1,500-Ship Fleet Proposed To Fight Climate Change

Roland Piquepaille writes "According to UK and US researchers, it should be possible to fight the global warming effects associated with an increase of dioxide levels by using autonomous cloud-seeding ships to spray salt water into the air. This project would require the deployment of a worldwide fleet of 1,500 unmanned ships to cool the Earth even if the level of carbon dioxide doubled. These 300-tonne ships 'would be powered by the wind, but would not use conventional sails. Instead they would be fitted with a number of 20 m-high, 2.5 m-diameter cylinders known as Flettner rotors. The researchers estimate that such ships would cost between £1m and £2m each. This translates to a US$2.65 to 5.3 billion total cost for the ships only."

Comments

That's what?

[matt4077]

Two days of war?

Re:That's what?

[aliquis]

I'd think a bad idea.

What happens when we get the clouds at this and that location instead of wherever it would be generated without the ships?

Are we 100% sure how the weather will be affected by the ships?

Will richer countries try to get more water by controlling the rain?

What if mother nature takes care about the CO2 emissions without us interfering?

What if it doesn't affect things that much? Or much more than we believe?

Would it be like, you know, much "easier" and safer to stop using fossile fuel? Even if it would put development backwards "a bit" for the moment?

Re:That's what?

[Anonymous Coward]

"a bit" is a bit of an understatement. Billions would die without fossil fuels.

Re:That's what?

[Fjan11]

The beauty of this idea is that you can start small, measure what happens and stop right away if it doesn't work as intended or if it turns out to have side effects.

The idea that China and India will stop their fossil fuel intake while the US uses 10 times as much is about as realistic in a geopolitical sense as, oh I don't know, sending an army to Irak and expecting democracy to appear.

Re:That's what?

[Damarkus13]

I agree with you. Every time I hear a story with a title something like, "We can FIX global warming by messing with some other aspect of the weather system!" It makes me cringe.

We don't really know what's going on (I would love it if someone has a link to an article about an accurate computer model of the weather system, but I've never found one.) We see the average global temp increasing along with greenhouse gasses (but now the Germans are telling us GW is taking a hiatus, which means most all of our previous models are wrong), so lets cut back on the greenhouse gases (hell, hopefully eliminate man-made greenhouse emissions), not screw with the weather system even more.

Re:That's what?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Why don't you set the right example ? I'm sure there's a bridge near you. There's only one way to make sure you don't further contribute to the "CO2 problem" ...

Re:That's what?

[jcwayne]

We need to do enough research to make sure it won't cause a hurricane / tsunami first

You don't actually know what a tsunami is, do you?

Re:That's what?

[Tangent128]

Not to mention that the irrigation of the Sahara would be a ridiculously awesome piece of engineering.

Re:That's what?

[aliquis]

But then people say "hey it's no idea we can't get back to stone age!"

But uhm, we can do SOMETHING, we don't need a new computer every second year, we don't need new clothes all the time, we don't need local grown oil powered green house vegetables if there are some sun light grown somewhere else. Do we need that 340 watt lcd tv? Pre-cooked food, freezed and microwaved? Can't we take the bike a little more often?

But oh no, doing something must mean to stop everything!!

Re:That's what?

[daBass]

Tss, bullshit, the average american or european consume waaay more energy and resources than someone in china, why would they have to cut down the most?

And much of the energy used in China is used to manufacture goods for export - the things we consume too much off!

Re:That's what?

[electrictroy]

>>>you can die from global warming.

No not really. The Romans and early Middle Age citizens experienced global warming & they did not die. In fact, they grew grapes as far north as Scotland, so it was actually beneficial. Just imagine if Canadians & Russians could grow food in the once-frozen tundra. It would feed millions.

Perhaps you were thinking of pollution?

Pollutants like carbon monoxide & particulate matter from car exhaust can damage human lungs, but that's a separate issue from global warming (CO2 emission).

Re:That's what?

[Ambitwistor]

The Romans and early Middle Age citizens experienced global warming & they did not die.

How do you know? Maybe it was peachy for England but the poor sods in Ethiopia got heatstroke and drought. Or maybe not. We don't really have good records of the mortality impacts at the time.

Note also that the warming expected over the last century is larger and more rapid than anything the Romans or Middle Age citizens experienced.

In fact, they grew grapes as far north as Scotland, so it was actually beneficial.

... to Scottish grape farmers, maybe. (Note also that we are already at those levels of warmth today, the question is what happens when we go even farther beyond that.)

It's true that some people will benefit from global warming, particularly in cold regions. Others will be harmed, particularly in hot regions. A climate which changes too quickly tends to be bad for everybody, as it takes time to adapt to new climates (especially if you've got political borders and can't just move whichever climate dependent industries are no longer supported in your region.)

Re:That's what?

[initdeep]

When a certain species of animal overmultiplies, and Mother Nature brings a drought, food becomes scarce & animals starve.

first of all, that isnt how it works.

when an animal species grows, it grows to the level that the current food sources will allow, and then stabilizers there without any drought needed due to the pressure the population puts on it's food sources. Meaning if the food source will only support x number of animals, then those above x will die due to malnourishment all on their own.
also when a prey animal increases population, there is most times (in a natural world) a corresponding increase in the number of predatory animals because they too fall into the first part of the statement.
this will also lead to the control of the prey animal population.

Pretty soon Mother Nature will be doing the same to the animal known as Homo sapiens. The drought will be scarcity-of-oil, the food shortage will be caused by idle farming equipment, and the U.S. and E.U. will no longer be able to sustain their 250 and 500 million citizens.

you do realize that the US and EU are both major EXPORTERS of foodstocks don't you?

The US alone could substantially increase their food production simply by actually farming all of the available land instead of allowing some of it to sit fallow (and i don't mean fallow in the context of crop rotation).

your statements are so far from the truth it almost sounds like you've been brainwashed.....

you're not a cult member are you?

A Bad Doctor

[Adreno]

A bad doctor treats symptoms without addressing the underlying ailment. With China and India (1/3 of the world's population), and other parts of the world booming, the release of greenhouse gasses is only going to accelerate. If we took this money and invested it into researching and implementing green alternatives to our current fossil-fuel infrastructure instead, more progress would be made in the long run.

Re:A Bad Doctor

[belmolis]

But it is also a bad doctor who treats the underlying cause without treating the symptoms if it will take a long time for the disease to go away and the symptoms are bothersome. Techniques like this should probably be used in conjunction with attempts to eliminate the causes of global warming.

It isn't as if this is so expensive that no money would be available for other approaches. Sure, $5 billion sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.5% of the what the US has spent on the Iraq War so far.

Re:A Bad Doctor

[Anonymous Coward]

A good doctor treats the symptoms as well as the ailment - more so when the ailment itself can't be cured. Quality of life is important.

This is a plan that could in theory be put into practice tomorrow, partially relieving those symptoms while longer term cures are being put into place.

While the relatively rich first world has the money to build new infrastructure - to work towards that cure - development takes time, and current alternatives don't have the capacity to meet current energy demands. That *WILL* change, but not for some time. Here in the UK, there's a lot of emphasis on making this change at the moment, but even if we start replacing everything today it will be decades before we can completely phase out our existing coal plants. In the US, it's even worse as your grid needs to be redesigned and rebuilt from scratch to accomadate wind farms and their ilk. No small task.

The only countries for which this will be 'easy' are those able to tap geothermal reserves.

For the second and third world these green alternatives are currently too expensive, and will likely remain so until the technology is being produces in such quantities as to be considered a commodity. Even then, the third world will likely be unable to afford anything except used hand-me-downs from the first and second.

So, what do you do?
A) Treat the symptoms and buy the time for all of this to happen - affirmative action

B) Treat the symptoms and forget to treat the ailment - what you think will happen

Or

C) Treat the ailment and ignore the symptoms - your suggestion

For the record, taking action C would also be more expensive financially, as treating those symptoms also reduces the amount of damage inflicted.

I admire the idealism, but you need to consider the reality of the situation at the same time or you end up making popular, but ultimately bad decisions.

Re:A Bad Doctor

[Adreno]

Uh huh... try convincing the public to dedicate such government funding to a scheme that would place 1500, 300-ton boats on open waters. You're now talking about higher frequency of ocean collisions; increased wreckage after damaging storms (and thereby increased maintenance costs all around); the energy expenditure (and CO2 release) required to produce such ships in the first place; and so many other counterproductive scenarios. Copper is being stolen from facilities across the U.S. as prices rise even today - what's to stop someone from going out to salvage an unmanned ship in international waters if it is constructed of materials desired? Our Coast Guard can't even track many drug-runners in the Caribbean, and you want to place 1500 ships on the ocean and cross your fingers that no one touches them? There are many other, more direct paths to solving this global problem, than the construction of a huge fleet of water-spraying ships that *may* increase sunlight reflectivity by a significant amount while likely instigating numerous practical issues in its implementation.

Re:A Bad Doctor

[GayBliss]

You're now talking about higher frequency of ocean collisions;

Do you realize how big the oceans are? The chances of any ship even seeing one of 1500 ships scattered around the globe is practically zero unless they are placed near a port or on shipping lanes. Ships go from one port to another on very specific routes, they don't wander around the oceans. Keep them out of the shipping lanes and nobody will ever see them.

increased wreckage after damaging storms (and thereby increased maintenance costs all around);

Negligible

the energy expenditure (and CO2 release) required to produce such ships in the first place;

Negligible

what's to stop someone from going out to salvage an unmanned ship in international waters if it is constructed of materials desired?

I think ships are made primarily of steel and not copper. It would be a whole lot cheaper and easier to just raid the local junkyard.

Our Coast Guard can't even track many drug-runners in the Caribbean, and you want to place 1500 ships on the ocean and cross your fingers that no one touches them?

They could track them very easily if they knew where they were in the first place. I seriously doubt they are just going to let these ships wander around aimlessly through the oceans with no way to find them and identify them except by searching for them. If such a plan were implemented, I'm sure they would know exactly where they are at all times.

There are many other, more direct paths to solving this global problem,

Really? This seems like a very cheap and direct solution if it indeed works.

than the construction of a huge fleet of water-spraying ships that *may* increase sunlight reflectivity by a significant amount while likely instigating numerous practical issues in its implementation.

If the best experts agree that it might work, it's worth testing on a small scale and see what happens in terms of cloud reflectivity and any adverse effects. It could probably even be tested to some extent without building a single ship.

US$2.65 to 5.3 billion is peanuts

[polar red]

the US government gave a few hundred billion dollars to the upper class today, by buying out freddie and fannie ...

Re:For every action...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh? They're talking about enhancing the reflectivity of low-lying clouds above the oceans, not moving CO2 into the oceans.

And Newton's Third Law's reaction to spraying salt water into the air is to push your ship a little deeper into the ocean.

She will.

[BitterOldGUy]

What if mother nature takes care about the CO2 emissions without us interfering?

One way or another, she will. But the kick in the balls is, we may not like how she takes care of it.

Re:She will.

[Anonymous Coward]

Isnt water vapor a greenhouse gas? Im guessing after we complete this project we will have to spend 15b on some cleanup of the new mess we have made. And then 90b to clean up the subsequent "fix".

Re:She will.

[DeadChobi]

I agree with the sibling post. The data is in. I've heard it explained very succinctly by a climate scientist. We know what to expect. We just don't have a plan to fix it that won't cause other major problems. The trouble isn't the problem of global warming, it's the problem of the loss of the polar ice caps, the flooding which will result, the destruction or change of ecosystems, the resultant loss of animal life, and the whole host of problems that that will cause for man.

Your statement about scientists not being able to predict the climate is an extreme generalization. It's difficult to predict where a particular patch of clouds will be at a particular point in time, but it's not hard to develop a model that closely approximates a number of environmental conditions over the entire Earth and then apply it to make predictions about trends based on current conditions. We have a decent understanding of what's generally going on, how fast energy is being radiated out into space versus how fast its being absorbed, and the factors which affect this. To say that the model isn't a good approximation is to ignore years of good research into the global environment.

Re:She will.

[Eivind]

The data is very thoroughly in. There's some uncertanity about the finer details, but the basic idea is as valid as it's going to get.

I don't get the US obsession with ANYTHING other than changing own behaviour. It's not as if you need to live poorly to significantly cut emissions. Sweden, for example, has a living-standard and GDP on the same level as USA, despite actually harsher climate, and their emissions are aproximately HALF of American levels pro capita.

Hell, some of the changes bring significant ADVANTAGES to standard of living. It's not as if it's a BENEFIT to live in a poorly insulated house where the wind blows trough, more or less. (okay okay, I'm exagerating, but it's a fact that the building-standards are substantially better in Sweden than in the US)

And it's not as if Sweden couldn't also be doing more with reasonable simple changes.

It's not infact hard to cut 2/3rds. That is likely to bring significant advantages over the current US-alternative which seems to be pretty close to "do nothing".

Re:She will.

[1u3hr]

water expands when frozen, and 90% of an iceberg is below water... any flooding that occurs isn't going to be of the magnitude most people seem to be expecting

The ice in Greenland and Antarctica is kilometres thick. It's not in the ocean. When it melts, it will be. Then the sea rises my several metres.

Re:Genius

[Waffle Iron]

Pure genius. Take a system you don't really understand, but depend on for living, and drastically modify a variable to see what happens.

That's exactly what we've been doing for more than a century now.

Dear people of earth

[narcberry]

You guys don't trust your expert meteorologist's weather over the next several days. Please stop trusting your politicians about weather over the next several decades.

Re:Genius

[CodeBuster]

We are already effectively conducting a vast uncontrolled experiment with many uncontrolled or poorly controlled variables by burning fossil fuels and continuing to live as we have been living. If a bad outcome is unavoidable without additional changes then we must at least try to change, even though the results might be unpredictable because what is the alternative?