[I think that as a climate-saving strategy geo-engineering is largely somewhere between a dead end and a hoax -- why would you choose chemotherapy that might make you sicker if your doctors told you diet and exercise would definitely work (see "Geo-engineering remains a bad idea" and "Geo-Engineering is NOT the Answer")?
The likely new science advisor, John Holdren, has written, "The 'geo-engineering' approaches considered so far appear to be afflicted with some combination of high costs, low leverage, and a high likelihood of serious side effects." And the new head of NOAA is someone "who would put oceans first," whereas absent a successful effort to stabilize at 450 ppm or below, most geo-engineering schemes would put oceans last, leaving them acidified and inhospitable to most current ocean life, possibly for hundreds of thousands of years. But do our children and their children and the next 5000 generations really need a livable ocean if it means we don't have to reallocate about 1% to 2% of our wealth today (see "Absolute MUST Read IPCC Report: Debate over, further delay fatal, action not costly")?
Yet desperation drives some people to contemplate extreme things, and climate scientists are increasingly desperate to prevent global warming (see "Desperate times, desperate scientists"). Jeff Goodell files this reports dispatch from the AGU's annual meeting.]
On Wednesday, in the Q & A session after Jim Hansen’s talk about the dire state of the earth at the AGU meeting, eminent Rutgers University professor Paul Falkowski asked Hansen: “The genie is out of the bottle now — What do you think of geoengineering as a way to deal with global warming?”
I half-expected Hansen to throw his laser-pointer at Falkowski. After all, geoengineering — deliberate, large-scale manipulation of the earth’s climate — has long been a taboo subject in the climate debate. Only crackpots brought it up.
But Hansen didn’t miss a beat. He said it would make sense to try “soft” geoengineering first, such as no-till agricutlure and afforestation. But as a last resort, Hansen admitted, more aggressive geoengineering schemes might be necessary. Call it prudence. Or desperation.
Geoengineering comes to two flavors: the less controversial variety is really just carbon management, such as dumping iron in the oceans to stimulate plankton blooms or building stand-alone machines that can strip CO2 out of the air. The bolder variety is more accurately described as albedo engineering, since it refers to technologies that modulate the amount of short wave radiation (aka sunlight) that hits the planet. One popular idea is to mimic the natural process of a volcano and inject tiny particles into the stratosphere to deflect sunlight. Another is to seed clouds to brighten them and increase reflectivity. In theory, you can offset the warming caused by a doubling of CO2 by reducing the amount of sunlight that hits the earth by just 1 – 2 %. And, unlike carbon management, which works slowly due to the earth’s thermal inertia, albedo engineering is something you could do to lower the temperature of the planet in a hurry.
There have always been three big objections to geoengineering: first, that it’s a “quick fix” that diverts attention from the push to cut CO2 pollution; second, that cooling the earth by reducing sunlight does nothing to solve other urgent problems caused by high CO2 levels, such as ocean acidification; third, that we are mucking around with a system we don’t understand and will undoubtedly screw it up. And if the climate system crashes, there is no restart button.
These objections remain. But they are increasingly downed out by rapidly melting ice, our abject failure to cut CO2, and fears of big climate surprises in the near future. As David Keith, Director of the Energy and Enviromental Systems Group at the University of Calgary, put it in his talk at AGU on Thursday morning: “Uncertainty + Inertia = Danger.”
But Thursday’s sessions at AGU reinforced the idea that geoengineering is fraught with unexpected complexity. Keith sketched ideas about how you might loft particles into the stratosphere (dump them out of jet
aircraft, push them up a long hose connected to a high-altitude balloon), as well as the possibility of engineering particles to optimize mass and light-scattering qualities. But Richard Turco, professor of atmospheric sciences at UCLA, argued that it is extremely difficult to control the size of particles in the stratosphere, thus making it hard to know how much to inject and what the precise impact will be. “It will be like trying to control the clouds,” Turco said.
As for environmental impacts, one big concern is changes in global precipitation patterns. Although some climate modelers have argued that a geoengineered climate might be more like our own than a high-CO2 climate without geoengineering, one of the mostly hotly debated issues right now is how brighter clouds or particles in the stratosphere will impact rainfall in the tropics and sub-tropics. One modeling study presented at AGU showed severe drying in the Amazon basin; another was inconclusive.
“Maybe geoengineering is a crazy idea,” one veteran climate scientist told me after Thursday’s session. “But it’s even crazier not to consider it, because the sad truth is, the way things are going, we may need it.”
[Geo-engineering is one of the most controversial areas of climate science and policy. Even Jeff and I don't see eye-to-eye on it. For instance, I think there are many more than three big objections. And as a practical matter, I think geo-engineering is unlikely to be a viable or rational strategy, especially as a pure alternative to very, very, very robust mitigation. Explaining why will take some effort, so early next year I will do a multipart series on the subject. As always, I very much welcome your thoughts.]
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
If we target geoengineering efforts to the Arctic emergency, instead of some worldwide blanket, we would run less chance of global side effects, and possibly forestall more positive feedback from the undersea and permafrost methane release which has already begun. I’m only talking small studies and trials for the moment, but if the worst happens, or if we’re already past the tipping point, mitigation won’t save us. Limited geoengineering might at least buy us time.
I’m sorry, what? “Who would put the ocean first?” Does it not occur to these people that a clean ocean is every bit as important to the wellbeing of the planet as the atmosphere?
I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather the glaciers melted than see the oceans poisoned.
“Oh man guys! This situation’s bad! Let’s do something a thousand times worse in order to prevent it!”
I thought climate scientists were the rational ones in all this.
[JR: It can be hard to stay rational when people ignore your dire warnings for decades.]
I believe objections to geo-engineering have their roots equally in the ethical and in the scientific and technical domains. Some objectors have put forward the technical objections but what they seem to equally object to are concessions in the area of reducing carbon emissions.
We have a high ethical obligation to our generation and future generations to reduce our carbon emissions. But we can pursue that ethical obligation in addition to pursuing some technical quick-fixes. We will now live, one way or another in a managed if not an engineered atmosphere. By trying to achieve 350 (or 450) ppm, we are managing our atmosphere whether we like that vision or not.
This does not mean that geo-engineers should pursue geo-engineering willy nilly or without consultation with a broad array of scientific authorities. I think as there emerges a global political consensus that climate change is huge problem, most notably in the election of PEBO and his appointments so far, the political and economic backing will eventually be there for transforming our energy system in addition to trying to swerve to avoid catastrophic melting of the polar ice sheets and methane emissions.
What about a large-scale biochar effort? That seems relatively safe, and does not require any new technology (but does require plenty of new infrastructure). Unlike ocean-seeding stuff, biochar works on relatively well-understood ecosystems, and relys on well-understood mechanisms.
[JR: Hoping to get up a guest biochar post soon. Of course, with annual emissions of carbon approaching 9,000,000,000 tons, you do have to figure out where you're going to put all that biochar.]
Seems a little like the manned mission to Mars — lots of plans on paper, maybe even a little trial effort, but it is really not going to work.
Well, we basically have AGW nailed down. The only real remaining scientific question is how bad it is going to get.
We also basically know what we need to do about CO2. The only question here is getting policy makers to enact policies which get it done.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with people thinking and discussing things like geoengineering, carbon sequestration, nuclear power, cellulosic ethanol, etc. But if *policy makers* are discussing those, or thinking that scientists will come up with some kind of magic bullet, then we have a problem. Those options should be off the table right now in terms of practical tactics. The practical tactics are wind, solar PV, solar thermal, conservation, yadda, yadda, yadda…
But maybe someone next year will think of a brilliant geoengineering strategy which doesn’t have any bad side effects and saves the planet… We shouldn’t stop thinking about it or squelch any discussion of it… But we can’t wait around for a geoengineering solution which is about as likely as monkeys flying out my butt….
Things seem to be moving faster than almost anyone anticipated. Seems to me that we need to start using every tool in the box.
I’m going to link this report that PhysOrg ran this morning. Basically spray lots of sea water into the lower atmosphere.
“First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation.”
http://www.physorg.com/news148887530.html
The reflected infra-red makes sense to me. I’m not sure about the “cooling rain” part. Seems like that is simply moving heat around from place to place, not getting rid of it.
Might allow us to reforest some dry places by creating rain. Might have to deal with “global dimming”.
Nice thing about this one, should be easy to test. Spray some water up and measure the reflection. And we could test it with essentially no danger to the environment. Then do some math.
Richard, we sent people to the Moon a few times.
We’ve got rovers running around the surface of Mars.
Seems like we have the know-how. It’s just a question of wanting to do it badly enough.
Bob Wallace:
I love the Martian rovers too. I think we should send more. Some people insist we send human beings into space. To do that means we would so badly need to want it that it makes it an economic folly. I am not sure that the type of information that only humans can retrieve is worth the cost of sending them. (in practice humans always need the mechanical interface to protect against the hard environ of the moon or mars. No one can walk nude on the moon or mars [for long] so in a sense they can never really experience those places) Our Machines work fairly well in space, often better than planned. Humans require a moist, healthy planet in a narrow temperature range – and when we go into space have to bring along much of that style of life support.
The analogy of geo-engineering stands – it may be nice to know about, maybe plan out, even take little steps — but the will and effort to successfully accomplish this vastly exceeds the work to mitigate and adapt. Also we really should not experiment with our own planet. Maybe we should hurl an ice asteroid to Venus, but don’t experiment here.
My biggest beef with geoengineering is the inability to predict the results. It seems like a grotesque double standard to argue that the uncertainties in climate science (which I find I have to up-play to even get the resident conservatives to listen to me) are cause for cautious action while arguing that the uncertainties in geoengineering are cause for radical action.
Gwynne Dyer’s recent book Climate Wars (which I highly recommend) has a chapter dealing with geoengineering. Part of the layout of that book is akin to your Future Historians series, where he takes concievable climate scenarios and uses those as a framework to illustrate potential political futures. The geoengineering section dealt, in part, with the debate over geoengineering (in which the “liberal” viewpoint is to do it since we’re desperate and the “conservative” viewpoint is the one Joe’s arguing; rather ironic) leading to the atmosphere being seeded by aerosols anyway — only to be compounded eventually by a volcanic eruption.
I think there are too many variables to consider doing large-scale geoengineering (anything beyond afforestation, really, though I’m open to discussion on biochar), but I openly admit I’m no expert on this.
Can anyone here comment on the sequestration devices that Klaus Lackner et al. from Columbia have developed? There was a flurry of news reports last summer about these machines that basically fix carbon from the air with what seemed to me like surprising levels of efficiency and with much less uncertainty vis. side effects than some of the other things mentioned in this post. Interestingly, the things I read were mostly from the British press, so I wonder if it just was missed here or if there is some issue with feasibility or credibility that turned people off in the states. And I’ve seen nothing about it recently, so while it seemed promising I now suspect it may have been falsely so. Anyone know?
I wrote Dr Schneider recently regarding his 1971 paper on aerosol cooling. He was kind enough to send me a copy of a very recent paper on geo-engineering. Conclusion: coordinated political activity over such a scale and time-line is unlikely.
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide and Aerosols: Effects of Large Increases on Global Climate
S. I. Rasool and S. H. Schneider, 1971
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/173/3992/138
Geoengineering: could we or should we make it work?
Stephen H. Schneider, 2008
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/lnt0676gl7302372/
Daniel Smith — Can you provide some links? I don’t recall seeing that news.
For all, my short essay regarding biofuels, biochar and related matters is scheduled to appear here:
http://www.icis.com/blogs/biofuels/
on Christmas Eve. In addition, Chris Rhodes hadd an essay about biochar and carbon dioxide removal here:
http://scitizen.com/
in October.
Tuesday night, Dr. Hansen was kind enough to speak at our local town center, giving a newer version of this talk, which doesn’t mention geoengineering. (see pages 31-35, especially 35 for the closest).
At dinner beforehand, we did talk some about geo-engineering as well, because somebody always asks, as others did after the talk.
Hansen certainly isn’t pushing geoengineering, just calmly observing that we may get desperate (and his talk uses pictures of several of his grandchildren, who he thinks might still be alive in 2100.) I.e., any serious geoenginnering is a last choice.
====
Personally, while I might think about the “water droplet/cloud schemes, let me observe that volcano-like sulfate creation raises the albedo in broad geographic areas, and of course takes energy to do.
Many people are planning for more use of solar power. Increasing the albedo *above* solar panels isn’t really helpful.
See realClimate #2 for details and look at the whole thread.
Based on my discussions with some climate scientists, I believe it is already too late to avoid catastrophe by _only_ reducing CO2 emissions alone (and we’re not even doing that). Like chemotherapy, geo-engineering might have bad side effects, but the alternative of not doing it will not be acceptable. I think we should spend lots on money now studying the impacts of various geo-engineering schemes so that we can make intelligent choices when the time comes (which I think will be fairly soon).
lackner’s system has some scaling problems.
other ideas strike me mostly as desperate attempts to make carbon abatement compatible with military spending.
also, the words “fairly soon” and “geo-engineering” don’t belong in the same sentence. armageddon or voyage to the bottom of the sea, this is not.
Paul Crutzen won his Nobel for doing original work in atmospheric chemistry. It is said that when he published “Albedo Enhancement By Stratospheric Sulfur Injections: A Contribution to Resolve a Policy Dilemma? An Editorial Essay” it brought the subject out of the closet, and legitimized ongoing research.
http://www.cogci.dk/news/Crutzen_albedo%20enhancement_sulfur%20injections.pdf
I heard an Australian ABC radio podcast on geoengineering. The show called up Paul Crutzen for comment. Somehow it was communicated to the show that he doesn’t speak on this topic publicly. His thoughts are in this paper. The paper ends with Paul’s comment that every other possible measure should be tried so that geoengineering of the type he discussed in his paper, i.e. stratospheric sulfur injection, would not have to take place. But:
“Currently, this looks like a pious wish”.
Richard – you contradict yourself. First you say it is really not going to work”. Then you say it could be done, but the apparent rewards do not justify the cost.
I agree with the latter position, BTW.
John, solar panels are not the only way to make electricity.
Wind, for example, has become quite affordable.
Now, please don’t think that I’m pushing the “make clouds” idea. I do not have the background to make reasonable judgments as to the effectiveness. But I am a problem solver.
Let’s say we find areas where there is significant elevation close to the ocean. Not hard here along the Pacific Coast. During the night when the winds tend to be stronger (and power demands down) we divert extra wind power into pumping ocean water into some water tanks/ponds up high.
Then during the day we “blow mist” using gravity fed water.
If this scheme has legs and would create “dimming” then we might need to put more of our green energy effort into wind and geothermal, less in solar.
On Lackner, here’s a link to a story in the Guardian last May: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/31/carbonemissions.climatechange
Apparently Wally Broeker has had some involvement and (so, of course) thinks highly of it.
??
DS
w.r.t. Lackner’s CO2 “trees”… it is necessarily going to be less efficient from both a materials and energy perspective to remove CO2 from ambient air rather than from point sources… and we haven’t even demonstrated that as economically viable yet!
We may get so desperate that we have to turn resources to schemes like this en masse. But I think we will look at biochar and afforestation first.
There was a decent discussion of this an other issues regarding CO2 capture from air, pro and con, earlier this year at RealClimate… a guest post from the author of this paper: Energy and Material Balance of CO2 Capture from Ambient Air. Comments at RealClimate worth reading as well.
If we have lit the fuse on polar carbon, and it seems we have, then we need to get serious about geoengineering.
We have the “way” but not the “will” to fix this mess without geoengineering. And what “will” does exist is only to address the margins of the problem.
And it seems to me that part the “will” problem is that the messengers aren’t credible. I mean, if the sky is falling, why are scientists, enviros etc still doing their research and press conferences (including myself in this of course)? Where’s the back to the land movement? Where’s the hair on fire? There was more civil disobedience fighting old growth forest logging.
We’re not acting like its a crisis if we’re not willing to seriously contemplate drastic action. I’m not saying geoengineering is technically needed or even that it makes good sense. But if the polar carbon is going up, the average person needs to look around and see people acting like its an existential crisis — ie contemplating drastic action.
Chris–if you want to get involved in civil disobedience on climate, please see Joe’s post from last week re: our planned event on March 2 in Washington. It looks as if it is going to draw a substantial crowd.
Humanity has been doing quite a bit of molecular geoengineering for a long long time, emitting GHGs equivalent to a Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption every 44 hours. So, I like Hashem Akbari, Art Rosenfeld’ and Surabi Menon’s comment that two simple technologies, cool roofs and
cool pavements, which have been around for thousands of
years, should be the first geoengineering techniques used
to combat global warming. Their recent article in Climatic Change presents an estimate that cumulative worldwide economic savings could exceed $1 trillion while effectively displacing the equivalent of 44 gigatons of CO2 from the atmosphere.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/LBNL-1000-2008-022/LBNL-1000-2008-022.PDF
I thought these updates and endorsements may interest you,
Sen. Ken Salazar ( NOW Secretary of Interior Salazar!) has done the most to nurse this biofuels system in his Biochar provisions in the 07 & 08 farm bill,
http://www.biochar-international.org/newinformationevents/newlegislation.html
Below are my current news & Links to major developments;
Cheers,
Erich J. Knight
540 289 9750
At USDA Dr.Jeffrey Novak is coordinating Biochar research.
I’ve had productive contacts with Douglas Lawrence, director NSCS & Farm bill coordinator, and through him, David Douds with ARS for MYC & VAM Fungi research, and Chris Nichols ARS glomalin research.
My other most successful efforts to date are continuing briefings to Michael Pollan (Food Column NYTs & author) over the last year.
In a recent National Public Radio interview, Michael Pollan talks about how he was approached by a Democratic party staffer about his New York Times article, The “Farmer & Chief” article is an open letter to the next president concerning U.S. agriculture/energy policy. The staffer wanted Pollan to summarize the article into a page or two to get it into the hands of Barack Obama. Pollan declined, saying that if he could have said everything that needed to be said in two pages, he wouldn’t have written 8000 words.
Michael Pollan is well briefed and excited about Biochar technology, but did not include it in his “Farmer & Chief” article to President Obama, (Which he did read & cited in a speech) but I’m sure Biochar will be his 8001th word to him.
Changing World Technologies
Ultimately we must leave the combustion age behind. Charcoal to the soil is a bridging first step as other energy conversion technologies bloom from Nano and bio research . Thankfully we can do Terra Preta (TP) soil with off the shelf technology now.
Oil companies must come to see the overwhelming value of their fossil carbon as the best feedstock for the manufacture ( via carbon nanotubes, fullerines, DNA programed nano self assembly, etc.) of virtually all things in the near future.
This convergences of different technologies will end the Combustion age.
TP starts as a soil nano technology with increased CEC, than a micro technology with our wee- beasties / fungus, and macro with bugs and worms.
Biochar, the modern version of an ancient Amazonian agricultural practice called Terra Preta (black earth), is gaining widespread credibility as a way to address world hunger, climate change, rural poverty, deforestation, and energy shortages… SIMULTANEOUSLY!
Modern Pyrolysis of biomass is a process for Carbon Negative Bio fuels, massive Carbon sequestration,10X Lower Methane & N2O soil emissions, and 3X Fertility Too.
Every 1 ton of Biomass yields 1/3 ton Charcoal for soil Sequestration, Bio-Gas & Bio-oil fuels, so is a totally virtuous, carbon negative energy cycle.
Charles Mann (“1491″) in the Sept. National Geographic has a wonderful soils article which places Terra Preta / Biochar soils center stage.
Please put this (soil) bug in your colleague’s ears. These issues need to gain traction among all the various disciplines who have an iron in this fire.
The NGM cover reads “WHERE FOOD BEGINS”
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/soil/mann-text
It’s what Mann hasn’t covered that I thought should interest you
NASA’s Dr. James Hansen Global warming solutions paper and letter to the G-8 conference, placing Biochar / Land management the central technology for carbon negative energy systems.
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf
The many new university programs & field studies, in temperate soils; Cornell, ISU, U of H, U of GA, Virginia Tech, JMU, New Zealand, Germany and Australia.
Biochar data base;
http://terrapreta.bioenergylists.org/?q=node
Glomalin’s role in soil tilth, fertility & basis for the soil food web in Terra Preta soils.
POZNAN, Poland, December 10, 2008 – The International Biochar Initiative (IBI) announces that the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) has submitted a proposal to include biochar as a mitigation and adaptation technology to be considered in the post-2012-Copenhagen agenda of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). A copy of the proposal is posted on the IBI website at
The International Biochar Initiative (IBI).
Given the current “Crisis” atmosphere concerning energy, soil sustainability, food vs. Biofuels, and Climate Change what other subject addresses them all?
This is a Nano technology for the soil that represents the most comprehensive, low cost, and productive approach to long term stewardship and sustainability.
Carbon to the Soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
If pre-Colombian Kayopo Indians could produce these soils up to 6 feet deep over 15% of the Amazon basin using “Slash & CHAR” verses “Slash & Burn”, it seems that our energy and agricultural industries could also product them at scale.
Harnessing the work of this vast number of microbes and fungi changes the whole equation of energy return over energy input (EROEI) for food and Bio fuels. I see this as the only sustainable agricultural strategy if we no longer have cheap fossil fuels for fertilizer.
We need this super community of wee-beasties to work in concert with us by populating them into their proper Soil horizon Carbon Condos.
Erich J. Knight
Shenandoah Gardens
1047 Dave Berry Rd.
McGaheysville, VA. 22840
(540) 289-9750
shengar@aol.com
Total CO2 Equivalence:
Once a commercial bagged soil amendment product, every suburban household can do it,
The label can tell them of their contribution, a 40# bag = 150# CO2 = 160 bags / year to cover my personal CO2 emissions. ( 20,000 #/yr , 1/2 Average )
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/emissions/ind_calculator.html
But that is just the Carbon!
I have yet to find a total CO2 equivalent number taking consideration against some average field N2O & CH4 emissions. The New Zealand work shows 10X reductions. As biochar proves to be effective at reducing nutrient run-off from agricultural soils, then there will accordingly be a reduction in downstream N2O emissions.
This ACS study implicates soil structure as main connection to N2O soil emissions;
http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Paper41955.html
Biochar Studies at ACS Huston meeting;
578-I: http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4231.html
579-II http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4496.html
665 – III. http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4497.html
666-IV http://a-c-s.confex.com/crops/2008am/webprogram/Session4498.html
Most all this work corroborates char soil dynamics we have seen so far . The soil GHG emissions work showing increased CO2 , also speculates that this CO2 has to get through the hungry plants above before becoming a GHG.
The SOM, MYC& Microbes, N2O (soil structure), CH4 , nutrient holding , Nitrogen shock, humic compound conditioning, absorbing of herbicides all pretty much what we expected to hear.
Company News & EU Certification
Below is an important hurtle that 3R AGROCARBON has overcome in certification in the EU. Given that their standards are set much higher than even organic certification in the US, this work should smooth any bureaucratic hurtles we may face.
EU Permit Authority – 4 years tests
Subject: Fwd: [biochar] Re: GOOD NEWS: EU Permit Authority – 4 years tests successfully completed
Doses: 400 kg / ha – 1000 kg / ha at different horticultural cultivars
Plant height Increase 141 % versus control
Picking yield Increase 630 % versus control
Picking fruit Increase 650 % versus control
Total yield Increase 202 % versus control
Total piece of fruit Increase 171 % versus control
Fruit weight Increase 118 % versus control
There is list of the additional beneficial effects of the 3R FORMULATED BIOCHAREU DOSSIER for permit administration and summary of the results from 4 different Authorities who executed different test programme is under construction
I suggest these independent and accredited EU relevant Authority permit field tests results will support the further development of the biochar application systems on international level, and providing case evidence, that properly made and formulated (plant and/or animal biomass based) biochars can meet the modern environmental – agricultural – human health inspection standards and norm, while supporting the knowledge based economical development.
We work further on to expand not only in the EU but in the USA as well. My Cincinnati large scale carbonization project is progressing, hopefully the first industrial scale 3R clean coal – carbon plant will be ready in 2009.
Sincerely yours: Edward Someus (environmental engineer)
HOMEPAGE 3R AGROCARBON: http://www.3ragrocarbon.com
http://www.terrenum.net
EMAIL 1: edward@terrenum.net
EMAIL 2: edward.someus@gmail.com
Also:
October 28, 2008
U.S. Department of Agriculture to Evaluate CQuest™ Biochar
Non-Funded Cooperative Agreement Signed
The objective of the biochar research is to quantify the effects of amending soils with CQuest™ Biochar on crop productivity, soil quality, carbon sequestration and water quality. Field trials will involve incorporation of biochar in replicated field plots and on-farm strip trials with monitoring of crop yields, soil quality, water quality, emissions of greenhouse gasses, and soil carbon sequestration. Laboratory studies will involve amending soils with biochar and quantifying changes in soil quality and microbial activity during incubations.
Biochar will be shipped from Dynamotive’s West Lorne facility to Agricultural Research Service (ARS) locations in Iowa, South Carolina, Idaho, Washington, and other ARS locations. Initial results are expected during the 2009 growing season.
http://www.dynamotive.com/en/biooil/biochar_tests.html
“Is global warming preventing an Ice Age?”
This head line, at first glance, may feed the global warming denier’s rationals, but in fact this work confirms man’s lucky, unintentional consequence of putting the earth to the plow and producing a warm, stable climate for his civilization to prosper.
The carbon transfered from biosphere to atmosphere, now needing to be reversed, could find no better sanctuary than the earth from which most of it came.
Why I love Biochar.
“The controversial idea—first proposed by University of Virginia climatologist William F. Ruddiman—is based on the contention that human-induced global warming started long before it’s generally accepted to have begun.
The common wisdom is that the advent of the steam engine and the coal-fueled industrial age two centuries ago marked the beginning of human influence on global climate. But Kutzbach and likeminded scientists contend it really started thousands of years ago with large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.’
http://www.world-science.net/othernews/081217_warming.htm
Okay, I realize that there are a lot of negative effects to global warming. Stronger storms, higher flooding and higher drought, higher seas displacing people. It sounds to me like while this is something we want to work hard to avoid, it’s not something that the species as a whole can’t adapt to. Yes, it may change life as we know it, but life will go on.
However, some of the geoengineering scenarios I have seen threaten to upset the balance of life in the oceans. As far as I’m aware, the ocean ecosystem is the base of the life that keeps humans alive.
Yes, global warming is bad, but is it so bad to risk “killing” the ocean?
Michael – don’t forget the ozone hole. We engineered it. And we’re engineering the closing of it.
economics-economics-economics has everybody tongue-tied and money people think today is forever. good thing switching to sustainable practices is the better money path. too bad money people aren’t really interested in superior, durable routes to prosperity… they don’t want to go there, prosperity is too physical… they can already feel the imperfections crowding out potential gains.…
severely “clouded” judgment up on olympus.…
The disappearance of cheap petroleum should drive us into the land of sustainability and the money people are going to have to make the trip with the rest of us.
We’ll still need credit and a mechanism for making our investment money grow after we start getting most of our electricity from wind and solar.
And we’ll still make and insure new cars after they’ve kicked the pump and started sucking from the cord.
Just as soon as those sort of activities get a little better established we’ll see the money people rushing to get their cut.
Or have we already? Pickens and his wind farm. Buffett and his 9% ownership of Chinese PHEV/BEV maker BYD….
I attended AGU, and there were a number of eye openers. Most relevant to this debate is the Arctic problem. More than anything, this will necessitate the use of geoengineering. Here is the problem:
#1: The Arctic sea ice is the crux
The Arctic sea ice is melting much more rapidly than anyone expected last year. No reader of this blog is unaware of that. However, what happens when the sea ice is gone?
In one of the Arctic Sea Ice sessions, David Lawrence shows how rapid melting of the sea ice sets up a feedback loop that also rapidly melts arctic permafrost. His models show that within 100 years, all of the permafrost also melts.
#2: The permafrost carbon reservoir is scary large.
There were a number of sessions on the store of organic carbon and methane buried in permafrost, which will release rapidly upon thawing of the permafrost. It takes about 100 years for organic carbon in permafrost to be fully released as methane, and methane clathrates release probably much faster than that. Estimates of the size of the total carbon reservoir vary widely (it is one of the great unknowns, and not even included in the IPCC carbon inventory). However, it seems that there is at least 1000 GtC in organic carbon and another 1000 GtC in methane clathrates. I saw one talk that suggests the inventory is closer to 8000 GtC – I try not to think about that.
#3 A 2000 GtC release from permafrost within the next 200 years is “game over”.
Do the math yourself… convert C to CO2 (multiply by 3.67), and then CO2 to CH4 (multiply by 24). Divide by the historic total of human CO2 emissions (1,800 GtCO2). The total CO2-equivalent release equals 98 times the total CO2 emissions by humans since the Industrial Revolution. At this point, it doesn’t matter how much we reduce current annual CO2 emissions over the next 20 years.
#4 Geoengineering is the only way to save the Arctic sea ice
Reducing emissions isn’t going to do it, as we’ve already passed the tipping point of the sea ice (as Jim Hansen said in his talk, and many other talks). Sadly, the IPCC reports that Arctic sea ice will disappear sometime around 2080, but we now know that it is a wildly non-linear process and will disappear probably within ten years. We need to change the radiative forcing balance of the Arctic asap, probably within the next few years, because once the ice is gone, not even the most drastic geoengineering can get it back. That is the “game over” scenario. We had better start figuring out how to do geoengineering right.
[JR: This is a toughie, for sure. If you don't do the mitigation, then 1) the geo-engineering task becomes unimaginably big and 2) you turn the ocean into a large dead zone for millennia.]
I think all of the measures JR advocates, targeting 80% CO2 emissions reductions by various means starting with efficiency, are necessary conditions for climate stabilization. The problem is, I’m not certain these measures are *sufficient*. I’m not a fan of geoengineering, but if all other measures prove insufficient, what other choice do we have?
The real danger of geoengineering (as with all technical solutions to human problems) is that many people will be tempted to view geoengineering as the primary solution, and overlook the need for other measures like efficiency, conservation, and demand reduction.
Agreed, Kevin. This is the most pressing logic to pursue geoengineering research (not deployment!) right now. And why a number of very smart scientists, including Ken Caldeira of Stanford and David Keith at U. of Calgary, are pushing for federal research dollars for geo. (BTW, every responsible scientist that I’ve ever heard talk about geo, including Ken and David, make it very clear that first priority is all-out push cut emissions.)
There are numerous ideas about how to save (and even restore) the arctic beyond full-scale stratospheric aerosol program, including modest regional aerosols and cloud brightening. Among other things, because of polar winter, would only have to be carried out a few months of the year to have a large impact. Changing albedo in arctic is a big task, but not unimaginably big, and don’t have same ocean impacts etc as planetary aerosol program. Given what’s at stake, hard to argue that we shouldn’t be exploring all options — why take geo research off the table before we have a better understanding of costs and consequences?.
Since I started this thread, I feel obliged to comment on the other comments here, and my comment is: what Kevin Whilden said. The Arctic sea ice loss triggering massive positive feedbacks of methane emission must be avoided at all costs. If the sea ice loss wasn’t projected for seven years from now (or less), I wouldn’t be talking about geoengineering; but it is. And mitigation has to be carried out in concert with geoengineering, or we have a cool Arctic and acidified ocean by 2030, which is also a catastrophe. And geoengineering has to be done in a deliberate (though timely) step-at-a-time way, to make sure it works, doesn’t create worse problems, and is reversible if it does. But if we don’t cautiously make small trials now of the best schemes (targeted to the the Arctic, as I said before), I’m very afraid we’ll panic in 5 years or so, and try something without caution or care. And even that may be better than just waiting for the clathrate bomb to go off. I know you hate the idea, Joe, but the news from the Arctic gets worse all the time. I think we’ll have to move on _all_ fronts–now.
Joe, you replied to Kevin by saying:
[JR: This is a toughie, for sure. If you don’t do the mitigation, then 1) the geo-engineering task becomes unimaginably big and 2) you turn the ocean into a large dead zone for millennia.]
You missed his point unless you thought he was abandoning the mitigation efforts as well.!
We are likely going to see LOSS OF ARCTIC SEA ICE in the next ten years.
I did not read that Kevin is throwing out a challenge that abandons mitigation:
[Geoengineering is the only way to save the Arctic sea ice.
Reducing emissions isn’t going to do it, as we’ve already passed the tipping point of the sea ice (as Jim Hansen said in his talk, and many other talks].
Give him a better response than clinging to mitigation as the only answer.
You said:
[If you don’t do the mitigation, then 1) the geo-engineering task becomes unimaginably big and 2) you turn the ocean into a large dead zone for millennia.]
Kevin is looking at the train coming at him. And you are looking at regulations to slow the train down.
I am not an advocate of geoengineering but I am not blind to looking at the reality of positive feedbacks from no-ice Arctic CO2 and CH4 feedbacks.
Al Gore was wrong about blowing off adaptation as a cop-out. People who blow off geoengineering ANY possible slowdown of Arctic meltback are wrong as well.
Maybe it is all too late but I have not reqached that point. Instead, I am open to listening to very frightening ideas such as Kevin broached.
John McCormick
[JR: Well, I have promised a series of posts on geo-engineering. The honest reply to his post is that there is no chance whatsoever we will do geo-engineering anytime soon. Seriously folks -- to contemplate the possibility of geo-engineering you must first accept the scientific understanding that what is happening now is due to human actions (and thus not cyclical) and that things are going to get much, much worse if we don't act. If the people who run the world excepted that scientific understanding -- then we would have a WWII-style mitigation strategy. The fact that we don't tells you that the people who run the world don't accept that understanding.
That is slowly starting to change, but the threshold of understanding you must accept to contemplate geo-engineering is far beyond that needed to pursue aggressive mitigation. Indeed, the geo-engineering schemes are based on exceedingly little data and incredibly simplistic models, compared to the science behind good old-fashioned mitigation, which is based on reams of incontrovertible data and many sophisticated models. Plus, mitigation is undoing what we are doing to the climate. It is like drinking less poison.
Geo-engineering is like drinking a different poison that some people hope will counteract the first one and not do additional damage. No one has the analytical capability to say geo-engineering will help more than it will hurt. And I've seen no analysis that convinces me there are any tests that could plausibly be done anytime soon that could change that judgment.]
Bill McKibben, before you go charging up to Capitol Hill to demand the Congress shut down its heating and cooling plant you owa it to your minions and we tax payers to spell out what is the economic alternative to that plant.
The 111th Congress and the American public hardly need theatrics in the opening days ot the great climae change debate. We need engineering specs to define the alternative and what it will cost.
You owe it to your following not to be led into a futile campaign that has no benefit.
John McCormick
What someone might have said a year or two ago might not be operable as new data hits the table.
OK, looks like we’ve got to speed things up much faster than most of us suspected. Geo-engineering, like anything, can have unintended consequences, so we might not want to start anything that can’t be reversed.
What have we got right now that we can start and likely not regret?
White/light roofs.
Can always turn those roofs dark if for some strange reason we might need to. Use a combination of tax credits/rapid depreciation/regulations along with an educational program to get roofs turning white. Light colored foam on flat roofs would be a multiple-gain fix.
Reforestation.
There’s a body of evidence that reforestation caused the Little Ice Age. (Interesting read – http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218094551.htm )
I love solutions that fix multiple problems at the same time. Just like light colored foam roofs could.
I seem to remember that reforestation close to the equator works better than planting at higher elevations.
We’ve got a lot of political problems in Northern Africa at this time. There’s lots of thinking that if people had more jobs there would be less discontent.
We know how to desalinate water. And how to do it with solar/wind energy. Lots of solar in North Africa.
What if we set up a massive reforestation project along those areas where civilization emerged and which too many people turned to desert? We get a lot of trees/plants working on the warming problem and lots of busy, happier people liking us better.
We could even get bio-fuel production going. For the foreseeable future we are going to need liquid fuels for air travel. Better to pump nuts into the fuel tanks than de-sequester more carbon.
(A Virgin Atlantic jumbo jet flew from London to Amsterdam with one of its fuel tanks filled with a bio-jet blend including babassu oil and coconut oil.)
Richard: “Seems a little like the manned mission to Mars — lots of plans on paper, maybe even a little trial effort, but it is really not going to work.”
Bob: “Richard, we sent people to the Moon a few times.
We’ve got rovers running around the surface of Mars.
Seems like we have the know-how. It’s just a question of wanting to do it badly enough.”
I’m not a scientist, but I follow space science topics enough to be an AGU Planetary Sciences member. In the space fields “geoengineering” is known as “terraforming” thought experiments (i.e. “could we some day make Venus or Mars like Earth?”, which is related to the interesting question “what happened to make Venus and Mars the way they are?”)
NASA actually has a major effort right now to get astronauts back to the Moon and eventually to Mars. After the Space Shuttle Columbia accident, it was widely agreed the things they were doing weren’t worth the risk to life and financial cost involved. The Bush Administration decided exploration of the solar system would be worth the risk and cost. The goals of exploration were to promote science, security, economics, commercial space involvement, and international involvement in a financially sustainable way. Although I certainly don’t think that’s the only useful approach, I do think it’s a good one, and much better than the Shuttle.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/space/renewed_spirit.html
The implementation has, shall we say, left a few things to be desired.
Imagine solving the climate problem with a single government-run windmill with blades the mass of the Sears Tower, and a single government solar panel the size of Houston, and you get the idea.
Essentially what NASA has decided to do is to spend (depending on how you do your accounting) about half of its budget (when the Shuttle is gone) building 2 new, expensive rockets. Presumably these could get astronauts to the Moon and Mars in a few decades. However, the reasons for doing the thing in the first place (economics, security, science, commercial space, international cooperation) have been ignored. The science and national security communities don’t need huge expensive rockets or variants of existing rockets. There is virtually no commercial or international participation in the NASA rockets – it’s a standard cost-plus contract, big aerospace government-run effort. There is no effort to “live off the land” or do anything else with efficiency or cost-effectiveness in mind. Even if it works I suspect it will be cancelled like Apollo was because it will be too expensive.
There are a lot of things NASA could be doing instead with that huge government rocket budget:
- give incentives to rocket companies (existing EELV rockets and/or new commercial ones) to solve the astronaut transportation problem. NASA already has a $500M incentive that’s getting 2 companies to develop cargo transportation to the Space Station after the Shuttle is gone (compared to $100B+ (!!!) for 1 NASA Station/Moon transportation system).
- do a more thorough survey of the Moon (science, engineering, in-situ resource utilization demos, etc) using cheap robotics (in the style of commercial space or NASA Ames) so we have a better idea what we’d do if we go back (and to give time for space infrastructure like cheap launches, propellant depots, and space tugs to make the whole thing affordable).
This would leave a tremendous amount of funding left over for NASA efforts in the environment/energy fields:
- traditional NASA Earth Science missions and analysis (for starters tackle the National Academies recommendations for NASA Earth Science and Applications from Space)
- make a similar effort with the NASA’s planetary and solar science missions, directing the new efforts squarely at comparisons with Earth (climate, etc)
- make full use of upcoming non-traditional commercially-based capabilities for Earth science, like suborbital rockets that are affordable and have plane-like turnaround times, new generations of “smallsats”, “hosted payloads” of science instruments on commercial comsats, etc
- adequately fund NASA aeronautics efforts for fuel-efficient planes and air traffic management
- fund NASA R&D and demos of new technologies that help make satellites and astronauts more productive and efficient, like tugs, propellant depots, tethers, satellite servicing, new science instruments. Much of this could have energy or environment implications (eg: efficient power generation or use on space systems, recycling in astronaut life support systems, etc)
- direct some NASA space station (ISS or commercial station) use toward energy and environmental applications and research
- if another job for astronauts is needed worthy of risking their lives, perhaps start a new line of NASA (or NOAA, international, etc) environmental satellites that can be serviced by astronauts, sort of like the Hubble Space telescope. Fund it out of the human spaceflight budget
- upgrade NASA’s infrastructure, including buildings, vehicles, etc, for energy efficiency
The budgets of the NASA rockets are so large in comparison with the other NASA efforts that I suspect that all of this could be done if the trade were made.
The countries of the immediate sub-Sahara, the Sahel across to Horn of Africa, would very much like to plant billions of trees. This would not cost very much and would immediately help a little globally as well as a lot locally.
re: reforestration (Bob Wallace)
Yes, this is one of Bill Ruddiman’s hypotheses in “Plows, Plagues and Petroleum” and related journal papers, which I heartily recommend. Still a hypothesis, but evidence is starting to pile up, making it a wonderful example of the way *real* science works in practice.
re: albedo engineering: again, we want to be careful. There are places we want sun [to drive solar PV, solar thermal, winds, and help plants grow], and there are places where we could happily raise the albedo and lose nothing.
John McCormick Says:
Bill McKibben a response is in order!
Before you go charging up to Capitol Hill to demand the Congress shut down its heating and cooling plant you owe it to your followers and we tax payers to spell out what is the economic alternative to that plant.
The 111th Congress and the American public hardly need theatrics in the opening days ot the great climae change debate. We need engineering specs to define the alternative and what it will cost.
John McCormick
Perhaps we should raise albedo in some parts of the world at some times of the year.
Nice thing about Ace’s idea is that we could set up local systems for little money and turn them on/off as desired. Perhaps we need to spray close to the polar areas during their winter, for example. Cool them down, refreeze the ice and permafrost.
If there’s any chance of this working it’s so much easier and quicker to implement that building forests of carbon capturing artificial trees or blasting huge sheets of mylar into space. (Not that we should quit investigating those ideas….)
And it should be easy to stop if something untold starts happening. We quit, clouds rain out, go back to the drawing board.
http://www.physorg.com/news148887530.html
I do like simple solutions. When they work….
John,
I agree with Bill McKibben that it’s time for concened citizens to make the symbolic gesture of asking Congress to set a good example for all of us, by leading the charge away from the use of coal for generating electricity.
Yes, there is a time for economics, but this is not one of those times.
Too many Americans, who don’t read this blog, still think that climate change is just a ‘feel good’ cause–like recycling. It’s time for action.
Joe,
I’m glad my comments generated interesting discussion. I should have prefaced them with the standard disclaimer about emissions reductions being absolutely necessary, and that they need to happen faster and deeper than currently proposed by politicians. There are no serious proposals that geoengineering could replace the need to reduce emissions, but there are serious proposals that it could buy time to reduce emissions while averting climate catastrophe.
The point of my post was to state the reasons why emission reductions alone is no longer a sufficient policy response, by illustrating the Arctic time bomb scenario. Even if you aren’t sure of the science behind this, I assure you that it is solid enough that the precautionary principle mandates that we at least research geoengineering in earnest. Another point I will make is that I believe only in geoengineering research, and we are not yet ready for wide scale deployment today — but we need to become ready quickly.
In responding to your comments earlier:
[JR: Well, I have promised a series of posts on geo-engineering. The honest reply to his post is that there is no chance whatsoever we will do geo-engineering anytime soon.]
I believe that as the magnitude of “unintentional geoengineering” from CO2 emissions becomes widely known, I hope that our policy leaders (e.g. Obama and our wonderful scientific establishment) decide to seriously study geoengineering. I’m firmly convinced that we have no alternative to including geoengineering in the suite of policy resposes to climate change (e.g. emission reductions, adaptation, social change, etc…)
[Indeed, the geo-engineering schemes are based on exceedingly little data and incredibly simplistic models, compared to the science behind good old-fashioned mitigation, which is based on reams of incontrovertible data and many sophisticated models.]
I beg to differ with you on this. There is an extraordinary amount of data and research on geoegineering. Ocean Iron Fertilization is the most well-researched technique and has had 12 open-ocean field trials plus numerous studies of natural iron-stimulated blooms. There are over 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers published on OIF, and recent fully coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM models with ecological and biogeochemical compoents (e.g. “highly sophisticated”) suggest that a global program of OIF could remove from 30-100 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere within 100 years. Those numbers are pretty good, eh?
Albedo modification techniques have had no field trials, other than the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, which cooled the Earth substantially for two years. However there are some quite sophisticated models using the same models cited by the IPCC. These suggest that good potential for efficacy, although serious questions remain on the delivery techniques.
[Plus, mitigation is undoing what we are doing to the climate. It is like drinking less poison.]
My premise is that we’ve already ingested a fatal dose of poison, and we need to drink an antidote to go along with stopping the drinking of more poison. :)
[Geo-engineering is like drinking a different poison that some people hope will counteract the first one and not do additional damage. No one has the analytical capability to say geo-engineering will help more than it will hurt. And I’ve seen no analysis that convinces me there are any tests that could plausibly be done anytime soon that could change that judgment.]
Geoengineering is not poison. It mimics natural processes that remove CO2 and reduce radiative forcing. Ocean Iron Fertilization enhances the “biological pump”, which is a continously active process for removing CO2 today. At present, total biological productivity in the oceans is about 40 GtC/yr, with 9 GtC/yr being exported to the deep ocean. A program of global OIF would increase total productivity to 60 GtC/yr with 12 GtC/yr being exported. This simulates an Ice Age conditions, when dust flux is 20 times greater than today, and new models are showing that this enhanced fertilization of the biological pump is the primary cause for the majority of glacial CO2 atmospheric reductions.
Likewise, albedo modification enhances a natural process. Volcanic eruptions cool the Earth, much like stratospheric aerosols, while marine could seeing enhances the natural process of the formation of marine clouds.
There is no apriori reason why geonengineering would cause more harm than good. There are many good scientific arguments on how more research could answer the important questions on efficacy and environmental impacts of large scale deployment, although I should probably write an article on the subject rather than put it here. :)
Kevin Whilden
PS. I can provide citations for any of my arguments if anyone so desires.
[JR: Oh, an OIF guy. OIF is not geo-engineering in my book any more than cellulosic ethanol or reforestation is.
And so many leading oceanographers oppose that strategy, as I've blogged. Maybe the science isn't so rock solid. Anyway, I'll blog on this all later. There are lots of apriori reasons why geonengineering would do more harm than good. #1: Our first attempts at geo-engineering have proven catastrophic. #2. No controlled experiment is possible.]
Yes poison………….and if I may extend the metaphor; what does one do to remediate ingestion …….why Charcoal of course.
I hope it will be Secretary of Interior Salazar’s prescription for what ails us.
The Only Carbon Negative energy system.
Farmers should embrace carbon taxes, since Farming is Carbon Management: they have the greatest ability to capture and store it. No till practices are now granted carbon credits for increases in soil carbon content. Increased soil carbon means increased yields.
Virginia Tech, JMU and several other major universities & companies are doing soil trials now that will super charge the soil food webs. By amending soils with charcoal or “biochar”. “Biochar” is produced from all type of biomass waste after the gases and bio-oils are extracted with pyrolysis (ie heating with no oxygen). The oil and gas are bio-fuels, the biochar becomes a massive carbon condominium for beneficial microbes and fungi in the soil food web. The results to date show yield increases of 50-100%,and has been certified by the European Union.
This amendment is unlike any other in that it is biologically inactive and remains in the soil for thousands of years. If American farmers were paid what the Europeans pay out in carbon taxes they would receive $500 for every ton of biochar spread on their fields. The increased yields…icing on their black earth cake.
Carbon back to the soil, the only ubiquitous and economic place to put it.
Erich J. Knight
540 289 9750
The First bagged Char product I’ve seen;
I spoke with Jon Nilsson of the CarbonChar Group, in their third year of field trials ;
An idea whose time has come | Carbon Char Group
He said the 2008 trials at Virginia Tech showed a 46% increase in yield of tomato transplants grown with just 2 – 5 cups (2 – 5%) “Biochar+” per cubic foot of growing medium.
“Biochar+” is available now only with orders of four pallets ( 4 tons )
40 – 50# bags / pallet @ $50 per bag = $2000 / ton
Given the terrifying climate news that Joe has been posting the last few days and months (rapid Arctic sea ice loss, ice sheets melting, SLR, and methane release) it is no big surprise that Joe’s readers are considering possible geo-engineering technologies.
But remember, we’ve had heavy resistance to implementing the sensible mitigation strategies, even though most of them, like efficiency, are profitable now, and the rest, like wind and solar, will be profitable soon. And simple conservation (turning out lights, buying a smaller house or TV) always saves money upfront.
Geo-engineering is just a cost. It would mean governments spending money, under some kind of global, international governance. We will need some pretty sharp rhetorical skills to convince republicans, and skeptics of all stripes, to get on board that program.
Maybe the most terrifying aspect of runaway global warming is how disasterous it would have to get before enough people would support such massive global spending.
And my 2 cents: geo-engineering is poison. How well can you predict side-effects when your one and only experimental subject is Planet Earth. Makes it kind of hard to do multiple double-blind trials, doesn’t it. Of course the same argument holds for infusing the atmosphere and oceans with gigatons of carbon, but which sceptics have pointed that out?
Mark – sometimes you just have to haul off and take your best shot.
Some of the purposed solutions are easily reversed. Paint flat roofs black. Cut down trees. Quit squirting water into the air. Stop making biochar.
Plus it’s very hard to see how white roofs, more trees at low latitudes, or new clouds might have side effects. (We’ll have a lot more biochar data soon.)
So you lead off early with the things that seem safest and monitor carefully.
We might end up using some very risky stuff because there’s no time/way to thoroughly test it. Sort of like standing on the edge of a roof and having a choice of attempting a jump to the next rooftop or waiting for the homicidal maniac to catch you.
Or would you like the “you’re dying from the poison, now do you take the experimental cure or die?” version….
Joe,
Some comments below…
[JR: Oh, an OIF guy. OIF is not geo-engineering in my book any more than cellulosic ethanol or reforestation is.]
How do you define geoengineering? I define it as an intentional large scale manipulation of the environmental with the goal of producing environmental change. This would include OIF, albedo modification techniques, large scale afforestation, and anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It would not include cellulosic ethanol, unless large areas of landscape were converted to croplands that were normally fallow or wilderness.
[And so many leading oceanographers oppose that strategy, as I’ve blogged. Maybe the science isn’t so rock solid. Anyway, I’ll blog on this all later.]
I think you overestimate how many oceanographers are against OIF. I just checked out your posts on OIF. You list two scientific references, a very old 2001 *policy* editorial from Science Magazine (which are not peer-reviewed), and which was promptly and resoundingly criticized by other oceanographers in Science a few months later (see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/296/5567/467b). I think most leading oceanographers would agree that the Chisolm et al 2001 editorial is not representative of the majority opinion on the viability of OIF. Here’s a 2008 Science editorial written by a “who’s who” of oceanographers that argues strongly in favor of continued research into both the efficacy and environmental effects of OIF (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/319/5860/162?rss=1).
Regarding the statement by SOLAS, which is a credible organzation, there are many other groups and scientists that argue in favor of continued research into OIF because of the significant potential as a carbon mitigation strategy. These are the International Oceanographic Commission (http://www.imo.org/includes/blastData.asp/doc_id=9154/2-2.pdf), SCOR/GESAMP (http://www.scor-int.org/SCOR-GESAMP.pdf), and the UN’s London Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution in the Ocean which just recently ruled that OIF research is not required to be permitted, thus greatly facilitating the ability of scientists to conduct research.
Also, in 2008, nearly a dozen different peer-reviewed scientific articles were published that call for continued research into OIF. Here’s the most prestigious article:
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/t6x58746951336m1/fulltext.pdf
[There are lots of apriori reasons why geonengineering would do more harm than good. #1: Our first attempts at geo-engineering have proven catastrophic. #2. No controlled experiment is possible.]
Regarding #2, it is possible to do controlled experiments now. Small to moderate scale experiments pose no threat, and have already been conducted. These experiments provide data for models to predict outcomes. At this juncture, we have no other choice, since the greatest uncontrolled experiment in geologic history is being conducted right now.
Regarding #1, some human societies have had significant success at geoengineering. Native Americans regularly lit fires throughout their domain as a way to increase biological productivity. The resulting “indian black earth” is still prized even today. This most certainly qualifies as effective geoengineering in my book. Of course, Western society has a much much worse track record, but our backs are against the wall and we have no other choice but change our ways. As an optimist, I believe that good science can lead the way. If not, our goose is cooked one way or the other.
Joe, I do appreciate the time and thought you put into this blog and your reply to me and Kevin affirms that.
But Kevin’s calling Artic ice meltback an *Arctic time bomb* shifts the discussion about selective geo-engineering in the Arctic many degrees farther out there.
Assume the AGU presentations about leaking CH4 and CO2 are valid and based upon very limited spacial observation and measurement. In that case, we only know there is a strange hiss coming from the boiler pipe. We do not know the boiler is about to explode in our face. One *geo-engineering* response would be rapid shut down and boiler replacement (huge costs and complaints) and elimination of any fallback approach which could include lowering the pressure, isolating the leak, replacing or welding the pipe then resuming boiler operation with appropriate pressure gages, ambulances etc in place.
I have no clue what kind of ideas time and money could devise to tackle permafrost melt in the Arctic but I would like to hear some ideas over the time it will take the US to get a solid 60 vote majority of pro-mitigation Senators to ram through the 80% by 2050 bill.
That is Kevin’s proposal as I read his comments and he is not pushing Kool-Aide at us. Serious cancers might be treated by conventional measures but the patient is always wanting and deserving more; even if the risks are greater.
An Arctic time bomb is the worst possible scenario. It is the show stopper. We unplug the heart monitor and enter time of death.
I am willing to support selective therapy for the Arctic permafrost while we wail the heck out of the deniers and push developing countries into ultimate negotiation of a 350 ppm century-long strategy.
It will be easy to reject the reflector tape ideas while other ideas are worthy of limited testing with international approval and funding.
In the final analysis there may be no realistic way to defuse the timebomb and we deserve to know that as well. At least the world will, in addition to mitigation efforts, be focusing time and attention on this draconian approach for the basic reason that we collectively know the boiler is about to blow.
John McCormick
Geo-engineering is like drinking a different poison that some people hope will counteract the first one and not do additional damage. No one has the analytical capability to say geo-engineering will help more than it will hurt.
I like the SACTCAR versus BTRO categorization. Romm is falsely suggesting that only SACTCAR solutions have been demonstrated. However, BTRO solutions have also been mentioned in these very pages, so it would appear Romm has become irrelevant.
[JR: Since not one person in a million (billion?) what those acronyms stand for, it is your comment that is irrelevant. If you are going to post here, you'll need to do better than that.]
I don’t use a definition of geo-engineering that covers most if not all mitigation.
What is the point of “I define it as an intentional large scale manipulation of the environmental with the goal of producing environmental change. This would include OIF, albedo modification techniques, large scale afforestation, and anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It would not include cellulosic ethanol, unless large areas of landscape were converted to croplands that were normally fallow or wilderness.”
But as I have blogged many times, all serious mitigation strategies are enormously large scale. What would be the point of doing cellulose ethanol or micro-algae if it couldn’t deliver at least a wedge? If large-scale anthropogenic CO2 emissions are geoengineering, than why isn’t 2000 GW of wind? You are intercepting and altering the wind on a large scale.
Sorry, I think your definition renders the term meaningless. It seems to me that if the primary (indeed overwhelming) purpose of a strategy is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or greenhouse gas concentrations then it is greenhouse gas mitigation. From my perspective, if the primary purpose of a strategy is GHG mitigation, then it makes little sense to also call it Geo-engineering. Heck, why not call it adaptation, too?
Hi John,
Thanks for your comments. I think there is little that can be done with Arctic situation other than changing the radiative forcing balance in the Arctic. The “Ice-albedo feedback effect” means that we have little time in which to fix the problem, because ice loss accelerates non-linearly. This is a fundamental phenomenon in the cryosphere, where glaciers, ice sheets, sea ice, etc… all melt much faster than they grow. Ice reflects large amounts of sunlight back into space, however once ice retreat begins, warming accelerates as dark warm surfaces are exposed beneath the ice. This makes ice retreat a highly non-linear process and very hard to predict, particularly with models that have difficulty modeling non-linear processes. At AGU, David Lawrence showed that his models can simulate the rapid non-linear melting observed in 2007, but that they didn’t show it happening until about a decade from now. So melting is accelerating in the Arctic.
The only way we can change radiative forcing in the Arctic is through geoengineering such as stratospheric aerosols, marine cloud seeding, or maybe this new technique of evaporative cooling. None of these are guaranteed to work, but we cannot afford not to investigate them because a solution is desperately needed.
Joe, I think the definition of geoengineering needs to incorporate not only the end-result of the technique, but also issues related to governance and ethics. The large-scale nature of *individual projects* greatly complicates governance and ethics issues, requiring a new approach to the problem (and hence a new term).
Even though ocean iron fertilization (OIF) has an effect essentially identical to other CO2 mitigation techniques, it has non-carbon effects that are international in scope. It is certainly possible that OIF, as well as albedo modification techniques, will have an overall global benefit, while causing a smaller negative impact on entire countries. These issues are not generally faced in carbon mitigation and emissions reductions techniques, or are at least much smaller and more manageable because the individual projects are applied on a small scale in single country rather than on a global scale in both the commons and multiple countries.
An interesting recent development on the governance of geoengineering comes from the UN’s London Convention and London Protocol, which in November set in motion the development of a regulatory framework for ocean fertilization. This will be a science-based process for assessing the environmental impacts of proposed ocean fertilization projects, and ensuring that research going forward is conducted safely. The rules will be developed over the next year, and it represents the first international governance framework on geoengineering. This will be very useful in developing regulatory frameworks for other geoengineering techniques.
Finding truth on the web: Don’t believe the top articles Google gives you. They are paid for. Go to the bottom of the list.
Reference: “Google and the myth of universal knowledge” by Jean-Noel Jeanneney 2007 The original is in French.
When you do a Google search, you get “sponsored” links on the right side and “non-sponsored” links on the left. The “NON-SPONSORED” links on Google ARE LISTED IN THE ORDER OF THE HIGHEST BIDDER to lowest bidder. Companies pay dollars to Google to get web sites other than their own that lie in favor of the paying company to be at the top of the “non-sponsored” list. Google search results in your getting nothing but corporate propaganda. Since the coal industry has a $100 Billion per year income at stake, they can and must share a lot of money with Google.
Page 32: 62% of internet users questioned make no distinction whatever between advertising and other information, and only 18% proved capable of telling which data were paid for by companies for their promotion and which were not.”
“92% of users of search engines have full confidence in the results of their search, and 71% (users for less than five years) consider that information from this source [Google] is never biased in any way.”
Suggestion: Use only Google Advanced or Google Scholar. On Google Advanced, specify either the .gov domain or the .edu domain. Otherwise, use only web sites that http://www.RealClimate.org uses or the IPCC.
George W. Bush messed up as many government web sites as he could get away with, but your chances are still clearly better than going to the richest propagandist .com or .org.
Better yet: Get a degree in science so that you can figure it out for yourself.
There should be a law requiring Google to disclose the above and the donors and the dollars for each “non-sponsored” link. Environmentalists should work on Google legislation first.
Would the extinction of the human species have enough economic impact for those economists?
Global Warming can lead to Hydrogen Sulfide gas coming out of
the oceans. Hydrogen Sulfide gas will Kill all people. Homo
Sap will go EXTINCT unless drastic action is taken NOW.
October 2006 Scientific American
“EARTH SCIENCE
Impact from the Deep
Strangling heat and gases emanating from the earth and sea, not asteroids, most likely caused several ancient mass extinctions. Could the same killer-greenhouse conditions build once again?
By Peter D. Ward
downloaded from:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00037A5D-A938-150E-A93883414B7F0000&sc=I100322
………………..Most of the article omitted………………….
But with atmospheric carbon climbing at an annual rate of 2 ppm and expected to accelerate to 3 ppm, levels could approach 900 ppm by the end of the next century, and conditions that bring about the beginnings of ocean anoxia may be in place. How soon after that could there be a new greenhouse extinction? That is something our society should never find out.”
Press Release
Pennsylvania State University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, Nov. 3, 2003
downloaded from:
http://www.geosociety.org/meetings/2003/prPennStateKump.htm
“In the end-Permian, as the levels of atmospheric oxygen fell and the levels of hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide rose, the upper levels of the oceans could have become rich in hydrogen sulfide catastrophically. This would kill most of the oceanic plants and animals. The hydrogen sulfide dispersing in the atmosphere would kill most terrestrial life.”
http://www.astrobio.net is a NASA web zine. See:
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=672
http://www.astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1535
http://www.astrobio.net/news/article2509.html
http://astrobio.net/news/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2429&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0
These articles agree with the first 2. They all say 6 degrees C or 1000 parts per million CO2 is the extinction point.
The global warming is already 1.3 degree Farenheit. 11 degrees Farenheit is about 6 degrees Celsius. The book “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas agrees. If the global warming is 6 degrees centigrade, we humans go extinct. See:
http://www.marklynas.org/2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-summary-of-six-degrees-as-published-in-the-guardian
“Under a Green Sky” by Peter D. Ward, Ph.D., 2007. Paleontologist discusses mass extinctions of the past and the one we are doing to ourselves.
OIL SHALE, TAR SANDS AND COAL MUST BE LEFT IN THE GROUND TO AVOID THE EXTINCTION OF US HUMANS.
We have to convert to plug-in hybrid cars so that electricity made by low-CO2 methods powers most of our driving. Nuclear power produces the least CO2 of ANY source of electricity.
32 countries have nuclear power plants. Only 9 have the bomb. The top 4 producers of CO2 all have nuclear power plants, coal fired power plants and nuclear bombs. They are the USA, China, India and Russia. Reducing CO2 production by 90% by 2050 requires drastic action in the USA, China, India and Russia. Coal, oil shale and tar sands must be left untouched in the ground.
I have no connection to the nuclear power industry.
What the coal companies know that most people don’t:
As long as you keep messing around with wind, solar, geothermal and wave power, the coal industry is safe. There is no way wind, solar, geothermal and wave power can replace coal, and they know it. The coal fire has to keep on burning in case the wind dies or the sun goes down. If you quit being afraid of nuclear, the coal industry is doomed. Every time you argue in favor of wind, solar, geothermal and wave power, or against nuclear, King Coal is happy. ONLY nuclear power can put coal out of business. Nuclear power HAS put coal out of business in France. France uses 30 year old American technology. So here is the deal: Keep being afraid of all things nuclear and die either when [not if] civilization collapses or when H2S comes out of the ocean and Homo “Sapiens” goes extinct. OR: Get over your paranoia and kick the coal habit and live. Which do you choose? I put quotation marks around “Sapiens” because it is not clear that most of us have enough brains to avoid extinction when it is clearly predicted and the safe path has been pointed out. Nuclear is the safe path.
I agree that nuclear fuel should not be wasted in Yucca Mountain. Nuclear fuel is renewable/recyclable
Yucca Mountain contains an enormous supply of nuclear fuel that should not be wasted. We don’t recycle nuclear fuel because spent fuel is valuable and people steal it. The place it went that it wasn’t supposed to go to is Israel. This happened in a small town near Pittsburgh, PA circa 1970. A company called Numec was in the business of reprocessing nuclear fuel. I almost took a job there, designing a nuclear battery for a heart pacemaker. [The army offered me more money to work on nuclear weapons effects.] [A nuclear battery would have the advantage of lasting many times as long as any other battery, eliminating many surgeries to replace batteries.] Numec did NOT have a reactor. Numec “lost” a quantity of reactor grade uranium. It wound up in Israel. The Israelis have fueled both their nuclear power plants and their nuclear weapons by stealing nuclear “waste.” See:
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/specialreports/buriedlegacy/s_87948.html
The reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the US stopped for political reasons. France reprocesses nuclear fuel. My solution would be to reprocess the fuel at a Government Owned Government Operated [GOGO] facility. At a GOGO plant, bureaucracy and the multiplicity of ethnicity and religion would disable the transportation of uranium to Israel or to any unauthorized place. Nothing heavier than a secret would get out.
I have no financial stake in the nuclear power industry, and I never have. Nobody is paying me to say this. See:
http://www.hyperionpowergeneration.com/
Factory made nuclear reactors.
It is easy to shut down coal fired power plants. Just make them follow the same rules that nuclear power plants have to obey.
Coal is mostly carbon, but the complete list of impurities in coal includes almost every element in the periodic table. The major impurities are, depending on where you found it are: URANIUM, ARSENIC, LEAD, MERCURY, Antimony, Cobalt, Nickel, Copper, Selenium, Barium, Fluorine, Silver, Beryllium, Iron, Sulfur, Boron, Titanium, Cadmium, Magnesium, Calcium, Manganese, Vanadium, Chlorine, Aluminum, Chromium, Molybdenum and Zinc. Coal smoke and cinders are commercially viable ORE for the above elements. Chinese industrial grade coal contains much more arsenic than American coal. Chinese industrial grade coal is sometimes stolen by peasants for cooking. The result is that the whole family dies of arsenic poisoning. Coal varies a lot. You have to analyze it not only mine by mine but even lump by lump. Coal is a rock. It comes out of the ground. What would you expect of a rock? Coal also contains organics. When they dump overburden, it inevitably contains “stony coal,” by which I mean a combination of ordinary rock and coal.
Reference:
OUR NUCLEAR FUTURE:
THE PATH OF SELECTIVE IGNORANCE
by Alex Gabbard
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Oak Ridge, TN
Selections from the 19th Annual Conference
SOUTHERN FUTURE SOCIETY
March 14,15,16, 1996
Nashville, Tennessee
Published by the
SOUTHERN FUTURE SOCIETY
1996
Edited by Jack D. Arters, Ed.D.
Conference Director
The truth is, all natural rocks contain most natural elements. Coal is a rock.
The average concentration of uranium in coal is 1 or 2 parts per million. Illinois
coal contains up to 103 parts per million uranium. A 1000 million watt coal
fired power plant burns 4 million tons of coal each year. If you multiply 4
million tons by 1 part per million, you get 4 tons of uranium. Most of that is
U238. About .7% is U235. 4 tons = 8000 pounds. 8000 pounds times .7% =
56 pounds of U235. An average 1000 million watt coal fired power plant puts
out 56 to 112 pounds of U235 every year. There are only 2 places the uranium
can go: Up the stack or into the cinders.
“Modern electrostatic precipitator plants are capable of operating at greater than 99.5% collection efficiency but can still release 35 lb/year of uranium as just one component in almost 3 million tons of ash vented through stacks. In addition to this radiological species, all the radon in coal is released during combustion. An estimate for average Rn-222 release is about 2 Curies/year for each 1000 MWe coal fired facility15.”
Since a reactor full fuel load is around 11 tons of 2% U235 and 98% U238, and one load lasts about 10 years, and what one coal fired power plant puts into the air and cinders fully fuels a nuclear power plant.
Compare 4 Million tons per year with 1.1 tons per year. 1.1 divided by 4 Million = 2.75 E -7 = .000000275 =.0000275%. Remember that only 2% of that is U235. The nuclear power plant needs ~44 pounds of U235 per year. The coal fired power plant burns coal by the trainload. The nuclear power plant consumes U235 in such small quantities yearly that you could carry that much weight in a briefcase. The full fuel load and the years between fueling varies from reactor to reactor, but one truck can carry the weight of a full nuclear fuel load.See also: http://www.ornl.gov/ORNLReview/rev26-34/text/coalmain.html
and
http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colside1.html
We have enough nuclear fuel for FIVE THOUSAND YEARS according to “Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy”, by B. Comby. “Breeding” fissionable fuel and recycling nuclear fuel greatly extends the supply. We have many possible uranium mines that we haven’t started mining. The reasons we are not doing so are political and psychological. Most people have an irrational fear of anything nuclear caused by coal industry propaganda.
Everything, including yourself, is made of atoms. All atoms have nuclei. You have many atomic nuclei inside yourself since you are made of atoms. The simplest nucleus is one proton [hydrogen]. That would be a hydrogen atom. An oxygen atom has 8 protons and either 8, 9 or 10 neutrons in its nucleus. All other nuclei also have neutrons. Uranium has 92 protons and either 143 or 146 neutrons. If it has 143 neutrons it is U235. If it has 146 neutrons, it is U238. Nuclear fuel is only 2% to 8% U235, the kind that fissions/divides, providing energy. The rest is U238 that doesn’t fission. A nuclear reaction happens when a neutron is captured by a nucleus. If a U235 nucleus captures a neutron, the nucleus and the atom split approximately in half and 2 or 3 neutrons are released because the 2 smaller nuclei don’t need so many neutrons. If a U238 nucleus captures a neutron, it ejects an electron and the neutron becomes a proton. The U238 thus becomes Plutonium 239 [Pu239]. In a power reactor, the Pu239 quickly captures another neutron, becoming Pu240. Pu240 is useless for making bombs, which is why governments that have plutonium bombs have their own special reactors to make Pu239. Plutonium is fissionable, which means that plutonium is a good fuel. If you add Thorium to the fuel, you can make more fissionable uranium. If a Thorium atom nucleus captures a neutron, it ejects an electron and the neutron becomes a proton. The Thorium atom thus becomes U233. U233 is fissionable.
Depending on the design of the reactor and the mix of the fuel, the fuel % in the reactor can either grow or shrink. It is kind of like the fuel gauge can go either up or down, but it is more like the reactor can run hotter or cooler over time. The temperature is kept constant by adjusting the control rods. A breeder reactor is a reactor designed to make the fissionable part of the fuel load grow rapidly. In the US, fuel is left in the reactor for about 10 years, or 10% of the fuel is replaced eachyear. The reprocessing step sorts out the fuel and puts the percentage of fissionable fuel back to the starting percentage. In the process, plutonium may be removed and either wasted or used as fuel. If we add thorium to the fuel, we can make more uranium than we put in. Since the earth contains more than twice as much thorium as uranium, it would be wise to make thorium into uranium. By reprocessing nuclear fuel, we get an enormous, many centuries long fuel supply.
The products of fission are also removed when fuel is reprocessed. These are just other atoms that are no longer useful as fuel. The quantity is very small. We should reprocess fuel to keep the fuel load at the correct percentage of fissionable fuel for the particular reactor design. Instead, we go through the expensive process of making more “virgin” fuel for each new fuel load. This greatly increases the price you pay for electricity. We are not reprocessing nuclear fuel for political reasons. France reprocesses fuel and France has a nuclear waste repository.
I have zero financial interest in nuclear power, and I never have had a financial interest in nuclear power. My sole motivation in writing this is to avoid extinction by H2S gas. H2S is how global warming kills everybody if we don’t act. The H2S is made by sulfur bacteria in hot oceans.
Clean uranium mining:
Mining uranium without disturbing the surface:
In-situ leach uranium mining
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-situ_leach
In-situ leaching (ISL), also called in-situ recovery (ISR) or solution mining, is a process of recovering minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into the deposit. The process initially involves drilling of holes into the ore deposit. Explosive or hydraulic fracturing may be used to create open pathways in the deposit for solution to penetrate. Leaching solution is pumped into the deposit where it makes contact with the ore. The solution bearing the dissolved ore content is then pumped to the surface and processed. This process allows the extraction of metals and salts from an ore body without the need for conventional mining involving drill-and-blast, open-cut or underground mining.
Contents omitted
Process
In-situ leach mining involves pumping of a leachate solution into the ore body via a borehole, which circulates through the porous rock dissolving the ore and is extracted via a second borehole.
The leachate solution varies according to the ore deposit – for salt deposits the leachate can be fresh water into which salts can readily dissolve. For copper, acids are generally needed to enhance solubility of the ore minerals within the solution. For uranium ores, the leachate may be acid or sodium bicarbonate.
=====salt mining omitted=========
Uranium
Solutions used to dissolve uranium are acid (sulfuric acid, or less commonly nitric acid) or sodium bicarbonate [baking soda]. Ammonium solutions have been pilot-tested, but have not been reported used in commercial-scale mining. ISL of uranium ores started in the United States and the Soviet Union in the early 1960s. The first uranium ISL in the US was in the Shirley Basin in the state of Wyoming, which operated from 1961-1970 using sulfuric acid. Since 1970, all commercial-scale ISL mines in the US have used sodium bicarbonate solutions.[1]
There are currently five in-situ leaching uranium mines operating in the United States, operated by Cameco, Mestena and Uranium Resources Company, all using sodium bicarbonate. ISL produces 90% of the uranium mined in the US. Two more ISL projects are in licensing and proposal stages in the US, and two in reclamation in 2006.[2]
Significant ISL mines are operating in Kazakhstan and Australia. The Beverley uranium mine in Australia uses in-situ leaching. ISL mining produces around 21% of the world’s uranium production.[3]
Examples of in-situ uranium mines
* The Beverley Uranium Mine, South Australia, is an operating ISL uranium mine and Australia’s first such mine.
* The Honeymoon Uranium Mine, South Australia, due 2008, will be Australia’s second ISL uranium mine.
* Crow Butte (operating), Christensen Ranch (reclamation), Irigaray (reclamation), Churchrock (proposed), Crownpoint (proposed), Alta Mesa (operating), Hobson (standby), La Palangana (development), Kingsville Dome (operating), Rosita (standby) and Vasquez (operating) are ISL uranium operations in the United States.
===========continued============
Downloaded FROM: Environmental Defense
http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/
climate411/2008/01/14/global_winds/
This post is by James Wang, Ph.D., a climate scientist at Environmental Defense.
You may have heard about the persistent droughts in the western U.S., Australia, and other regions. The Upper Colorado River Basin is experiencing a protracted, multi-year drought that started in 1999. Australia’s record drought is threatening the livelihood of traditional farmers and ranchers.
At what point does a passing drought become a permanent shift to desert conditions, and why would such a thing happen?
It can happen because of global warming. Climate change can alter global winds, the strength and location of high and low pressure systems, and other climate factors.
………shortened………Graphics and URLs omitted.
Global winds shape the Earth’s climate, determining – in broad strokes – which areas are tropical, desert, or temperate. Here’s a simplified overview of how it
works.
The Sun heats the Earth most intensely in the tropical zone around the equator. The heated air rises, cools, and then dumps its moisture as rain. That’s why there are rain forests in the tropics.
The now drier air is forced by the continuously rising equatorial air to move towards the temperate latitudes on either side of the equator. At roughly 30° N and S – called the “horse latitudes” – it can move no further due to the Earth’s rotation, and settles to the surface. As the air sinks, it compresses and warms, creating hot, rain-free conditions. This circulation pattern, called a Hadley cell, is why the deserts of the world are located just poleward of the tropics, to the north and south.
Poleward of the desert belt, strong, high-altitude winds known as the jet streams flow from west to east, carrying large storms with them. These mid-latitude, temperate-region storms are an important source of rain and snow, especially during the winter season. Much of the world’s population lives in the temperate region. It includes most of the U.S. and southern Canada, most of Europe, East Asia, southern South America, southern Africa, and southern Australia and New Zealand.
But climate regions aren’t fixed. Several independent studies have found that global winds are shifting due to global warming, and the shifts are faster than predicted by climate models. Most recently is this new study in Nature Geoscience. The tropical belt has widened by several degrees latitude since 1979. This is consistent with other observations suggesting that the jet streams and storm tracks have moved poleward.
The drought-stricken Upper Colorado River Basin, which includes Lake Powell, is located just poleward of the horse latitudes at around 37° N. This has historically been in the temperate zone, but the desert zone may be gradually encroaching upon it. (Since nothing is simple, there are other factors contributing to this particular drought, as well.) Similarly, water-starved Sydney, Australia at 34° S is just poleward of the southern horse latitude.
What we may be seeing here is not so much drought as desertification – a shift in global climate patterns due to global warming. Areas that used to be in temperate zones may be shifting into desert, while areas that had been arid receive more precipitation.
Just a reminder of what is at stake. Global Warming WILL impact jobs, food and government in the US rather soon.
Reference: “Six Degrees” by Mark Lynas Downloaded from:
http://www.marklynas.org/2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-summary-of-six-degrees-as-published-in-the-guardian
The following is an article by Mark Lynas based on his book Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. It was published in the Guardian on 23 April 2007.
“1ºC: Nebraska isn’t at the top of most tourists’ to-do lists. However, this dreary expanse of impossibly flat plains sits in the middle of one of the most productive agricultural systems on Earth. Beef and corn dominate the economy, and the Sand Hills region – where low, grassy hillocks rise up from the flatlands – has some of the best cattle ranching in the whole US. But scratch beneath the grass and you will find, as the name suggests, not soil but sand. These innocuous-looking hills were once desert, part of an immense system of sand dunes that spread across the Great Plains from Texas in the south to the Canadian prairies in the north. Six thousand years ago, when temperatures were about 1C warmer than today in the US, these deserts may have looked much as the Sahara does today. As global warming bites, the western US could once again be plagued by perennial drought – devastating agriculture and driving out human inhabitants on a scale far larger than the 1930s “Dustbowl” exodus.”
===Book and article continue through our extinction at 6 degrees centigrade of warming========
1ºC is 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. Since the year 1750, we have already caused 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit of global warming. You didn’t notice it because you are not 300 years old. The rate of global warming continues to speed up. It won’t take much longer. Mark Lynas is unclear on the starting point, but Americans stop eating soon. American civilization collapses and 99.99% of all Americans and Europeans die. Cannibalism happens. YOU and I will be among the dead. Read: “Collapse” by Jared Diamond and “The Long Summer” by Brian Fagan. Something like 2 dozen civilizations have already disappeared because of climate changes smaller than the one we have already caused. Starvation was the cause of most deaths, but some people were killed to be eaten.
These objections remain. But they are increasingly downed out by rapidly melting ice, our abject failure to cut CO2, and fears of big climate surprises in the near future. As David Keith, Director of the Energy and Enviromental Systems Group at the University of Calgary, put it in his talk at AGU on Thursday morning: “Uncertainty + Inertia = Danger.”