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Maybe it's time to start talking about ways humanity can geo-engineer our way out of this instead of just sitting here waiting to suffer. The US Air Force has b

by Lammy 5y ago

Maybe it's time to start talking about ways humanity can geo-engineer our way out of this instead of just sitting here waiting to suffer. The US Air Force has been interested in this topic for decades, but there's no way to know how viable any of that research actually is. Some of the speculative documents I've read propose using carbon black dust as a way to artificially reflect heat, like https://web.archive.org/web/19970429012543/http://www.au.af.mil/au/2025/volume3/chap15/vol3ch15.pdf#page=42 https://web.archive.org/web/19970429012543/http://www.au.af....

andrewmcwatters 5y ago
The Matrix!
- Lammy 5y ago
  I wish that was what they meant by "VR WX — Virtual Weather" :p
riffic 5y ago
One of the more compelling geoengineering strategies I've seen discussed has been Olivine weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine
- tempestn 5y ago
  Agreed. Following Project Vesta with interest: https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/
- londons_explore 5y ago
  In the best case, one ton of oil/coal requires a few tons of olivine to neutralise it right? So we need to go olivine mining at a greater rate than we have done oil extraction... Will there be millions of olivine rigs, olivine pipelines, olivine wars? Somehow I don't think it's gonna happen...
- splittingTimes 5y ago
  "All the CO2 that is produced by burning one liter of oil can be sequestered by less than one liter of olivine." [1]. Given that formulation I assume that the amount of olivine needed is the same order of magnitude as the 1 liter of oil to produce the CO2. The world is consuming 97 Mio barrels of oil per day [2]. I doubt we can mine that amount of olivine on a daily basis. Is it even available in that quantity? How is olivine considered an adequate option to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere? === [1] that Wikipedia article above. [2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/ https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
  - dEnigma 5y ago
    "The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface,[...]". This sentence, also from that same Wikipedia article, seems to suggest that availability wouldn't be the problem. But, whether the whole process is practical/reasonable, is another question entirely.
  - floatrock 5y ago
    We can muster whatever we want if there's sufficient need/desire. In energy-tech, a useful metric is energy-return-on-energy-investment -- a saudi oil well returns 40 units of energy for each unit of energy required for extraction, tar sands are something like 3:1, solar panels are something like 5:1. Taking that mindset, what's the ratio of CO2-sequested-for-CO2-required-to-mine? Yes, we can get better numbers if we electrify all the heavy machinery and power it with solar, but given that heavy mining trucks are largely fossil fuel powered, where are we today?
- staplers 5y ago
  https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-of-planting-trees-to-help-mitigate-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-o... Something a little more simple and using abundant resources.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  From the name I was assuming this was going to be growing olives, turning them into a spreadable butter product, and then burying it underground.
_rpd 5y ago
http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ http://carbon.ycombinator.com/
mbgerring 5y ago
There's a growing number of companies and VC firms working on geoengineering, and now is a good time to get in if you want to make a difference. https://climatebase.org/ https://climatebase.org/ https://lowercarboncapital.com/ https://lowercarboncapital.com/ https://climatetechvc.org/a-running-list-of-climate-tech-vcs/ https://climatetechvc.org/a-running-list-of-climate-tech-vcs...
imilk 5y ago
Sounds like the precursor idea to Snowpiercer. Then again, I can easily see Jeff Bezos operating a train like that in the movie, so maybe it was less fiction than I thought.
chr1 5y ago
Ocean thermal energy conversion plants [1] is another possible technology that could give us fine grained control over the weather. These types of technologies are more promising than technologies which only have a goal to fix climate change, because they propose something that would be useful to do independently of climate change. The new nonprofit founded by Aubrey de Grey https://viento.ai/ https://viento.ai/ works on this issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Climate_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversio...
gucciboi22 5y ago
The technology I'm most excited about is advances in radiative cooling. Basically with materials science we can create perfectly reflective surfaces which emit Infrared energy out to space through the atmospheric window. It's both a local mitigation in that it could keep us cool as shit gets out of hand, while also getting the excess energy out of Earth's system. I feel like with industrial scale it could be feasible and get us off of energy-heavy AC and replace some of the lost albedo from the ice caps. 10C below ambient is super impressive IMO. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435118304689 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...

by Lammy 5y ago

andrewmcwatters 5y ago

The Matrix!

Lammy 5y ago
I wish that was what they meant by "VR WX — Virtual Weather" :p

riffic 5y ago

One of the more compelling geoengineering strategies I've seen discussed has been Olivine weathering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine

tempestn 5y ago
Agreed. Following Project Vesta with interest: https://www.projectvesta.org/ https://www.projectvesta.org/
londons_explore 5y ago
In the best case, one ton of oil/coal requires a few tons of olivine to neutralise it right? So we need to go olivine mining at a greater rate than we have done oil extraction... Will there be millions of olivine rigs, olivine pipelines, olivine wars? Somehow I don't think it's gonna happen...
splittingTimes 5y ago
"All the CO2 that is produced by burning one liter of oil can be sequestered by less than one liter of olivine." [1]. Given that formulation I assume that the amount of olivine needed is the same order of magnitude as the 1 liter of oil to produce the CO2. The world is consuming 97 Mio barrels of oil per day [2]. I doubt we can mine that amount of olivine on a daily basis. Is it even available in that quantity? How is olivine considered an adequate option to reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere? === [1] that Wikipedia article above. [2] https://www.worldometers.info/oil/ https://www.worldometers.info/oil/
- dEnigma 5y ago
  "The primary component of the Earth's upper mantle, it is a common mineral in Earth's subsurface,[...]". This sentence, also from that same Wikipedia article, seems to suggest that availability wouldn't be the problem. But, whether the whole process is practical/reasonable, is another question entirely.
- floatrock 5y ago
  We can muster whatever we want if there's sufficient need/desire. In energy-tech, a useful metric is energy-return-on-energy-investment -- a saudi oil well returns 40 units of energy for each unit of energy required for extraction, tar sands are something like 3:1, solar panels are something like 5:1. Taking that mindset, what's the ratio of CO2-sequested-for-CO2-required-to-mine? Yes, we can get better numbers if we electrify all the heavy machinery and power it with solar, but given that heavy mining trucks are largely fossil fuel powered, where are we today?
staplers 5y ago
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-of-planting-trees-to-help-mitigate-climate-change/ https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2927/examining-the-viability-o... Something a little more simple and using abundant resources.
chrisseaton 5y ago
From the name I was assuming this was going to be growing olives, turning them into a spreadable butter product, and then burying it underground.

_rpd 5y ago

http://carbon.ycombinator.com/ http://carbon.ycombinator.com/

mbgerring 5y ago

There's a growing number of companies and VC firms working on geoengineering, and now is a good time to get in if you want to make a difference. https://climatebase.org/ https://climatebase.org/ https://lowercarboncapital.com/ https://lowercarboncapital.com/ https://climatetechvc.org/a-running-list-of-climate-tech-vcs/ https://climatetechvc.org/a-running-list-of-climate-tech-vcs...

imilk 5y ago

Sounds like the precursor idea to Snowpiercer. Then again, I can easily see Jeff Bezos operating a train like that in the movie, so maybe it was less fiction than I thought.

chr1 5y ago

Ocean thermal energy conversion plants [1] is another possible technology that could give us fine grained control over the weather. These types of technologies are more promising than technologies which only have a goal to fix climate change, because they propose something that would be useful to do independently of climate change. The new nonprofit founded by Aubrey de Grey https://viento.ai/ https://viento.ai/ works on this issues. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion#Climate_control https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversio...

gucciboi22 5y ago

The technology I'm most excited about is advances in radiative cooling. Basically with materials science we can create perfectly reflective surfaces which emit Infrared energy out to space through the atmospheric window. It's both a local mitigation in that it could keep us cool as shit gets out of hand, while also getting the excess energy out of Earth's system. I feel like with industrial scale it could be feasible and get us off of energy-heavy AC and replace some of the lost albedo from the ice caps. 10C below ambient is super impressive IMO. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542435118304689 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S254243511...