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The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

climate.benjames.io

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Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#41

Post by EA-3167 »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #16

I'm continually surprised that this idea gets so much traction. While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on. We'll just need a bigger one, 20 years down the line, when CO2 levels keep going up! At some point, it's pretty obviously a non-solution. Let's put this energy into Nuclear Power and CO2 recapture; and actually fix things.

You know that famous (around here) article: "Reality Has A Surprising Amount of Detail" ?

Sadly for all of its popularity the essential message seems to have missed people. I listen to people talk about Mars colonies in their lifetime, because they refuse to acknowledge the complexity beyond "big rocket go fast". This topic is very similar, it requires a staggering amount of engineering, economic, environmental and other disciplines to really understand why it's such a terrible idea. The expense, the known and unknown unknowns, the politics and the reality that it's a band-aid over a sucking chest wound.

People just don't get it, and only engage with these topics as a sort of sport, not something they need to grasp the complexity of.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#42

Post by dang »

This title is breaking HN's guidelines by being linkbait. ("Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait" - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

Can anyone suggest a less baity title? I looked through the text trying to find an accurate, neutral, representative phrase and couldn't find one. That's unusual and probably a bad sign.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#43

Post by dkarras »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #16

I'm continually surprised that this idea gets so much traction. While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on. We'll just need a bigger one, 20 years down the line, when CO2 levels keep going up! At some point, it's pretty obviously a non-solution. Let's put this energy into Nuclear Power and CO2 recapture; and actually fix things.

>While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on.

Sounds like how humans have been operating since eons.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#44

Post by dkarras »

dang wrote: post #42

This title is breaking HN's guidelines by being linkbait. (" Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait " - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html ) Can anyone suggest a less baity title? I looked through the text trying to find an accurate, neutral, representative phrase and couldn't find one. That's unusual and probably a bad sign.

I don't think it is baity? Just creative and interesting. Meshes perfectly with its content too, as the main argument of the article is that someone is going to do it without any general consensus as it is possible to do with some billionaire or small nation level cash.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#46

Post by nostrademons »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #16

I'm continually surprised that this idea gets so much traction. While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on. We'll just need a bigger one, 20 years down the line, when CO2 levels keep going up! At some point, it's pretty obviously a non-solution. Let's put this energy into Nuclear Power and CO2 recapture; and actually fix things.

The history of industrialization, as well as most people’s consumer choices, should explain why it has so much traction. When faced with an expensive solution that permanently solves a problem vs a cheap one that kicks the can down the road a few years, people invariably choose the cheap one. That’s how we got in this mess in the first place.

Remember that people are mortal. Rather than invest in permanent solutions that grant us eternal life, evolution favors solutions that keep us alive just long enough to reproduce, then making a half-copy and throwing out the old body.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#47

Post by justinator »

incrudible wrote: post #32
justinator wrote: post #5

Dimming the sun is like the alcoholic proudly proclaiming they'll be eating salads for lunch. It ain't solving the actual problem.

Even disregarding climate change, we are way past the point where 8 billion people can survive without modern industry. The same will be true for geoengineering in the long term. Remember, we are still in an ice age.

Maybe it's time we all take a personal inventory of our own practices and how they impact the survival of our species, the planet's entire biosphere, before the next generation asks us, "why did you not change yourself to stop this?"

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#48

Post by anonymouskimmer »

Would this process work the same way climate change is warming? Because climate change, while on average increasing the global temperature by 1.5C, has pretty big variations in actual temperature decrease by region. It's important if you use sulfur to decrease the temperature that this decrease counteracts regional temperature increases and not just average global temperature.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#49

Post by Lonestar1440 »

promocha wrote: post #38
Lonestar1440 wrote: post #16

I'm continually surprised that this idea gets so much traction. While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on. We'll just need a bigger one, 20 years down the line, when CO2 levels keep going up! At some point, it's pretty obviously a non-solution. Let's put this energy into Nuclear Power and CO2 recapture; and actually fix things.

> 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…

Among other downsides, spraying sulphur in the atmosphere doesn't remove any Carbon at all. It just tries to balance one pollutant out with another. I'd rather have the sunshade, honestly.

I'm not a physical scientist, but I'd imagine that the amount of Carbon you can capture is fundamentally proportional to the energy you can use on Carbon Capture. That's why I believe a large expansion of Nuclear Energy would be needed.

Alongside a continued reduction in emissions, this is a practical path forward. Throwing new curveballs at the earth, while not addressing the present level of Carbon, is not.

Re: The likelihood of unilateral solar geoengineering

#50

Post by deegles »

Lonestar1440 wrote: post #16

I'm continually surprised that this idea gets so much traction. While possible to build, it's also strictly Temporary and just leaves us with a worse problem later on. We'll just need a bigger one, 20 years down the line, when CO2 levels keep going up! At some point, it's pretty obviously a non-solution. Let's put this energy into Nuclear Power and CO2 recapture; and actually fix things.

A nuclear power plant generating 5gwh/year could capture around 4 million tons of CO2 per year at 1,200 kwh per ton. Emissions are in the billions of tons per year.
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