than pretty much any other type of terrain.

If the doomsday proclaimers are right, then we have precious little time before global warming goes out of control and we turn into venus (exaggeration, yes I know). Decreasing the total amount of insolation could buy us enough time to actually fix things. Now, of course, we should choose something to implement the dimming that we can easily undo, or that will undo itself (requiring us to maintain it for as long as we need it).

Re:NOVA episode

[Decker-Mage]

The sad thing about nuclear power in the US is that it is not a technological problem that prevents its deployment. Inherently safe plant designs do exist (one of my fields of engineering), ones where every safety system can and does fail, yet the plant simply cannot meltdown (a CLOCA - Complete Loss Of Coolant Accident - is more an internal radiological cleanup problem than anything else. These designs are not new. Nuclear waste is not only managable but can be rendered inert and safely stored for tens of thousands of years. Nothing new here either. Nor are finding geologically stable sites for construction of these sites. Again nothing new, look for salt domes which only occur, I might add, in geologically stable areas (and which is why they are great for storing real nuclear waste).

The problem is solely socio-political. It costs more to prepare, obtain, and shepherd through a totally uncertain legal system the required permits for construction than the actual construction itself. Add the decade long lead time to ground-breaking for which interest on capital is charged but not recouped. As icing on our heaping pile of fecal matter pie here, toss in unknown legal liability concerns due to the unresolved waste repository issue. No ration economic actor will engage in construction of such plants. Actually, given what I know about the problems that we will also be facing with fusion plants, I firmly believe that we will never construct any for civilian power production in this country either. So much for that man on the white horse.

The best we can do from absolute recycling of all wastes for power production, assuming 100% recovery of energy with no recovery energy costs (yeah, right, just toss the second law of thermodynamics) is just under 5% of total power production in this country. Wind power, which is problematic at best, however let's again assume it is perfect, gets you another 5% assuming you cover this country with wind farms even in inappropriate areas. Forget tidal, it's a non-starter even if you capture all the tidal energy for the coastal US, total recovery less than a tenth of a percent. Solar is out even before it leaves the gate. The best sites for massive solar arrays, ignoring space, are our deserts and that won't fly against our 'environmentally-minded' 'friends'. Frankly, there is no way to come up with the rest of the power this country needs to function without increasing nuclear-based power production. [I'm leaving OTEC out of this as it would not be based in the US if maximum efficiencies are desired.]

One hopes that we will get a radical breakthrough in the near future. We engineers can actually solve the problems in front of us as is, nothing new required. Just lots of capital investment. Although I wouldn't turn down some breakthroughs.

[Disclaimer: Former member of Greenpeace who broke from the membership over nuclear power. I was the only one at the meetings that could even explain what the various types of radiation were or their health hazards.]

Re:NOVA episode

[Pharmboy]

Even some former Greenpeace members are coming around on nuclear power. You don't have to be a genius to know it will take nuclear power, biofuel blends (ethanol and biodiesel blended with petrofuels) plus energy efficiency to solve the issue. Right now, research is coming along pretty good and it looks like switching to alternative energy will produce a net benefit to the economy if we continue along a steady path. SEER ratings are going up, CAFE standards need to go up, the Feds are giving nice tax subsidies for biofuel generation while we migrate (although most states are NOT...) Wind and solar power generation is becoming more efficient every year. Jobs are being created. My house is still comfy year round.

And for the record, I am not an environmentalist, whom I detest. Less pollution makes air nicer to breath (a plus), but I am not sold on the whole 'global warming' scenario. I'm just an ex military guy who is fed up with feeding Iran and others with my dollars. I prefer our energy dollars stay at home, preferably in my own wallet.

Now if Ford and Chevy would just build an efficient car worth buying, instead of hybrid vehicles that do nothing except get them tax credits.

Re:NOVA episode

[Decker-Mage]

Actually I don't need to look at the numbers, I know the numbers. The chip industry is getting better about this although it has a long way to go especially in the manufacturing of photovoltiac cells. Before the shift away from using PCE as part of the manufacturing (cleaning) process), the sheer amount of hazardous chemical waste was mind-boggling even to someone used to dealing with materials in metric tons and kilotons. It's still far from ideal and with the introduction of nanotechnological processes into the photovoltiac mix, process engineering will on become more complex as will dealing with the wastes.

As for fission power, her comment is so out of date it isn't even funny. The uranium (and should we use an alternative process, thorium) is already mined and stockpiled. The last time I looked at the data, it's a couple of hundred years worth at current usage rates for uranium and potentially thosands of years for thorium. The photovoltiac cells, and alternative converters of solar energy, do not exist. So on the one hand we have an existing, usable supply, and on the other hand (economist, remember?) we have something that still needs to be manufactured, and actually in this case, we need to create the manufacturing plants as well.

Which way would you go were you a rational actor? Duh!

Re:NOVA episode

[Decker-Mage]

As I believe I pointed out, there a potential uses for this so-called waste. What may be waste at one particular snapshot of the technological arc may be highly valuable at a (near) future date. This is also historical fact as has been demonstrated time and time again. Materials that were thought to be useless turned out to be highly desirable in future manufacturing processes. Coal tar would be my prime exhibit with mine tailings from various metal mining sites that were high in elements such as titanium, molybdenum, etc. Heck, at one time, urananium-oxide (yellowcake to be specific) was thought only to be useful as a dye for over a thousand years, at least. Oops.

As for the terrorist threat {yawn}. It is way overhyped by people that don't have a clue about what they are tallking about. First off, dealing with high-level waste requires the resources, specifically the equpment, currently only available to governments. This stuff is not only extremely radioactive, but toxic as well. True, give a budget of ten million or so and I could come up with a facility to deal with it but our intelligence services would pick up on that in short order. Secondly, the stuff will be guarded and almost certainly more well guarded than is the case with our current on-site storage scheme which was always meant to be a temporary solution. While in the service I served on a counter-terrorism team and prior to entering the service I studied terrorist tactics. Terrorists can achieve their goals far more easily than stealing vitrified, high-level waste, having to evade NEST and the counter-terrorist military op of the millenium, and ensuing fall-out (pun intended). Good thing I wear a white-hat since I could easily come up with ops far more impressive, effective (political, media), and secure.

In any case, the point is not that we use nuclear (fission or fusion) unto the end of days. We merely use it as a stepping stone to achieve renewable energy independence. Sending fifty to a hundred billon a year to overseas energy suppliers is downright idiotic when a similar investment of one years cost could easily eliminate that cost entirely using not a single bit of new technology except in the case of genetic engineering of plants for ethanol production, but that's dirt cheap in comparison to cthe capital startup costs of some of the other required tech.

When you get down to it, the world of economics is just like the world of engineering. Both exist in a system of constraints and the job involves dealing with those constraints to maximum the return on investment. When I realized that it became no surprise that I am comfortable in both worlds.

Actually, it is when you look at ALL the effects.

[Engineer-Poet]

FWIW, I came out for something like this last April.

Shading the Earth won't get rid of the direct effects of excess CO2, such as ocean acidification and preferential growth promotion of undesirable plants like woody vines vs. trees. But the beauty of injecting a few million or tens of millions of tons of sulfur in the upper atmosphere is that it spreads out much more widely, the effects will reduce drought and heat stress which are killing plants and turning land into desert, and you might even cut the original pollution by taking the sulfur from some existing source.

Cutting heating and stress on plants looks like it reduces the CO2 problem directly, by enabling better CO2 uptake. If you don't believe me, take a look at the Keeling curve and tell me what else could explain the flattening in the two years after Pinatubo. Take your time, I'll wait.

GIA affect

[phrostie]

it seems to me that the earth has already started to work on this approach on it's own.
over the past few years as the ocean temperatures have increased, so has the techtonic activity. the number of earth quakes have been on the increase. i would speculate that an increase in volcanic eruptions will be next.

the question will be what effect this will have on humans?