XPost: soc.men, talk.environment, sci.environment
From: ewill@sirius.tg00suus7038.net
In sci.environment, amused onlooker
wrote
on Sat, 27 Jan 2007 16:19:11 GMT
<3YKuh.81948$HV6.22835@newsfe1-gui.ntli.net>:
> "Dave Head" wrote
>
>> On Fri, 26 Jan 2007 12:54:15 GMT, "amused onlooker" wrote:
>>
>>>"Dave Head" wrote
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> because we don't have the capability to
>>>> do anything radical enough to prevent it anyway
>>>
>>>Actually we do.
>>
>> Actually, we don't. There's no way in hell to get the CO2 down to a
>> sufficiently low level to keep what's about to happen from happening
>> without screwing up millions of lives, which includes a lot of deaths
>> from lack of the resources that would otherwise be produced by the
>> activities that now produce the CO2 but would have to be eliminated -
>> power generation, transportation, etc.
>
> The "short term" solution I was thinking of was a solar screen to
> control/cool the earths temperature. Not ideal I realise but it would buy us
> some time to develop alternative energy sources and maybe find a way of
> cleansing the atmosphere.
Let's crunch. The general GW imbalance AIUI is about 1 W/m^2, averaged
worldwide. The world's surface area facing Sol is 2.5559 * 10^14 m^2.
The insolation averaged daily is about 600 W/m^2. In order to
adjust this imbalance one needs a space mirror whose total area is
2.5559 * 10^14 / 600 m^2 = 4.25988 & 10^11 m^2. If one assumes aluminum
foil thickness of 0.02 mm, one gets 8.51976 * 10^6 m^3 or 2.3 million
metric tonnes of aluminum. At a launch cost of about $1000/kg that
works out to 2.3 trillion US dollars.
Looks vaguely doable but very pricey. (These factors of
course are very rough estimates; Google in particular suggests the
imbalance can be from 0.1 to 0.6 W/m^2. This may mean I'm
overestimating by a factor of 2 to 10. Of course, counterbalancing that
is the launch costs, which are highly variable depending on vehicle used
and destination.)
There is the further complication of what we put into the atmosphere as
the result of a launch.
>
>>>But it would require lots of investment and experimentation in large
>>>scale,
>>>zero-gravity manufacturing in outer space.
>>
>> If we had the capability, we wouldn't have to be doing experimentation.
>> Having to experiment implies not knowing how to do what you're wanting
>> to do.
>
> If a large space station was built for the purpose of zero gravity
> manufacturing then I'm sure it wouldn't take long to figure out how to build
> huge structures. And we do have the ability to build something like that.
If one can boost the materials into space. One can't build huge
structures out of nothing. :-)
>
>>>But it's not going to happen because those who hold the real power want
>>>the
>>>coming catastrophe to proceed.
>>
>> No they don't - they just don't want the greater catastrophe to happen,
>> which would be world economic collapse,
>
> But the eco-catastrophe as I understand it will include economic collapse.
> It's not just going to be lots of hot weather but floods, droughts,
> earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes etc on a grand scale.
> Transporting oil in tankers will become very hazardous and that itself will
> destroy the economy.
>
>> while still not achieving
>> anywhere close to what is necessary to solve the GW problem.
>>
>> DPH
>
>
--
#191, ewill3@earthlink.net
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