Link to column: Is the government spraying stuff into the atmosphere to protect us?
In this column Cecil seems to disparage the idea of geoengineering or at least using sulfur dioxide to counter global warning, but he doesn’t defend the position. Is it a good or bad idea, and if so, why?
Thanks,
Rob
Anyone who’s ever lived near a paper plant (as I did, in Waterville, ME, in the 50s) knows at least one reason that the idea’s pretty eyebrow-raising.
Sulfur dioxide is one of the major pollutants removed from smokestacks. It is significant in causing acid rain.
It is highly toxic to the environment, and dangerous to humans.
But hey, it will increase cloud cover, so it will increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere, and thus reduce global warming. So there’s that.
There has to be a better way than stinking up things.
My solution is to plug the hole in the ozone layer with duct tape.
Geoengineering to solve the global warming problem is a great idea. But what everyone always ignores is that the easiest geoengineering project we could implement would be to reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
As I understand it, the acid rain thing isn’t an issue because of the altitude they are talking about. Am I wrong?
As far as what Chronos said, I refer to Cecil’s column a few weeks back wherein he seemed to be saying that world energy needs for the next few decades at least will preclude us from being able to stop burning fossil fuels.
Thanks,
Rob
There are ways to reduce carbon dioxide emissions without stopping burning fossil fuels. Carbon sequestration is one idea. Also improving efficiency to reduce waste.
The reason why alternatives are so highly sought after is that all fossil fuels are currently projected to run out in a century anyway.
I like the duct tape idea.
?
Seems like an increasing scarcity of fossil fuels would make alternatives less appealing. After all, the problem is going to fix itself in a century anyway!
My geo-engineering is to pump the SO[sub]2[/sub] into areas like East Anglia. It undergoing subsidence and there is the underlying rock is mainly chalk.
This gives you CaCO[sub]3[/sub] + SO[sub]2[/sub] + ½O[sub]2[/sub] + 2H[sub]2[/sub]O-> CaSO[sub]4[/sub].2H[sub]2[/sub]O + CO[sub]2[/sub]
The calcite -> gypsum reaction expands the bedrock, counteracting the sinking land and all that pesky sulphur is dealt with. The extra CO[sub]2[/sub] is surely a minor setback :dubious:
You think that’s the easiest project we could under take??? :eek:
-XT
for the life of me, i couldn’t understand these proposals for artificial carbon trapping. growing a forest or maintaining a swamp will trap more carbon faster and cheaper. these places will also release CO2 and methane but the wood in the trees or the black muck that turns to peat or lignite will certainly be a net carbon trap.
Ha. But really, the “markets will adapt” thing is a bit flawed when one considers that defibrillators have plastic components and ambulances need petrol. Don’t want to be around when it hits like $20k a barrel.
It would be nice if, before you bash the market you actually understood how it works and what it is. It would also be nice if you realized that plastic components can be made from something other than oil, that ambulances can be run on something other than an oil based product, and that the price of oil will never, ever get to $20k a barrel…
-XT
The invisible hand that guides each of us to a moral and fulfilling life?
In reverse order, why not? Inflation and scarcity wouldn’t preclude it, especially with optimistic estimates and high profit margins on behalf of the companies involved up to the draining of the last oil field. Should that occur reserves would spiral… perhaps not before investment in other energy sources, but that depends on the lobbying power of the fossil fuel industries. I am aware of bioplastics and biofuels, though I’m unsure if they’d be utilised before the point of collapse should petrol continue to be subsidised. At the moment I think the legal maximum for ethanol in the US is 10%, though I’m not sure whether that’s based on fuel injector capacity or somewhat arbitrary. Are other biofuels less dependent on the machinery?
Nope. But thanks for illustrating the point.
Because no one would ever pay $20k for a barrel of oil. It shows a basic disconnect right there that you think this is even possible.
Perhaps if you understood what markets are and how they work you wouldn’t assert stuff like this? If you really want to understand any of this stuff I urge you get get a basic book on economics, or open a new thread in GQ and ask some questions (and actually listen to the answers), rather than hijacking this thread with this sort of thing.
Regardless of how the price is subsidized, eventually the price of gasoline and other oil based products will take it to the point where alternatives are economically competitive, and then that market thingy that you are hazy on will take over. You see, The Market™ is really just you and me and all the other folks out there that buy stuff, well, buying stuff. If gas got to be $10/gallon in the US then it would open up myriad alternatives…alternatives we are already seeing at $3-4/gallon TODAY. And that is the answer to your assertion that oil could get to $20k/barrel…see, even at $100/barrel alternatives are being explored. You are taking about 200 times that price. The reason we use oil today is it’s CHEAP. If it weren’t, then we wouldn’t use it, and instead we’d use something else. You do realize that there is nothing oil does that can’t be done by some other material, right? But that we use oil because, again, it’s cheap? Yes?
-XT
Yes. Sure, cutting back carbon dioxide emissions is really hard, but any other geoengineering project we could undertake for the same effect would be even harder, and most of them we don’t even know how to do.
And Bondo–can’t forget the Bondo.