1,500-Ship Fleet Proposed To Fight Climate Change 692
Roland Piquepaille writes "According to UK and US researchers, it should be possible to fight the global warming effects associated with an increase of dioxide levels by using autonomous cloud-seeding ships to spray salt water into the air. This project would require the deployment of a worldwide fleet of 1,500 unmanned ships to cool the Earth even if the level of carbon dioxide doubled. These 300-tonne ships 'would be powered by the wind, but would not use conventional sails. Instead they would be fitted with a number of 20 m-high, 2.5 m-diameter cylinders known as Flettner rotors. The researchers estimate that such ships would cost between £1m and £2m each. This translates to a US$2.65 to 5.3 billion total cost for the ships only."
That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't you mean the obligatory ohnoitsroland tag?
Re:That's what? (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd think a bad idea.
What happens when we get the clouds at this and that location instead of wherever it would be generated without the ships?
Are we 100% sure how the weather will be affected by the ships?
Will richer countries try to get more water by controlling the rain?
What if mother nature takes care about the CO2 emissions without us interfering?
What if it doesn't affect things that much? Or much more than we believe?
Would it be like, you know, much "easier" and safer to stop using fossile fuel? Even if it would put development backwards "a bit" for the moment?
A Bad Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
But it is also a bad doctor who treats the underlying cause without treating the symptoms if it will take a long time for the disease to go away and the symptoms are bothersome. Techniques like this should probably be used in conjunction with attempts to eliminate the causes of global warming.
It isn't as if this is so expensive that no money would be available for other approaches. Sure, $5 billion sounds like a lot, but it is only 0.5% of the what the US has spent on the Iraq War so far.
US$2.65 to 5.3 billion is peanuts (Score:4, Insightful)
the US government gave a few hundred billion dollars to the upper class today, by buying out freddie and fannie ...
Re:For every action... (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh? They're talking about enhancing the reflectivity of low-lying clouds above the oceans, not moving CO2 into the oceans.
And Newton's Third Law's reaction to spraying salt water into the air is to push your ship a little deeper into the ocean.
Re:That's what? (Score:1, Insightful)
What ever that post is, it isn't off topic... (Hint to the mods, according to the guidelines for moderation, the first post is never off topic. More to the point though, asking about the cost in relation to the Iraq war (which I was going to do until I saw this post), is also quite relevant. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan not only cost lots of money (and don't seem to be doing much), but also put out lots of carbon dioxide. Which makes the greenhouse affect more noticeable, and climate change more pronounced as well.)
There are invariably comments about "how much" various projects like this cost. But compared to war, this is a pittance.
Posted anon., 'cause I'm a coward.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
"a bit" is a bit of an understatement. Billions would die without fossil fuels.
Re:Headline (Score:1, Insightful)
chaos theory has everything to do with this even being introduced...
Global warming is being modeled due to chaos theory stating that it is possible to predict the future of complex systems.
However, another part of chaos theory says its impossible to control in any way a complex system and any attempt to do so will result in unforseen consequences and more then likely castatrophic results...
So trying to fix CO2 through global methods is a wasted effort to begin with. The best that mankind can do is reduce CO2.
She will. (Score:5, Insightful)
What if mother nature takes care about the CO2 emissions without us interfering?
One way or another, she will. But the kick in the balls is, we may not like how she takes care of it.
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
A good doctor treats the symptoms as well as the ailment - more so when the ailment itself can't be cured. Quality of life is important.
This is a plan that could in theory be put into practice tomorrow, partially relieving those symptoms while longer term cures are being put into place.
While the relatively rich first world has the money to build new infrastructure - to work towards that cure - development takes time, and current alternatives don't have the capacity to meet current energy demands. That *WILL* change, but not for some time. Here in the UK, there's a lot of emphasis on making this change at the moment, but even if we start replacing everything today it will be decades before we can completely phase out our existing coal plants. In the US, it's even worse as your grid needs to be redesigned and rebuilt from scratch to accomadate wind farms and their ilk. No small task.
The only countries for which this will be 'easy' are those able to tap geothermal reserves.
For the second and third world these green alternatives are currently too expensive, and will likely remain so until the technology is being produces in such quantities as to be considered a commodity. Even then, the third world will likely be unable to afford anything except used hand-me-downs from the first and second.
So, what do you do?
A) Treat the symptoms and buy the time for all of this to happen - affirmative action
B) Treat the symptoms and forget to treat the ailment - what you think will happen
Or
C) Treat the ailment and ignore the symptoms - your suggestion
For the record, taking action C would also be more expensive financially, as treating those symptoms also reduces the amount of damage inflicted.
I admire the idealism, but you need to consider the reality of the situation at the same time or you end up making popular, but ultimately bad decisions.
Re:Oil (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:4, Insightful)
What will definitely go wrong? (Score:2, Insightful)
What could definitely go wrong if we don't?
Because the world is going to have a surplus of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for decades to come one way or another, even under very aggressive carbon-dioxide emission reduction schemes.
Re:Genius (Score:5, Insightful)
Pure genius. Take a system you don't really understand, but depend on for living, and drastically modify a variable to see what happens.
That's exactly what we've been doing for more than a century now.
Re:First things first. (Score:3, Insightful)
Before I could be convinced to vote for a project like that, it would be necessary to show me that carbon dioxide is, in fact, responsible for global warming.
Actually, this scheme is totally independent of the exact cause or causes of global warming, it is just a way to reduce the impact of one of the causes: the sun.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
The beauty of this idea is that you can start small, measure what happens and stop right away if it doesn't work as intended or if it turns out to have side effects.
The idea that China and India will stop their fossil fuel intake while the US uses 10 times as much is about as realistic in a geopolitical sense as, oh I don't know, sending an army to Irak and expecting democracy to appear.
Re:That's what? (Score:4, Insightful)
We don't really know what's going on (I would love it if someone has a link to an article about an accurate computer model of the weather system, but I've never found one.) We see the average global temp increasing along with greenhouse gasses (but now the Germans are telling us GW is taking a hiatus, which means most all of our previous models are wrong), so lets cut back on the greenhouse gases (hell, hopefully eliminate man-made greenhouse emissions), not screw with the weather system even more.
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not just kill 5 billion humans so pollution won't be a problem anymore. It certainly would be an easier task.
This is what I've been saying forever! :)
We can fight this climate change all we want, the fundamental problem is our planet cannot sustain the rapidly expanding population and all of our selfish creature comforts. The irony is that the more people we make, the more people Bush kills, and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize wars are a pretty significant source of pollution and waste heat :P
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:5, Insightful)
You're now talking about higher frequency of ocean collisions;
Do you realize how big the oceans are? The chances of any ship even seeing one of 1500 ships scattered around the globe is practically zero unless they are placed near a port or on shipping lanes. Ships go from one port to another on very specific routes, they don't wander around the oceans. Keep them out of the shipping lanes and nobody will ever see them.
increased wreckage after damaging storms (and thereby increased maintenance costs all around);
Negligible
the energy expenditure (and CO2 release) required to produce such ships in the first place;
Negligible
what's to stop someone from going out to salvage an unmanned ship in international waters if it is constructed of materials desired?
I think ships are made primarily of steel and not copper. It would be a whole lot cheaper and easier to just raid the local junkyard.
Our Coast Guard can't even track many drug-runners in the Caribbean, and you want to place 1500 ships on the ocean and cross your fingers that no one touches them?
They could track them very easily if they knew where they were in the first place. I seriously doubt they are just going to let these ships wander around aimlessly through the oceans with no way to find them and identify them except by searching for them. If such a plan were implemented, I'm sure they would know exactly where they are at all times.
There are many other, more direct paths to solving this global problem,
Really? This seems like a very cheap and direct solution if it indeed works.
than the construction of a huge fleet of water-spraying ships that *may* increase sunlight reflectivity by a significant amount while likely instigating numerous practical issues in its implementation.
If the best experts agree that it might work, it's worth testing on a small scale and see what happens in terms of cloud reflectivity and any adverse effects. It could probably even be tested to some extent without building a single ship.
Salty clouds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why don't you set the right example ? I'm sure there's a bridge near you. There's only one way to make sure you don't further contribute to the "CO2 problem" ...
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
We need to do enough research to make sure it won't cause a hurricane / tsunami first
You don't actually know what a tsunami is, do you?
Re:She will. (Score:3, Insightful)
Isnt water vapor a greenhouse gas? Im guessing after we complete this project we will have to spend 15b on some cleanup of the new mess we have made. And then 90b to clean up the subsequent "fix".
Re:What will definitely go wrong? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or, maybe, possibly, perhaps, this sort of scheme could result in more cooling than the change in carbon dioxide levels.
That is what you're after, right? a cooler earth? Not just the imposition of some "low-impact"/minimalist lifestyle/philosophy/aesthetic? Because, well, I kind of appreciate the aesthetic a little, I admit, but... there are more important things to worry about, such as the planet's temperature.
Re:That's what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Funny that you mention it, as I drew up a design for a RTS game about ten years ago with a unit exactly like that. I also thought about a "hurricane gun" — a solar power satellite with microwave antenna — as a superweapon.
Of course, in the real world I think any system powerful enough to create a hurricane would be impossible to keep a secret and less practical than conventional weapons. And the use of such a system would be considered a war crime in anybody's book.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Newtons 2nd law... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no free lunch.
Manufacturing 1500, 300 ton ships will generate more pollution than the ships can remove in their lifetime. That is alot of steel, coal, oil(lubricants), and electronics, at the very least.
Dear people of earth (Score:4, Insightful)
You guys don't trust your expert meteorologist's weather over the next several days. Please stop trusting your politicians about weather over the next several decades.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
But then people say "hey it's no idea we can't get back to stone age!"
But uhm, we can do SOMETHING, we don't need a new computer every second year, we don't need new clothes all the time, we don't need local grown oil powered green house vegetables if there are some sun light grown somewhere else. Do we need that 340 watt lcd tv? Pre-cooked food, freezed and microwaved? Can't we take the bike a little more often?
But oh no, doing something must mean to stop everything!!
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Genius (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
No one is blaming China, but they have to be included on any solution proposed to limit the use of fossil fuels. They are rapidly bringing a huge population up to the carbon usage levels of the rest of the world. China connects a new coal fired powered plant to their grid every *10* days. IIRC, they are now the number one importer of coal. Cities the size of Philadelphia were popping up (they have slowed some now) in China every month. Ignoring China when thinking about the issue of CO2 pollution is to ignore the largest future CO2 producer.
Re:That's what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Where in your head to you figure that humans are somehow 'apart' from nature? I don't get this crap, this judeo-christian oriented narrative that humans are separate from nature and somehow 'unnatural' because we behave sort of funny. That's right I said judeo-christian.
All science to this point tells us we are not special, we are not different, we arose out of the same circumstances as all other animals. We just got lucky and figured some tricks out, slowly evolved at a more rapid rate than our cousins, until we started believing we came from a different family.
Nature exists *everywhere* you idiot, in a natural state! And the fact that humans interact with it and change it is irrelevant to whether life on earth is 'natural' or 'artificial'. All species in nature interact with each other leaving their mark, and surviving as they must within the circumstances that our rock, moon and plasma ball combo dish out.
Repeat after me: We are not special. We, the humans, are a *part* of nature just like all the other animals. Buildings, machines, bridges cars airplanes and boats are nature, just like we are, because we made them, by the laws of nature. The same laws that govern how an otter cracks a shell with a rock. Same shit man, its all the same shit.
Re:She will. (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry guys, the data is not in.
The only people who say the data isn't in are the people who haven't looked at the data.
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Indeed, but if we put enough energy behind it, we could combat rising sea levels at the same time. The downside is that desalinization is fairly energy intensive, though there is enough potential for solar energy in the Sahara.
The problems would be money and political stability in the Sahara region. My country (the Netherlands) has to invest over 100 billion euros the next century to keep the rising sea and extra rainwater out. I'm rather curious to know how much of the Sahara could be irrigated with that amount and what the effects on the climate and sea-levels would be.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
Tss, bullshit, the average american or european consume waaay more energy and resources than someone in china, why would they have to cut down the most?
And much of the energy used in China is used to manufacture goods for export - the things we consume too much off!
Re:She will. (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with the sibling post. The data is in. I've heard it explained very succinctly by a climate scientist. We know what to expect. We just don't have a plan to fix it that won't cause other major problems. The trouble isn't the problem of global warming, it's the problem of the loss of the polar ice caps, the flooding which will result, the destruction or change of ecosystems, the resultant loss of animal life, and the whole host of problems that that will cause for man.
Your statement about scientists not being able to predict the climate is an extreme generalization. It's difficult to predict where a particular patch of clouds will be at a particular point in time, but it's not hard to develop a model that closely approximates a number of environmental conditions over the entire Earth and then apply it to make predictions about trends based on current conditions. We have a decent understanding of what's generally going on, how fast energy is being radiated out into space versus how fast its being absorbed, and the factors which affect this. To say that the model isn't a good approximation is to ignore years of good research into the global environment.
Re:She will. (Score:3, Insightful)
Not so. Lots of CO2 comes from volcanic sources. For millions of years, Earth has been pumping out CO2 and for those same millions of years, animals and plants have been dying and getting burried underground, effectively maintaining an approximate balance of CO2 in the atmosphere.
Releasing all the stored CO2 into the atmosphere is going to cause a problem, and some would argue that it is already causing a problem.
I'm not sure that pumping water vapour into the air is a solution though. As I understand it, water vapour is itself a pretty powerful greenhouse gas...
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
So? Stop consuming them and they won't make them. Simple as that.
And my point was already that it's the consumers "fault" they produce the things.
Re:She will. (Score:2, Insightful)
You mean the data that shows both warming and cooling patterns? OMG climate change!!! It may be the next ice age, or it may be unsurvivably hot temperatures, but either way it's big, it's mean, and it's going to get you!
The only thing that could save us now is a fleet of ships spraying salt water into the air!!!
Re:Genius (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, at least with this proposal, if it doesn't work out you tell the ships to stop making clouds, the existing clouds will dissipate fairly quickly, and you're basically back to where you started. In that sense, it seems less drastic and risky than other things I have heard thrown about.
And... (Score:2, Insightful)
Rational people like Bjorn Lomborg [wikipedia.org] have done the math and concluded that the money that would be spent reducing carbon dioxide emissions would be better spent elsewhere.
Re:A Bad Doctor (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a lot of people saying things like ``if we took this money and instead did x'' every time someone comes up with one of these plans, but at the end of the day, none of that money is actually being spent, neither on this nor on x.
If we took the money from any of the vastly counterproductive things we waste money on (Iraq being the obvious example) rather than taking it from things that might actually work, we might actually get something done.
Yet another stupid idea (Score:3, Insightful)
To be fair, I think this is probably just part of a major brainstorming session on how to solve our problems with climate change.
Personlly I think we now have little alternative but to endure the changes and try to adjust; we might save the situation IF there had been the polical will to make the sacrifices necessary, and IF everybody in the world genuinely saw the need. But we don't. However, it still makes sense to get rid of burning fossil fuels and wasting resources that cannot be replaced - we will need that skill. And it still makes sense to put an effort into saving bio-diversity everywhere on the planet, because we will need every bit of it that we can save.
But this idea - like the ideas with the space mirrors and spreading particles in the atmospere - is simply stupid. It's like paying off a debt with a loan - it isn't necessarily a bad idea, but before you engage in that, you want to be absolutely sure that it doesn't leave you worse off. I can see a lot of problems with this scheme without even having thought about it: we are spraying salt water up in the air - where is that salt going to end up? Or rather, how big a part of it will end up on land, where it could potentially be a problem?
And how many sea creatures - fish, jelly fish, dolphins etc - will this scheme kill by shredding them and blasting the up in the atmosphere? If we implement this, we will want it to have significant impact - but then the unintended side effect will most likely also be significant. As far as I can see, we can probably adjust somewhat to the worst of global warming, simply by not living beyond our means.
Re:She will. (Score:5, Insightful)
The data is very thoroughly in. There's some uncertanity about the finer details, but the basic idea is as valid as it's going to get.
I don't get the US obsession with ANYTHING other than changing own behaviour. It's not as if you need to live poorly to significantly cut emissions. Sweden, for example, has a living-standard and GDP on the same level as USA, despite actually harsher climate, and their emissions are aproximately HALF of American levels pro capita.
Hell, some of the changes bring significant ADVANTAGES to standard of living. It's not as if it's a BENEFIT to live in a poorly insulated house where the wind blows trough, more or less. (okay okay, I'm exagerating, but it's a fact that the building-standards are substantially better in Sweden than in the US)
And it's not as if Sweden couldn't also be doing more with reasonable simple changes.
It's not infact hard to cut 2/3rds. That is likely to bring significant advantages over the current US-alternative which seems to be pretty close to "do nothing".
Re:She will. (Score:5, Insightful)
The ice in Greenland and Antarctica is kilometres thick. It's not in the ocean. When it melts, it will be. Then the sea rises my several metres.
Re:She will. (Score:2, Insightful)
The "water vapor is a greenhouse gas" is one of the arguments of the organizations that employ pseudo-science to deny global warming.
So water vapour isn't a greenhouse gas now?
Jesus Christ you guys are just as bad as rabid christians. "deny Global Warming"? Can we get off of that strawman? NO ONE is denying global warming. I mean it is an observable fact just like observing that when visible light from the sun hits the atmosphere it radiates the sky as blue. Get over yourselves, what is and SHOULD be disputed is the cause. Questioning whether it is humanity's fault is not the same as denying global warming. I am sure you rabid environmentalists know this but want to present the other side as stupid as possible instead of using reasoning and logic. Let's see some of the other excuses you guys use when someone actually questions the science:
- "You are being paid by the oil companies"
- "You are a Bush neo-con republican"
- "The science is a FACT, you obviously don't know science"
Also questioning science is part of the scientific method, it isn't pseudo-science just because you don't agree.
Re:That's what? (Score:5, Insightful)
>>>you can die from global warming.
No not really. The Romans and early Middle Age citizens experienced global warming & they did not die. In fact, they grew grapes as far north as Scotland, so it was actually beneficial. Just imagine if Canadians & Russians could grow food in the once-frozen tundra. It would feed millions.
Perhaps you were thinking of pollution?
Pollutants like carbon monoxide & particulate matter from car exhaust can damage human lungs, but that's a separate issue from global warming (CO2 emission).
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:That's what? (Score:3, Insightful)
The U.S. and E.U. export food to the rest of the world. Not sure about E.U. pop figures but U.S. is approaching 300 M pop.
Re:She will. (Score:2, Insightful)
So if anybody tells you that we have to "save the planet" from carbon dioxide, ask them why the planet wasn't destroyed when the carbon dioxide levels were much higher than now.
Oh, the planet will still be here, and it'll still have life. The question is whether we'll still be in that second category.
Re:She will. (Score:1, Insightful)
When somebody has a heart attack you don't put them on cholesterol medication, you take care of the symptom first so they don't die waiting for the rael solution.
Do you doubt that we are making advancements in "green" energy sources?
Re:That's what? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Romans and early Middle Age citizens experienced global warming & they did not die.
How do you know? Maybe it was peachy for England but the poor sods in Ethiopia got heatstroke and drought. Or maybe not. We don't really have good records of the mortality impacts at the time.
Note also that the warming expected over the last century is larger and more rapid than anything the Romans or Middle Age citizens experienced.
In fact, they grew grapes as far north as Scotland, so it was actually beneficial.
... to Scottish grape farmers, maybe. (Note also that we are already at those levels of warmth today, the question is what happens when we go even farther beyond that.)
It's true that some people will benefit from global warming, particularly in cold regions. Others will be harmed, particularly in hot regions. A climate which changes too quickly tends to be bad for everybody, as it takes time to adapt to new climates (especially if you've got political borders and can't just move whichever climate dependent industries are no longer supported in your region.)
Re:That's what? (Score:4, Insightful)
first of all, that isnt how it works.
when an animal species grows, it grows to the level that the current food sources will allow, and then stabilizers there without any drought needed due to the pressure the population puts on it's food sources. Meaning if the food source will only support x number of animals, then those above x will die due to malnourishment all on their own.
also when a prey animal increases population, there is most times (in a natural world) a corresponding increase in the number of predatory animals because they too fall into the first part of the statement.
this will also lead to the control of the prey animal population.
you do realize that the US and EU are both major EXPORTERS of foodstocks don't you?
The US alone could substantially increase their food production simply by actually farming all of the available land instead of allowing some of it to sit fallow (and i don't mean fallow in the context of crop rotation).
your statements are so far from the truth it almost sounds like you've been brainwashed.....
you're not a cult member are you?