![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entrepeneurs attempt to find active ways to remove greenhouse gases from Earth's athmosphere. - reported in the Houston Chronicle
A few things annoy me about this article. The most annoying thing is the tone- "look at the flakes, we all know the only real solution to global warming is massive energy rationing NOW." When the first word in the article is "Crazy," that's not a sign of unbiased reporting.
The key point is this: Virgin founder and multibillionaire Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize to the first person who comes up with a practical means of removing carbon dioxide from the athmosphere. "Not adding more" doesn't count. This is the only logical means of fighting global warming I can think of: even if the USA were to vanish from the face of the Earth, after one year global CO2 production would again rise, mostly due to growing economies across the globe, especially China. Since voluntary measures won't work, and the amount of rationing needed in the USA to bring us down to "sustainable" levels would mean cutting our usage to about one-quarter our current levels, the only way we'll achieve balance is to take active measures to scrub the air.
One of the ideas given is to put a solar shade somewhere in orbit between the Earth and the Sun. The specific plan presented is just plain unworkable- two hundred million launches? Sixteen trillion individual satellites? However, the concept in general isn't all that inconceivable. I'd consider a dual purpose mission- solar shade and energy generation- launching a very large array of solar collectors, like those on the space station, to the L1 point.
(Anybody know how far to the Earth-Sun L1? I know it's way the hell past lunar orbit. I also know the point isn't stable, so the shade would require maneuvering power to remain in place, but it's either that or orbit a bunch MORE sats in geosynchronous orbit. Alternately- and MUCH more expensively- a method I first read of about twenty years ago in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine for use in terraforming Venus could be used... build a huge cage around Earth and cover it with screens on the sunward side to block sunlight. Unlike the Venus shade, we wouldn't need 100% solar interception- just the 2% or so to balance out greenhouse effect.)
Anyway, I'm all for Branson's prize, and only wish I had the money to prototype something, ANYTHING to enter it. A proactive solution will be needed within my lifetime if we're going to avoid some major climate-shift chaos. And I DON'T like an article that mocks people trying to figure out a workable way to do just that- one that doesn't rely solely on politics or on voluntary individual action, neither of which is reliable.
Finally, on an unrelated note: anyone been to a convention where it seemed part or all of the con was held in an underground fallout bunker? It appears some folks actually HAVE held events in a bomb shelter... and what's more, never realized it.
Now you can do the same, if you wallet's deep enough.
A few things annoy me about this article. The most annoying thing is the tone- "look at the flakes, we all know the only real solution to global warming is massive energy rationing NOW." When the first word in the article is "Crazy," that's not a sign of unbiased reporting.
The key point is this: Virgin founder and multibillionaire Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize to the first person who comes up with a practical means of removing carbon dioxide from the athmosphere. "Not adding more" doesn't count. This is the only logical means of fighting global warming I can think of: even if the USA were to vanish from the face of the Earth, after one year global CO2 production would again rise, mostly due to growing economies across the globe, especially China. Since voluntary measures won't work, and the amount of rationing needed in the USA to bring us down to "sustainable" levels would mean cutting our usage to about one-quarter our current levels, the only way we'll achieve balance is to take active measures to scrub the air.
One of the ideas given is to put a solar shade somewhere in orbit between the Earth and the Sun. The specific plan presented is just plain unworkable- two hundred million launches? Sixteen trillion individual satellites? However, the concept in general isn't all that inconceivable. I'd consider a dual purpose mission- solar shade and energy generation- launching a very large array of solar collectors, like those on the space station, to the L1 point.
(Anybody know how far to the Earth-Sun L1? I know it's way the hell past lunar orbit. I also know the point isn't stable, so the shade would require maneuvering power to remain in place, but it's either that or orbit a bunch MORE sats in geosynchronous orbit. Alternately- and MUCH more expensively- a method I first read of about twenty years ago in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine for use in terraforming Venus could be used... build a huge cage around Earth and cover it with screens on the sunward side to block sunlight. Unlike the Venus shade, we wouldn't need 100% solar interception- just the 2% or so to balance out greenhouse effect.)
Anyway, I'm all for Branson's prize, and only wish I had the money to prototype something, ANYTHING to enter it. A proactive solution will be needed within my lifetime if we're going to avoid some major climate-shift chaos. And I DON'T like an article that mocks people trying to figure out a workable way to do just that- one that doesn't rely solely on politics or on voluntary individual action, neither of which is reliable.
Finally, on an unrelated note: anyone been to a convention where it seemed part or all of the con was held in an underground fallout bunker? It appears some folks actually HAVE held events in a bomb shelter... and what's more, never realized it.
Now you can do the same, if you wallet's deep enough.
