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$25M Bounty Offered for Global Warming Fix
SaDan writes "Richard Branson is offering $25M as a bounty for a fix to global warming. The person or organization that can devise a method to remove at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere will be able to claim the bounty. There are a few catches, of course. There can't be any negative impact on the environment, and the payment will come in chunks. A 5 million dollar payout will be paid when the system is put into place with the remainder of the bounty to be paid after 10 years of continuous use."
How much carbon dioxide does a single tree consume in a year of respiration and how many trees could be planted for $25 million?
Either that or find a way to build large scale air scrubbers that simulate plant respiration (stripping the carbon atom off a CO2 molecule and releasing O2), then compress the pure carbon into bricks for use in industry. If it could be done cheaply enough it might not just be eco-friendly, but profitable as well, with the $25 million payment as a bonus.
- Greg
Start a happiness pandemic
Why, that's just ~32 tons of CO2 per second. Piece of cake.
Carbon sequestration is relatively easy. Plant more trees, create artificial algae blooms...Anything green and growing will take in a lot of carbon. There have been studies recently dealing with certain types of pine trees that even suggest that the trees are growing faster in the higher CO2 environment we're making for them, which suggests that natural processes will step up to take advantage of the carbon rich environment.
The problem is, all these solutions are geologically short term, and they're not as space-efficient as say, coal. Forests catch fire, algae blooms sink to the bottom (which is good) but are bad bad bad for the water ecosystem in which they're created, and everything else gets used and processed.
Basically, we're screwed on a quick fix until someone bio-engineers us some quick growing trees that sequester so much carbon that they're shiny. The best solution is to reduce our output of carbon, and allow the carbon cycle to re-balance itself.
In the meantime, if you're wondering whether to take up snow skiing or water skiing, might want to go water.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Mother nature's solution to global warming operates on a geologic timescale and will not help us. In fact since if we leave the situation unchecked things will get worse before they get better, the earth will probably demonstrate its lack of use for us in the meantime.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
But it would require energy. The whole reason hydrocarbons are a good source of energy is precisely because the C + O2 -> CO2 reaction gives off energy. So to make it go the other way, you need input energy. Plants get it from the sun, where would we get it from. Then, of course, assuming you have a source the question is why not just cut the middle man and use that source directly?
The person or organization that can devise a method to remove at least a billion tons of carbon dioxide a year from the atmosphere will be able to claim the bounty. There are a few catches, of course. There can't be any negative impact on the environment.
That's like asking a baker to take all that unhealthy fat out of a doughnut, but not have it have any impact on the taste. It would be foolish of Branson to think that you can make a dramatic change to the chemical makeup of our atmosphere, but not have any "negative" consequences. Plants need CO2, so removing it from the atmosphere might harm plant life. Temperatures will decrease (probably), and I'm sure that there's at least some species of wildlife that's now thriving with the warmer temperatures. Wind paterns will change. Climate patterns will change. To expect absolutely no "negative impact" on the environment is foolhardy.
Running out of oil will do this quite effectively, and that will happen within not too many years.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=286
FTA: Branson, whose business interests include Virgin Atlantic airline and Virgin Trains, rejected charges that it was hypocritical for him to sponsor the prize. He reiterated a commitment made in September to invest $3 billion toward fighting global warming, saying he would commit all profits from his travel companies over the next 10 years.
As part of that pledge, he launched a new Virgin Fuels business, which is to invest up to $400 million in green energy projects over the next three years.
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
Hydro never lived up to the hype. Dams silt up, dams ruin rivers, and, aside from a few really good spots, dams don't generate enough power.
If we went to fission with waste reprocessing, we could be in good shape...It'll provide more power and vastly reduce the amount of waste produced. We could even reprocess the waste we have now. The paranoia over radiation is so overblown, and has been hyped for so long that people just sort of accept that all nuclear power is going to lead to three eyed fish and crap like that.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
4) Eat the environmentalists; less SUV use, less air travel, less hot air, less sewage. Yuck!
By SUV, I assume you are implying that they get poor gas mileage, and therefore produce more greenhouse gases. Not all do, of course. That said, someone who drives a Yukon is a hypocrite if they claim to be an environmentalist.
6) End Socialism. Economic prosperity will allow people to adjust to the changing climate better. More socialism is more death and misery.
The US, one of the least socialist countries in the world (I saw a picture of a cardboard shanty town in Florida earlier this week that definitely made me think of death and misery) produces a huge amount of greenhouse gas (per person).
Developing communist countries do as well, but compare the CO2 production per person from the US to China shows that capitalism generates more (using your logic). Canada is more socialist than the US, and Canadians generate more greenhouse gas than Americans do. Is it because of socialism? No, it's because it's colder and not as densely populated.
The western industrial democracies are quite capitalist, and we generate per-person more greenhouse gases than many of the poorer, "socialist" countries. Making more like us will make solve the problem? If we are relatively so much wealthier, then why aren't we willing to clean up our act, seeing as you claim the willingness to fix the problem seems to be related to wealth?
7) "repeal" Kyoto protocols. They don't work, they are counter productive, they will cause more global warming.
The US did not sign Kyoto. George Bush did not believe in global warming, so he reneged on the agreement made by Clinton to sign the protocol.
Eco-Nazi talking about spending money
It's his money. You are a big fan of capitalism, and he's a capitalist (that's how he made his money). Who are you to criticize how he spends it? That sounds very socialist to me.
You know... if there was a large industry for getting rid of nuclear waste... someone would find a way to do it quickly, safely, and cheaply just so they can be a rich bastard off of it.
You mad
Nuclear power is statistically safer than conventional. I guarantee there were more accidents last year per kilowatt for conventional power than nuclear. (Airplanes are also statistically safer than cars.) The big problem is that terrorists have successfully terrorized people on the subjects.
Chernobyl was using a design US engineers had rejected as unsafe, and the Three Mile Island disaster wasn't. It was a successful test of nuclear safety measures.
As for nuclear waste, why not recycle it? R-r-recycle it! *gasp* But that produces weapons-grade material! Right, so put it in a missile! The best defense is a good offense (think Reagen's Cold-War successes). And then there is hardly anything left over! (And is nuclear waste worse than huge strip mines?)
The only real obstacle to nuclear power is public terror.
The government can't save you.