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Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

curtisb.posthaven.com

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Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#31

Post by curtis »

jkh1 wrote: post #18

by destroying forests ? Sulphur dioxide is what causes acid rains ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_rain ) which kill trees ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Triangle_(region) ).

I didn't cover it in the blog post, but the amount of sulfur dioxide needed is less than what we're already emitting into the lower atmosphere.

From Wikipedia[1]:

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency, the amount of sulfur dioxide released in the U.S. per year was:

  Year 	SO2
  1970 	31,161,000 short tons (28.3 Mt)
  1980 	25,905,000 short tons (23.5 Mt)
  1990 	23,678,000 short tons (21.5 Mt)
  1996 	18,859,000 short tons (17.1 Mt)
  1997 	19,363,000 short tons (17.6 Mt)
  1998 	19,491,000 short tons (17.7 Mt)
  1999 	18,867,000 short tons (17.1 Mt)
also[1]:

As of 2006, China was the world's largest sulfur dioxide polluter, with 2005 emissions estimated to be 25,490,000 short tons (23.1 Mt).

Presumably we can reduce sulfur dioxide pollution in the lower atmosphere enough to completely offset any that we're releasing into the stratosphere. Is that better or worse? I don't know. But it would seem like right now the Mountain pine beetle is a much greater threat to trees than acid rain is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfur_dioxide#As_an_air_pollu...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mountain_pine_beetle#Current_o...

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#32

Post by [deleted] »

soVeryTired wrote: post #24
s_kilk wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll use Snakes to solve the Rat problem, then we'll send in Boars to take care of the Snake problem. Of course, we'll need Bears to deal with the Boars when they get out of control.

Once winter rolls around, the bears hibernate and the problem disappears.

[deleted]

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#33

Post by curtis »

codecamper wrote: post #28

Naive article that forgets to mention "ocean acidification". At some point, not so far off, the oceans become too acidic for krill to form their exoskeletons. Once that happens the ocean food chain is done.

No, the article doesn't mention ocean acidification. Yes, that's a big deal. I'm personally concerned that it's much more dangerous than sea level rise. However, the article does acknowledge that there are big limits to what stratospheric sulfur injection can do:

Stratospheric sulfur dioxide injection is not a panacea. But what it can do is buy us time. ... It can buy us time to deploy large scale climate engineering projects that do remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere...

I didn't discuss other climate engineering proposals because I was trying to keep the post short.

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#34

Post by spikels »

purplelobster wrote: post #11
dfarts wrote: post #8

> That's never going to happen. Americans will never give up their trucks I love how liberals on HN always slant any global problem as associated with Americans and/or Republicans and/or Christians. How about all the pollution causes by China? No, instead let's attack [those merican's and thir pick ups and their dang dogs and white trash chicks too].

Maybe because the average American pollutes 10 times more than a Chinese

That's an exaggeration. As of the 2014 per capita CO2 emissions in the US was 2.2 times Chinese (16.7mt vs 7.6).

And this gap is rapidly closing: Chinese per capita emissions are up 150% in the past 10 years while US are down 15%. China could easily exceed the US by this metric inside of a decade. Keep in mind that China already emits twice as much CO2 in total as the US.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations...

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?locations...

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#35

Post by codecamper »

throwaway5752 wrote: post #4

It's all pointless. Massive photovoltaic infra could have been deployed decades ago but it would have harmed wealthy interests so they injected tens of billions of dollars into disrupting and controlling the political system of the US. Putting the continuation of this civilization as we know it at risk, all for a bit of money in a single person's lifespan. And it worked. In bad moments one wonders if it's better off…

Actually the cost of the Iraq war is 2 trillion. I think that is 2e12 usd!

And these days you can deploy utility solar for $1.5 a watt.

For 2e12 USD you'd get 1.5e12 watts. That's 1500GW solar generation capacity.

Talk about a missed opportunity.

Wikipedia says the US uses about 5e9 MWh electricity per year.

How close is 1500GW solar generation from 5e9 MWh?

Anyone know? (realizing that we'd need batteries too at some point)

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#38

Post by 08-15 »

beevai142 wrote: post #26
notadoc wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Find a way to monetize not polluting and get everyone to sign onto it, and that may have a chance. Otherwise, it's not happening.

Carbon tax, governmental action.

Does not work, as far as anyone can see.

However, assume it did. Then ocean acidification is still a first world problem. If you're the government of a developing country (India, China, Brazil, ...) where most people don't even have reliable electricity, and you get to choose between washing machines for your people and a more basic ocean, you go for the washing machines. And you will burn gigatons of coal to enable those washing machines.

Globally speaking, government action will not work, because most governments don't care (for good reasons, arguably). On top of that, international agreements are mostly concerned with non-solutions like a reduction of carbon emission by some irrelevant fraction by a time when it's too late (like 50% by 2050 or some such nonsense). Even if the first world managed to do that, the growth of the developing countries annihilates any such progress within a decade. And even if the whole world was on board and reduced global emissions by 50%, we'd just fuck up the planet half as quickly, but every bit as reliably. The reality is that if global climate change really is such a big problem, we need to get to zero carbon emissions, actually negative carbon emissions, fairly quickly.

Your dream of a world police enforcing zero carbon emissions collides with the reality that they (the UN or whoever else is closest to a "world government") aren't even trying, and that they don't actually have an alternative plan.

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#39

Post by 08-15 »

microcolonel wrote: post #36

Anyone watch Snowpiercer?

Are you suggesting the solution is a Sacred Engine running on... uhhh... magic and small children, I guess?

(I get it, you're implying that the release of some "cooling compound" might cause an ice age. I'm just not convinced that a 2+ hours long string of plot holes and terrible acting can teach us anything.)

Re: Injecting sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere to counter global warming

#40

Post by 08-15 »

codecamper wrote: post #35
throwaway5752 wrote: post #4

It's all pointless. Massive photovoltaic infra could have been deployed decades ago but it would have harmed wealthy interests so they injected tens of billions of dollars into disrupting and controlling the political system of the US. Putting the continuation of this civilization as we know it at risk, all for a bit of money in a single person's lifespan. And it worked. In bad moments one wonders if it's better off…

Actually the cost of the Iraq war is 2 trillion. I think that is 2e12 usd! And these days you can deploy utility solar for $1.5 a watt. For 2e12 USD you'd get 1.5e12 watts. That's 1500GW solar generation capacity. Talk about a missed opportunity. Wikipedia says the US uses about 5e9 MWh electricity per year. How close is 1500GW solar generation from 5e9 MWh? Anyone know? (realizing that we'd need batteries too at som…

> How close is 1500GW solar generation from 5e9 MWh [per year]?

Almost six orders of magnitude too low.

1GW nameplate capacity is about 100MW actual generation, so 1500GW[nameplate] x 8600h = 13GWh = 13000 MWh, comparable to 5e3MWh in round numbers. (This is such a t terrible result, I'm inclined to think you got your numbers wrong.)

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