And then, like many employees, part of your job is simply being available to spring into action when needed. I'd say that a 1/3 overhead in staffing for positions where availability is important seems quite reasonable. 1/3 overhead means 1/4 of the time spent isn't doing anything immediately productive to the company, such as personal shopping or investing online. To an outsider, someone at a computer is simply working if they can't see the screen, so it gives the impression of being busy. This can give a much more professional appearance than the traditional ways of whittling away those extra 2 hours a day... reading magazines, chatting with coworkers, etc (think of the early 1980s Hollywood stereotype of a secretary reading a fashion magazine and doing her nails vs. the modern equivalent of browsing ebay in a manner which the customers will not see.) In these cases it is important that the employee be able to switch from the personal time to the professional time quickly, which is why I personally like a policy that solitaire and websites are generally not blocked or monitored electronically, but getting physically caught playing games or chatting online can get one chastised. It's not the playing of the games that is troublesome so much as not being able to quickly return focus to the office environment.
Pretty much standard fare at a concert of decent size these days. Even before camera phones were basically standard, people would wave their phones in the air, creating a similar effect to a crowd full of lighters.
The method was to dress in the same style as the bouncers. If the Maori had been wearing black, they would have been fine with you wearing black. And black jeans are considered very different from black dress pants, in fact blue jeans are generally considered more socially acceptable than black.
While your power company analogy is close, the cell phone provider model would translate more directly. Free nights and weekends sort of deal. But then, like most cell phone providers, it would probably be difficult to find your actual usage (although they do seem to be getting much better at making it easy to find what your usage actually is.)
Or if you are powerful, you simply wage war to take out the competition providing more mates for yourself. And by the competition I meant the men you sent to war, not the guys you are attacking.
Promise your soldiers 60 virgins in the afterlife if they die in battle, and allow the returning heroes access to women in such a fashion that the total number of females available to the ruler is greater than if the society was monogamous. If 2/3rds of the army dies, you can offer an average of two wives per returning hero, and still have 1/3 of the women that would have been wives of the now dead soldiers to add to your harem.
And to expand your harem further, just make deals with the leaders of other powerful nations to keep the competition from trying to claim part of your harem back.
This behavior has been shown time and time again across many species... polygynous (many women -> one man) groups tend to show increased levels of aggression to outside groups, and the greater the level of polygyny, the greater the level of aggression.
I agree that converting everyone to atheism would not be a good thing. In a way, the ID crowd even helps science. They have a different mindset than scientists, and are fighting to punch holes in scientific theory, most notably evolution. This means they are quick to point out gaps in our knowledge which can inspire valuable research to fill those gaps. The trifecta of "irreducible complexities" (human eye, immune system and bacterial flagellum) has led scientists to analyze and formalize the evolution of the eye from a simple light detector to the marvel it is, to probe deeper into the variety of immune systems that exist (which could lead to direct medical advances) and to look hard at the mechanism of the toxin syringe (which creates knowledge that would be helpful in nanotech.) Any student of ecology knows that a monoculture is a risky proposition, and this could be expanded to include an intellectual monoculture of pure scientific thought.
And to clarify, I wasn't thinking of religion as an outcropping of science, more an outcropping of the natural curiosity of the world which leads to science. Mrchaotica more eloquently identified this tendency as philosophy, or at the very least the desire of knowledge of the world which leads to philosophy.
But yeah. Unweaving the Rainbow has lead me to understand where I fit in regards to science. I am not a professional scientist but am intrigued by and enjoy reading and thinking about science and scientific topics. The book has helped me become comfortable being an connoisseur in science, even if it is unlikely that I will personally ever directly contribute much to the art. Artists in other fields appreciate having people enjoy and understand their work and it drives them to excellence. I don't see why it has to be different in the art of directly understanding the universe.
Religion implies a certain level of intelligence. It's quite a step from "avoid predators, find food, mate" to asking such large questions as "does something happen after I die?" and "why is the world the way it is?" to "how did the world begin?" Religion may not provide the correct answers, but it would be meaningless without the ability to ask those questions. In a way religion can be seen as an outcropping of the genesis of scientific thought.
For some idea of where I stand on this, I am halfway through Unweaving the Rainbow, with The Blind Watchmaker on deck.
Actually, you have that backwards - fertilizer is also known as 'nitrate'. Not all nitrates are fertilizer however.
Since everything else you wrote here has been debunked, I'll take on this line. Nitrates are one of many components of fertilizer. There are three main components that plants need in large quantities - nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. There are also several other trace minerals that are required for plant growth and often included in fertilizer mixes. Fertilizer is essentially an addition to the soil of those chemicals that plants need to grow, and could be compared in analogy to human nutrition... the secret is in appropriate balance. So, the grandparent had it right. Nitrate is indeed a fertilizer, just as phosphate and potassium are. What you are used to buying and spreading on the lawn or garden is a blended fertilizer, made of several different types.
Eh... Nitrates have been found to be not that big of a deal, really. There are bacteria that convert nitrates into nitrogen gas, somewhat regulating the levels (although these can be overrun by massive dumping.) Experiments show time and time again that what really gets aquatic and semi-aquatic environments is the phosphates. There really isn't a natural mechanism for pumping that phosphorous out.
Well, if they could frame it as a racketeering charge and allege that the Knights Templar were prevented from bringing suit under duress of physical harm or if the Catholic Church was hiding evidence the statute of limitations goes *POOF*
Except that unsigned encrypted transmissions are open to man in the middle attacks, meaning that self signed SSL is potentially MORE dangerous than unencrypted as the existence of the encryption layer gives the end user a false sense of security. Hence, the need for certificates in the first place.
Standard pressanese. "10 fold increase in efficiency" means 1/10th of the waste as compared to the previous method. A 10 fold efficiency increase on a system that is already 70% efficient would mean only 1/10th of the current 30% waste is wasted, meaning 3% waste or 97% efficiency. If the claim is indeed true, it really isn't much of a stretch to claim that 97% efficiency is close to 100%.
The ratio of false positives really shouldn't be that much of an issue if the system is implemented properly.
This is a very difficult AI problem, so it takes a lot more than just software engineering to get it right.
Sorry... I was a little vague there. By "implemented properly" I was referring to how situations are dealt with once the system flags a positive, whether false or true. I assume the baseline procedure is that a human then checks the recorded event to see if this is something that warrants investigation, which would most likely help in situations where there would have previously been security personnel watching a monitor. This would indeed create higher security when a flag is raised as it helps to draw attention to the situation. Implemented (being software, hardware and meatware) properly AI would be a net benefit to an already robust security system. I'm only saying this would become a problem if organizations begin to rely too heavily on the software raising a flag that suspicious activity may be occurring, as a person bent on breaking the security would likely be able to learn methods to avoid triggering the software flag.
Hmm... I guess my posts sound a little 1984ish in support of security. My philosophy on technology like this is that it the monitoring allowed is only a tool with no moral weight in and of itself. Abuses of the monitoring would only be committed by people misusing the tools. Security personnel using the system would have to have an understanding of the sorts of false positives the system can report and it would be their responsibility to make sure that appropriate actions are taken once a flag is raise... even if that action is simply inaction. This system can and probably will be used by draconian organizations to exert draconian levels of control, but without some level of security nobodies freedoms can be guaranteed. Implementing proper solutions to the problem of security is a human problem, not a technological one (although technology will always expand the number of options available for hopefully a good balance.)
The ratio of false positives really shouldn't be that much of an issue if the system is implemented properly.
A bigger issue with a system like this would be false negatives. Economics being what it is, this means that the organizations deploying these cameras would likely end up hiring less people to watch the monitors per camera (whether that means an increase in cameras or a decrease in staff.) Therefore, the people watching the monitors would end up relying on the system to look for suspicious behavior. Then false negatives start to come into play. "suspicious behavior" that a human would notice and investigate may be missed by the system, and therefore go uninvestigated. This could cause escalating problems when people decide to learn what behaviors would trigger a "suspicious" flag and then go about doing their nefarious deeds where a human could have spotted them.
Sure, it would be possible to institute an automated suspicious behavior system to augment existing systems, but in reality it would end up taking away from resources used for security. Even if the system would not reduce security levels, a system such as this would at least reduce the future investment in other proven security methods, such as an increase of competent staff to watch the monitors.
The story that I recall is the names were basically P.R. Early explorers/settlers in Greenland wanted more people there, while those in Iceland wanted it for themselves. More likely is that they were named when they were discovered, likely at different times of the year or even under different climate conditions.
The advice given in the above post may sound intuitive, but it lacks on certain details. The most important being tool selection, and the wrong type can be a real pain. If following the above, remember to ALWAYS use the right sort of pencil. A #1 is generally too soft and will not be effective. A #3 or above will definitely be too hard of a choice and can lead to severe problems. It is imperative that the right pencil be chosen: and for the task at hand, that of course would be a number two.
When people say "destroy the Earth" what they usually mean is "wipe out civilization." That may be a misleading definition, but it's the one almost always used in these sort of contexts. For instance the phrase "We have enough nukes to destroy the earth TEN TIMES OVER!!!" really means we have ten times the nuclear payload needed to make uninhabitable every city on earth of significant size (Where significant size is something like one hundred thousand or one million people, I don't recall exactly.)
And if conscious life turns out to be not that rare of a thing, a space based early detection and nuclear payload based redirection system may be re-purposed to save our particular brand of consciousness. To get one level scarier... there's probably someone in our government with input on this decision who had that same basic thought.
By "counteract" I was saying that two moles would be absorbed from the atmosphere, minus the one mole released in creating calcium hydroxide from calcium carbonate. Hence, one mole of CO2 counteracted. It does that by making calcium bicarbonate. Which would be great if it were in the right proportions and the exact pH and everything, but chances are it won't and a lot of the calcium will end up in the carbonate form rather than the bicarbonate form for no net atmospheric carbon dioxide reduction.
Yes, water does move across the planet. But the trillions of tons needed annually would most likely have some major negative local environmental consequences if dumped in one spot (I was using the Australia example as that is what the article used.) Currently the most efficient method of moving a significant portion of this load over the ocean would be something similar to current cargo ships. While sailing ships may be more environmentally friendly, they would simply not be able to carry enough of a load with any reliability. And yes, there are hybrid solutions with kites towing the vessel... one of those ships is what I used in my calculations. And I assumed that the Gross Tonnage would all be filled with Calcium hydroxide, which is overoptimistic as there needs to be room for such things as crew and fuel.
Being the "look at the other side" kinda guy I am, it COULD be possible to seed young coral reefs with a mixture of calcium hydroxide, phosphates, iron and other minerals such that they grow rapidly enough to fix a significant amount of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis of the associated algae, and increased carbonate deposition in the reef itself, but that's not the mechanism the article was discussing.
How much would the dilution quantities affect the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide if released locally? I somehow doubt that without locally poisoning the oceans we could dump enough right next to the place where we make the lime to counteract the carbon dioxide release of a significant portion of mankind's industrial processes without spreading the lime out. This will take vast networks of shipping, which would most likely be powered by fossil fuels as they are currently the most cost effective for transportation needs. Thus requiring more lime to offset THAT increase in carbon dioxide production.
For an idea of the scale we would have to use, the united states releases about 2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide annually for electricity generation. Let's assume that one mole of calcium hydroxide would counteract one mole of carbon dioxide. As calcium hydroxide is heavier than carbon dioxide, we would need about 2 trillion tons of calcium hydroxide annually. It was hard to use figures on shipping efficiency, but it looks like one ton of fuel oil is needed to ship ten tons of cargo from Germany to Venezuela using our current state of the art efficiency in shipping. Let's assume we only need the ships to go half that distance to distribute the calcium hydroxide, 2 trillion tons of calcium hydroxide would use one hundred billion tons of fuel oil. That means somewhere around three hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide would be released by the freighters. So, we have about 1/6 efficiency here. That's just for the shipping... mining, crushing, and processing the limestone into calcium hydroxide will all take large amounts of energy and have significant other environmental consequences. As will pumping and processing petroleum into fuel oil.
But the big reality to face is that one mole of calcium hydroxide would simply not remove one mole of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If the calcium hydroxide reacts with carbon dioxide in solution to produce calcium carbonate, then you end up with the starting product: limestone. No net change in carbon dioxide, except for the added CO2 from the massive amount of work we did to move the limestone from the Australian desert to the ocean. To actually use up carbon dioxide, a significant portion of calcium bicarbonate would have to be produced in the process, and that simply will not happen. It would make just as much sense to drop massive amounts of powdered limestone right into the ocean and hope a little bit of it reacts with dissolved CO2 to form calcium bicarbonate.
I see a large problem ith using lime to reduce atmospheric CO2. First of all, I fail to see how going from calcium carbonate to calcium hydroxide back to calcium carbonate will have a net reduction in carbon dioxide. By saying "twice as much carbon dioxide is used" there are more likely referring to the creation of calcium bicarbonate, which does happen to some extent. However, calcium bicarbonate is simply not as chemically stable as calcium carbonate and is only preferentially formed under certain circumstances, and the bicarbonate will them generally precipitate back to the carbonate form with the release of carbon dioxide. Essentially, if this reaction were favorable in seawater it would have already happened to the large amounts of calcium carbonate in the oceans. It would make as much sense to simply drop crushed calcium carbonate (limestone) into the ocean as it would to dump calcium hydroxide.
The only way this process would have a net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide would be to sequester the carbon at the factory producing the calcium hydroxide. If we were to develop the technology to sequester carbon dioxide on this huge industrial scale, it would make more sense to simply apply it to our current carbon dioxide releasing processes.
Additionally, making the calcium hydroxide in the Australian desert as suggested in the article would have a huge limiting factor. The hydroxide group will have to come from water on any large enough scale to have an effect on worldwide atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. This simply is not present in adequate quantities in the desert. Simply performing this step by dumping the calcium oxide straight into the oceans would be a no-go as the chemical reaction releases large amounts of heat which would significantly impact the oceans if done on a scale large enough to have a significant environmental impact. So the operation of making calcium hydroxide on a level large enough for eco-engineering would use vast amounts of fresh water in a desert, and likely need even more water to cool the plant down. It may be possible to pump some of the heat released from this stage of the reaction to earlier stages in which the calcium carbonate is heated to form calcium oxide, however heat pumps require energy to run. This may end up being slightly more energy efficient than using the original energy to heat the calcium carbonate, but I doubt it would be that much more efficient.
Unless someone shows me some hard numbers on this process that account for all of the needs (transportation, water, heating, cooling, mining, crushing, purification, lighting, secondary services required for the employees running the vast industrial complexes that would be needing for this level of eco-engineering and so on) my guess is that using the water and energy needed for this process would be better spent irrigating the Australian desert to grow trees, grasses (or the perennial favorite - hemp, which would actually be a good choice due to its high growth rate and low fertilization needs) which are simply buried in a big pit which is cut off from the atmosphere to sequester the carbon, eventually turning into coal. I'm not saying that this large scale irrigation project would have no environmental consequences, just that I am highly skeptical that it would be any worse than the process as offered in the article.
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And then, like many employees, part of your job is simply being available to spring into action when needed. I'd say that a 1/3 overhead in staffing for positions where availability is important seems quite reasonable. 1/3 overhead means 1/4 of the time spent isn't doing anything immediately productive to the company, such as personal shopping or investing online. To an outsider, someone at a computer is simply working if they can't see the screen, so it gives the impression of being busy. This can give a much more professional appearance than the traditional ways of whittling away those extra 2 hours a day... reading magazines, chatting with coworkers, etc (think of the early 1980s Hollywood stereotype of a secretary reading a fashion magazine and doing her nails vs. the modern equivalent of browsing ebay in a manner which the customers will not see.) In these cases it is important that the employee be able to switch from the personal time to the professional time quickly, which is why I personally like a policy that solitaire and websites are generally not blocked or monitored electronically, but getting physically caught playing games or chatting online can get one chastised. It's not the playing of the games that is troublesome so much as not being able to quickly return focus to the office environment.
It's going to take a Real Genius to get this right. I do hope they make sure their optics are clean.
Pretty much standard fare at a concert of decent size these days. Even before camera phones were basically standard, people would wave their phones in the air, creating a similar effect to a crowd full of lighters.
The method was to dress in the same style as the bouncers. If the Maori had been wearing black, they would have been fine with you wearing black. And black jeans are considered very different from black dress pants, in fact blue jeans are generally considered more socially acceptable than black.
American or European football?
While your power company analogy is close, the cell phone provider model would translate more directly. Free nights and weekends sort of deal. But then, like most cell phone providers, it would probably be difficult to find your actual usage (although they do seem to be getting much better at making it easy to find what your usage actually is.)
Or if you are powerful, you simply wage war to take out the competition providing more mates for yourself. And by the competition I meant the men you sent to war, not the guys you are attacking. Promise your soldiers 60 virgins in the afterlife if they die in battle, and allow the returning heroes access to women in such a fashion that the total number of females available to the ruler is greater than if the society was monogamous. If 2/3rds of the army dies, you can offer an average of two wives per returning hero, and still have 1/3 of the women that would have been wives of the now dead soldiers to add to your harem.
And to expand your harem further, just make deals with the leaders of other powerful nations to keep the competition from trying to claim part of your harem back.
This behavior has been shown time and time again across many species... polygynous (many women -> one man) groups tend to show increased levels of aggression to outside groups, and the greater the level of polygyny, the greater the level of aggression.
Well, then YOU try to find any warm blooded spammers.
That's because the space robots can not reveal the terrible secret of space. Now go stand by those stairs.
I agree that converting everyone to atheism would not be a good thing. In a way, the ID crowd even helps science. They have a different mindset than scientists, and are fighting to punch holes in scientific theory, most notably evolution. This means they are quick to point out gaps in our knowledge which can inspire valuable research to fill those gaps. The trifecta of "irreducible complexities" (human eye, immune system and bacterial flagellum) has led scientists to analyze and formalize the evolution of the eye from a simple light detector to the marvel it is, to probe deeper into the variety of immune systems that exist (which could lead to direct medical advances) and to look hard at the mechanism of the toxin syringe (which creates knowledge that would be helpful in nanotech.) Any student of ecology knows that a monoculture is a risky proposition, and this could be expanded to include an intellectual monoculture of pure scientific thought.
And to clarify, I wasn't thinking of religion as an outcropping of science, more an outcropping of the natural curiosity of the world which leads to science. Mrchaotica more eloquently identified this tendency as philosophy, or at the very least the desire of knowledge of the world which leads to philosophy.
But yeah. Unweaving the Rainbow has lead me to understand where I fit in regards to science. I am not a professional scientist but am intrigued by and enjoy reading and thinking about science and scientific topics. The book has helped me become comfortable being an connoisseur in science, even if it is unlikely that I will personally ever directly contribute much to the art. Artists in other fields appreciate having people enjoy and understand their work and it drives them to excellence. I don't see why it has to be different in the art of directly understanding the universe.
Religion implies a certain level of intelligence. It's quite a step from "avoid predators, find food, mate" to asking such large questions as "does something happen after I die?" and "why is the world the way it is?" to "how did the world begin?" Religion may not provide the correct answers, but it would be meaningless without the ability to ask those questions. In a way religion can be seen as an outcropping of the genesis of scientific thought.
For some idea of where I stand on this, I am halfway through Unweaving the Rainbow, with The Blind Watchmaker on deck.
Actually, you have that backwards - fertilizer is also known as 'nitrate'. Not all nitrates are fertilizer however.
Since everything else you wrote here has been debunked, I'll take on this line. Nitrates are one of many components of fertilizer. There are three main components that plants need in large quantities - nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium. There are also several other trace minerals that are required for plant growth and often included in fertilizer mixes. Fertilizer is essentially an addition to the soil of those chemicals that plants need to grow, and could be compared in analogy to human nutrition... the secret is in appropriate balance. So, the grandparent had it right. Nitrate is indeed a fertilizer, just as phosphate and potassium are. What you are used to buying and spreading on the lawn or garden is a blended fertilizer, made of several different types.
Eh... Nitrates have been found to be not that big of a deal, really. There are bacteria that convert nitrates into nitrogen gas, somewhat regulating the levels (although these can be overrun by massive dumping.) Experiments show time and time again that what really gets aquatic and semi-aquatic environments is the phosphates. There really isn't a natural mechanism for pumping that phosphorous out.
Well, if they could frame it as a racketeering charge and allege that the Knights Templar were prevented from bringing suit under duress of physical harm or if the Catholic Church was hiding evidence the statute of limitations goes *POOF*
Except that unsigned encrypted transmissions are open to man in the middle attacks, meaning that self signed SSL is potentially MORE dangerous than unencrypted as the existence of the encryption layer gives the end user a false sense of security. Hence, the need for certificates in the first place.
Standard pressanese. "10 fold increase in efficiency" means 1/10th of the waste as compared to the previous method. A 10 fold efficiency increase on a system that is already 70% efficient would mean only 1/10th of the current 30% waste is wasted, meaning 3% waste or 97% efficiency. If the claim is indeed true, it really isn't much of a stretch to claim that 97% efficiency is close to 100%.
The ratio of false positives really shouldn't be that much of an issue if the system is implemented properly.
This is a very difficult AI problem, so it takes a lot more than just software engineering to get it right.
Sorry... I was a little vague there. By "implemented properly" I was referring to how situations are dealt with once the system flags a positive, whether false or true. I assume the baseline procedure is that a human then checks the recorded event to see if this is something that warrants investigation, which would most likely help in situations where there would have previously been security personnel watching a monitor. This would indeed create higher security when a flag is raised as it helps to draw attention to the situation. Implemented (being software, hardware and meatware) properly AI would be a net benefit to an already robust security system. I'm only saying this would become a problem if organizations begin to rely too heavily on the software raising a flag that suspicious activity may be occurring, as a person bent on breaking the security would likely be able to learn methods to avoid triggering the software flag.
Hmm... I guess my posts sound a little 1984ish in support of security. My philosophy on technology like this is that it the monitoring allowed is only a tool with no moral weight in and of itself. Abuses of the monitoring would only be committed by people misusing the tools. Security personnel using the system would have to have an understanding of the sorts of false positives the system can report and it would be their responsibility to make sure that appropriate actions are taken once a flag is raise... even if that action is simply inaction. This system can and probably will be used by draconian organizations to exert draconian levels of control, but without some level of security nobodies freedoms can be guaranteed. Implementing proper solutions to the problem of security is a human problem, not a technological one (although technology will always expand the number of options available for hopefully a good balance.)
The ratio of false positives really shouldn't be that much of an issue if the system is implemented properly.
A bigger issue with a system like this would be false negatives. Economics being what it is, this means that the organizations deploying these cameras would likely end up hiring less people to watch the monitors per camera (whether that means an increase in cameras or a decrease in staff.) Therefore, the people watching the monitors would end up relying on the system to look for suspicious behavior. Then false negatives start to come into play. "suspicious behavior" that a human would notice and investigate may be missed by the system, and therefore go uninvestigated. This could cause escalating problems when people decide to learn what behaviors would trigger a "suspicious" flag and then go about doing their nefarious deeds where a human could have spotted them.
Sure, it would be possible to institute an automated suspicious behavior system to augment existing systems, but in reality it would end up taking away from resources used for security. Even if the system would not reduce security levels, a system such as this would at least reduce the future investment in other proven security methods, such as an increase of competent staff to watch the monitors.
The story that I recall is the names were basically P.R. Early explorers/settlers in Greenland wanted more people there, while those in Iceland wanted it for themselves. More likely is that they were named when they were discovered, likely at different times of the year or even under different climate conditions.
The advice given in the above post may sound intuitive, but it lacks on certain details. The most important being tool selection, and the wrong type can be a real pain. If following the above, remember to ALWAYS use the right sort of pencil. A #1 is generally too soft and will not be effective. A #3 or above will definitely be too hard of a choice and can lead to severe problems. It is imperative that the right pencil be chosen: and for the task at hand, that of course would be a number two.
When people say "destroy the Earth" what they usually mean is "wipe out civilization." That may be a misleading definition, but it's the one almost always used in these sort of contexts. For instance the phrase "We have enough nukes to destroy the earth TEN TIMES OVER!!!" really means we have ten times the nuclear payload needed to make uninhabitable every city on earth of significant size (Where significant size is something like one hundred thousand or one million people, I don't recall exactly.)
Conscious life may well be be a rare thing
And if conscious life turns out to be not that rare of a thing, a space based early detection and nuclear payload based redirection system may be re-purposed to save our particular brand of consciousness. To get one level scarier... there's probably someone in our government with input on this decision who had that same basic thought.
By "counteract" I was saying that two moles would be absorbed from the atmosphere, minus the one mole released in creating calcium hydroxide from calcium carbonate. Hence, one mole of CO2 counteracted. It does that by making calcium bicarbonate. Which would be great if it were in the right proportions and the exact pH and everything, but chances are it won't and a lot of the calcium will end up in the carbonate form rather than the bicarbonate form for no net atmospheric carbon dioxide reduction.
Yes, water does move across the planet. But the trillions of tons needed annually would most likely have some major negative local environmental consequences if dumped in one spot (I was using the Australia example as that is what the article used.) Currently the most efficient method of moving a significant portion of this load over the ocean would be something similar to current cargo ships. While sailing ships may be more environmentally friendly, they would simply not be able to carry enough of a load with any reliability. And yes, there are hybrid solutions with kites towing the vessel... one of those ships is what I used in my calculations. And I assumed that the Gross Tonnage would all be filled with Calcium hydroxide, which is overoptimistic as there needs to be room for such things as crew and fuel.
Being the "look at the other side" kinda guy I am, it COULD be possible to seed young coral reefs with a mixture of calcium hydroxide, phosphates, iron and other minerals such that they grow rapidly enough to fix a significant amount of carbon dioxide through photosynthesis of the associated algae, and increased carbonate deposition in the reef itself, but that's not the mechanism the article was discussing.
How much would the dilution quantities affect the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide if released locally? I somehow doubt that without locally poisoning the oceans we could dump enough right next to the place where we make the lime to counteract the carbon dioxide release of a significant portion of mankind's industrial processes without spreading the lime out. This will take vast networks of shipping, which would most likely be powered by fossil fuels as they are currently the most cost effective for transportation needs. Thus requiring more lime to offset THAT increase in carbon dioxide production.
For an idea of the scale we would have to use, the united states releases about 2 trillion tons of carbon dioxide annually for electricity generation. Let's assume that one mole of calcium hydroxide would counteract one mole of carbon dioxide. As calcium hydroxide is heavier than carbon dioxide, we would need about 2 trillion tons of calcium hydroxide annually. It was hard to use figures on shipping efficiency, but it looks like one ton of fuel oil is needed to ship ten tons of cargo from Germany to Venezuela using our current state of the art efficiency in shipping. Let's assume we only need the ships to go half that distance to distribute the calcium hydroxide, 2 trillion tons of calcium hydroxide would use one hundred billion tons of fuel oil. That means somewhere around three hundred billion tons of carbon dioxide would be released by the freighters. So, we have about 1/6 efficiency here. That's just for the shipping... mining, crushing, and processing the limestone into calcium hydroxide will all take large amounts of energy and have significant other environmental consequences. As will pumping and processing petroleum into fuel oil.
But the big reality to face is that one mole of calcium hydroxide would simply not remove one mole of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. If the calcium hydroxide reacts with carbon dioxide in solution to produce calcium carbonate, then you end up with the starting product: limestone. No net change in carbon dioxide, except for the added CO2 from the massive amount of work we did to move the limestone from the Australian desert to the ocean. To actually use up carbon dioxide, a significant portion of calcium bicarbonate would have to be produced in the process, and that simply will not happen. It would make just as much sense to drop massive amounts of powdered limestone right into the ocean and hope a little bit of it reacts with dissolved CO2 to form calcium bicarbonate.
I see a large problem ith using lime to reduce atmospheric CO2. First of all, I fail to see how going from calcium carbonate to calcium hydroxide back to calcium carbonate will have a net reduction in carbon dioxide. By saying "twice as much carbon dioxide is used" there are more likely referring to the creation of calcium bicarbonate, which does happen to some extent. However, calcium bicarbonate is simply not as chemically stable as calcium carbonate and is only preferentially formed under certain circumstances, and the bicarbonate will them generally precipitate back to the carbonate form with the release of carbon dioxide. Essentially, if this reaction were favorable in seawater it would have already happened to the large amounts of calcium carbonate in the oceans. It would make as much sense to simply drop crushed calcium carbonate (limestone) into the ocean as it would to dump calcium hydroxide.
The only way this process would have a net reduction in atmospheric carbon dioxide would be to sequester the carbon at the factory producing the calcium hydroxide. If we were to develop the technology to sequester carbon dioxide on this huge industrial scale, it would make more sense to simply apply it to our current carbon dioxide releasing processes.
Additionally, making the calcium hydroxide in the Australian desert as suggested in the article would have a huge limiting factor. The hydroxide group will have to come from water on any large enough scale to have an effect on worldwide atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. This simply is not present in adequate quantities in the desert. Simply performing this step by dumping the calcium oxide straight into the oceans would be a no-go as the chemical reaction releases large amounts of heat which would significantly impact the oceans if done on a scale large enough to have a significant environmental impact. So the operation of making calcium hydroxide on a level large enough for eco-engineering would use vast amounts of fresh water in a desert, and likely need even more water to cool the plant down. It may be possible to pump some of the heat released from this stage of the reaction to earlier stages in which the calcium carbonate is heated to form calcium oxide, however heat pumps require energy to run. This may end up being slightly more energy efficient than using the original energy to heat the calcium carbonate, but I doubt it would be that much more efficient.
Unless someone shows me some hard numbers on this process that account for all of the needs (transportation, water, heating, cooling, mining, crushing, purification, lighting, secondary services required for the employees running the vast industrial complexes that would be needing for this level of eco-engineering and so on) my guess is that using the water and energy needed for this process would be better spent irrigating the Australian desert to grow trees, grasses (or the perennial favorite - hemp, which would actually be a good choice due to its high growth rate and low fertilization needs) which are simply buried in a big pit which is cut off from the atmosphere to sequester the carbon, eventually turning into coal. I'm not saying that this large scale irrigation project would have no environmental consequences, just that I am highly skeptical that it would be any worse than the process as offered in the article.