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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

#51

Post by ScottBurson »

ScottBurson wrote: post #41

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in geoengineering read Oliver Morton's excellent book, The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World . I found it engagingly written, chock full of interesting science, and open-minded without being credulous. I think we're going to have to try stratospheric sulfur aerosols within the next decade or so. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the ocean acidification pro…

Let me say a little more to give you a taste of the book. Morton opens the Introduction with two questions:

(1) Do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them?

(2) Do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon-dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard?

I'll quote snippets:

To judge by what they say, and by what policies they support, most people in favour of action on climate change are in the Yes/No camp: they want to act on the risks; they don't think that getting off fossil fuels is a terribly hard problem. [...] Most of those against action on climate are in the No/Yes camp: they don't think climate is very much of a worry; but they do think that getting off fossil fuels is very difficult, even impossible. [...] Neither of these approaches works for people like me in the Yes/Yes camp.

[Added in edit] Morton goes on to support both positions. The argument for (1) is not that climate disaster is inevitable on our current course, but that the risk is too great to ignore. The argument for (2) is more involved; he lays out numbers showing how little progress has been made and pointing out how billions of people still have little or no access to energy at all. As their standard of living rises to what we in the rich world would consider the poverty level, they will inevitably burn more carbon.

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

ScottBurson wrote: post #51
ScottBurson wrote: post #41

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in geoengineering read Oliver Morton's excellent book, The Planet Remade: How Geoengineering Could Change the World . I found it engagingly written, chock full of interesting science, and open-minded without being credulous. I think we're going to have to try stratospheric sulfur aerosols within the next decade or so. Yes, I know it doesn't solve the ocean acidification pro…

Let me say a little more to give you a taste of the book. Morton opens the Introduction with two questions: (1) Do you believe the risks of climate change merit serious action aimed at lessening them? (2) Do you think that reducing an industrial economy's carbon-dioxide emissions to near zero is very hard? I'll quote snippets: To judge by what they say, and by what policies they support, most people in favour of acti…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by ScottBurson »

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) ).

The rate of mixing between the stratosphere, where the sulfur aerosols would be placed, and the troposphere, where we live, is relatively low. The half-life of these aerosols in the stratosphere is on the order of months -- short enough, as Curtis points out, to limit the risk of any such experiment, but long enough that the quantities required are small compared to the amount of sulfur we are already putting into the troposphere.

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

#54

Post by codecamper »

lisivka wrote: post #50
codecamper wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yep, it is quite possible to light graves of victims of terrorist attacks with solar energy. It is much much cheaper than a war.

huh?

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

#55

Post by ScottBurson »

astrodust wrote: post #45
jdavis703 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's never going to happen. Americans will never give up their trucks. The Chinese won't give up their coal fired power plants. Developing nations won't give up slash and burn forestry programs. Why? Because we're all motivated by greed. Instead I think the solution is to make pollution expensive: some have proposed a carbon tax as one way of dealing with this. Perhaps there are other ways involving behavioral econ…

Americans are giving up on their trucks: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2015/07/the-clearest-explanat... China is giving up on coal fired power plants: http://energydesk.greenpeace.org/2016/10/21/china-coal-crack... Why? Because things change.

There are some encouraging trends, but the progress they've made to date is still very small compared to the size of the problem.

Perhaps the most encouraging trend is the exponential growth of the photovoltaic solar panel industry. If that continues, it will certainly be a huge help. But you have to weigh that against the fact that there are still a couple of billion people with no access to power at all. All together, world carbon emissions are not likely to fall anytime soon.

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

#56

Post by [deleted] »

08-15 wrote: post #43
spqr0a1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13GWh is way off! 1500GW x 8600h x 0.1 capacity factor = 1,300,000GWh or 1.3e9MWh. Within an order of magnitude of US electricity demand.

Oh dear, you're completely right. Beer and orders of magnitude don't seem to mix. :-/

[deleted]

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

#57

Post by lisivka »

codecamper wrote: post #54
lisivka wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, it is quite possible to light graves of victims of terrorist attacks with solar energy. It is much much cheaper than a war.

huh?

I'm saying that instead of beginning a war to protect US citizens from terrorists attacks, US can just make something useful for a fraction of the cost, e.g. develop and install 100% ecofriendly light.

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

#58

Post by codecamper »

spqr0a1 wrote: post #42
08-15 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.)

13GWh is way off! 1500GW x 8600h x 0.1 capacity factor = 1,300,000GWh or 1.3e9MWh. Within an order of magnitude of US electricity demand.

I was a little off with the 1.5e12 W. More like 1.333e12 W capacity or 1,333 GW capacity.

googling a bit shows that solar capacity factor is between 13 & 30% Say 18% for a variety of geographies.

1333 GW x 8760 hours * 18% = 2,100,000 GWh

2.1 e6 GWh = 2.1e9 MWh

5e9 MWh is what the US uses now.

Solar is still maybe 1.5 or 2x more expensive than wind. By combining wind and solar, with 2 trillion investment, you'd get most of the way towards a major greening of the grid. (of course batteries, etc will make it more expensive & EVs may double or more electric demand)

So instead of that war & it's bloodshed, we could have gone a very long way towards solving the energy problems & uncertainty facing the US for decades and maybe even establish a system that could last us into perpetuity.

Thanks for reading.

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

#59

Post by [deleted] »

lisivka wrote: post #57
codecamper wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

huh?

I'm saying that instead of beginning a war to protect US citizens from terrorists attacks, US can just make something useful for a fraction of the cost, e.g. develop and install 100% ecofriendly light.

[deleted]

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

#60

Post by codecamper »

curtis wrote: post #33
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…

The point is that climate engineering should be revealed by the scientists only after the mathematically challenged, climate change naysayers are literally defecating in their pants watching a tsunami wave washing towards New York city.

Otherwise, they'll just start doing that & continue burning the coal.

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