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The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

climate.benjames.io

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Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#111

Post by daeros »

Octoth0rpe wrote: post #93
timeon wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are already not doing much against climate change now, so "get our shit together" is wishful thinking. This is just another distraction from the list: - "there is no climate change, let's continue business as usual" - "there is climate change, but not human-made, let's continue business as usual" - "there is human-made climate change but it is too late, let's continue business as usual" - "environmental activists…

I think there are certain actions that are only insufficient because the trend line isn't steep. Electric car sales go up every year, solar/wind both go up as a % of our energy mix in the west every year. Some amount of geoengineering might allow the current pace of those trends to be 'fast enough'

exactly. we need more time for the trends to mature.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#113

Post by daeros »

barbazoo wrote: post #27
bmmayer1 wrote: post #8

It's amazing that this solution has not been considered more openly and widely until now. It's cheaper, more effective, and doesn't require draconian regulations or near-impossible expectations on human behavior. It's also something that could be tested for a year. It's not irreversible. It would allow the undeveloped world a chance to achieve a piece of the global wealth pie. Why are so many people (especially envir…

> Why are so many people (especially environmentalists and climate scientists) so opposed to this solution? Because it's just kicking the can down the road. This will cost Trillions which you might as well invest in a transition to clean energy now because you have to do it eventually anyway. If the impact of climate chains looks like it's posing a risk to us as a species then perhaps blocking the sun temporarily is…

pure fantasy that the world will ultimately do the "might as well" there though. The world is moving on but we're running out of time to prevent things that are a lot worse than having to deal with acid rain and simply keep pushing sulhpur into the atmosphere and then slowly taper off the sulphur.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#115

Post by jaredklewis »

notpachet wrote: post #4

"We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun." - Morpheus, The Matrix

I love everything about The Matrix, except that the core premise makes no sense. Humans are not an energy source; at best we (very inefficiently) transform energy from one form to another.

If we “scorched the sky,” humans would be at least as screwed as the robots, unless we’re getting all our energy (and tons more since we’d have to move all agriculture indoors) from nuclear or such, but in that case, what on earth would the robots need us for? Wouldn’t they just start running nuclear plants? Seems a lot simpler than running the matrix.

Feels like such a sloppy plot hole for an otherwise brilliantly entertaining film.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#117

Post by hargup »

hargup wrote: post #116

The simpler solution is build a damn lot of solar on Earth and use the energy to suck CO2 out of atmosphere. I did the calculations, it was something like the area of UAE equivalent solar to have enough energy to suck ALL CO2 from the atmosphere.

With floating solar farms in the sea, you also don’t need a lot of land and can avoid all of regulatory overhead.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#118

Post by harperlee »

jaredklewis wrote: post #115
notpachet wrote: post #4

"We don't know who struck first, us or them. But we know that it was us that scorched the sky. At the time, they were dependent on solar power and it was believed that they would be unable to survive without an energy source as abundant as the sun." - Morpheus, The Matrix

I love everything about The Matrix, except that the core premise makes no sense. Humans are not an energy source; at best we (very inefficiently) transform energy from one form to another. If we “scorched the sky,” humans would be at least as screwed as the robots, unless we’re getting all our energy (and tons more since we’d have to move all agriculture indoors) from nuclear or such, but in that case, what on earth…

Originally humans were used as computers, not energy source, which made more sense. Some brilliant mind changed it at some point during production.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#119

Post by soco »

Freestyler_3 wrote: post #86
promocha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Spraying a form of sulfur from a plane is incredibly cheap. A full programme would cost less than $20b per year. That’s much cheaper than carbon removal ($600b per year, to remove just 10% of annual emissions @ $100 / tCO2). It is 30x higher both in time and cost to capture carbon. At $20B/yr geoengineering the atmosphere can be done for 50+ yrs. In 50yrs, carbon capture would need $30T vs only $1T for spraying sul…

What do sulfur damages to crops cost?

And can we breathe that? At some point it's gonna be noticeable, right?

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#120

Post by kilotaras »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #91

This story about urban albedo interested me earlier [0]. Painting roofs and roads white, and simply having more green parks instead of paved areas would actually make a difference. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=39356361

Urban area is around half percent of earth area (2 mln km2 vs 510).

Improving albedo there may have some local effect, but unlikely to contribute significantly to climate change mitigation.

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