Sunday, June 17, 2007
My Solution to Global Warming
Giant rotating mylar mirrors in orbit! Wahoo. Screw this penny-ante stuff. The likelihood of our being able to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the short term is nonexistent, particularly given the Chinese. So let's instead reduce global insolation. We're not talking about putting a huge amount of mass in orbit; the mirror can be -really- thin, in fact, that's good, so the occasional meteorite impact just tears through instead of folding it up. Rotate it so it remains a disk, and it orbits around the planet, shadow moving from place to place. If we can reflect a coupla percent of the sunlight that would otherwise hit the globe, that probably does the job. Other ideas: extend the #7 subway line to San Francisco. Also the West Side IRT to Boston, and the PATH train to Richmond, Virginia. Why shouldn't the rest of the country benefit from New York's excellent mass transit system? Let Americans buy tokens, not gas, just like New Yorkers. While we're at it, jet contrails have a noticeable impact, injecting global warming gases into the upper atmosphere. Bring back hydrogen-filled zeppelins! The whole terror of Hindenburg-like disasters is misplaced; the Hindenburg didn't burn because it was hydrogen-filled, but because its skin was coated with highly flammable aluminum powder. A far more civilized way to travel anyway, soaring above the landscape in a lighter-than-air craft. And yes, at least in the more densely populated parts of the country--say, the Northeast and the LA-to-SF corridor--it makes sense to subsidize high speed rail as a substitute for both road and air travel. Why shouldn't trains le grande vitesse take me from here to Boston in two hours? As for biofuels, great idea! Only what people seem to be talking about is subsidizing American corn farmers to create ethanol in a system that is only marginally efficient, given the inputs in terms of tractor fuel and fertilizers that derive ultimately from petroleum. The most efficient way to create ethanol is from sugar cane, grown in tropical environments. So I say, fuck the American farmer; let's have free trade with Brazil, where you can grow sugar cane economically. "Energy independence?" What does that matter? So long as I'm sending my gas pump dollars to a friendly democracy instead of Wahabi lunatics who eagerly subsidize terrorist bastards. I'm telling you, the most intractable problems the globe faces are easily solvable, if you have a coupla drinks and a sense of humor. Giant rotating mylar mirrors in orbit! It's the only way.
posted by Greg at 12:11 AM
35 comments
35 Comments:
Actually, algae seems to be a better solution than sugar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algaculture
"The per unit area yield of oil from algae is estimated to be from between 5,000 to 20,000 gallons per acre, per year; this is 7 to 31 times greater than the next best crop, palm oil (635 gallons)."
That answer to the matter of the Hindenburg is not supported by experiment; the thermite coating may have acted as an accelerant, but hydrogen still appears to have been the primary culprit. (Of course, once we get useful fusion power, helium is cheap.)
American railway tracks are even less suited to high-speed travel than British ones, as a rule - they were built for heavy freight haulage. So new tracks would seem to be a necessity. If you're doing that anyway, why not go with maglev on a monorail?
-- retrofuturistic Firedrake
As Firedrake says, the Hindenburg burned because it was hydrogen, really. There was a mythbusters episode on it.
THe Hindenburg BURNED because it was full of hydrogen. It caught fire because it was coated with rocket fuel. How many other airships burned up?
The giant, rotating space mirrors are even better because they can be taken over by world-dominating hackers, re-oriented to melt down world cities -- and only stopped via the bravery and cunning on an elite British spy.
I'm guessing your trying to be a bit facetious.
The problem is solvable. Anybody that claims that there will be a "global economic depression" if we stop using fossil fuels is fear mongering.
Take a look at the Tesla Roadster. It gets from 0-60 in 4 seconds and has a range of 200 miles. Take a look at the battery inside of it. Now imagine that battery inside of other devices, appliances, manufacturing robots, and other machines that are currently tethered.
Going from fossil fuel to battery power will be analogous to going from desktop systems to laptop systems.
What really scares me about giant orbiting mylar mirrors is that someday someone will realize you can put advertising on them.
If you want a picture of the future, picture the sun blotted out by an artificial eclipse with the Nike logo in every 20 minutes . . . forever.
* * *
You mean extend the 7 line to San Francisco going EAST, right?
Using orbitting mirrors to grow crops at night was a UN-funded research project back in the 1980's.
For advertising, you don't need a big mirror. Light up tiny bright spots from ground-based lasers, you could deploy a thin mesh (not even connected parts) of orbittitng pixels and blanket full-motion high-res ads over every night sky.
Painting-over the moon with, say, a coke logo would be pretty easy too. Launch a battery of rockets filled with pigment and explode them so that the pigment disperses over a large area. A very sparse coating should do the trick given the lack of corrosion and drift from wind or water. Just a hint will get the message across.
@ perveen;
The only true fear mongering is that of the climate change cabal. Mongering political and economic power through misplaced, misguided and irrational fear.
@ Greg;
Jet trails are due to the water vapor released in the exhaust and cooled below freezing.
I've heard Brazilian sugar is surplus because it is heavily subsidized. I suspect the crops there are just as dependent on petro-chemical fertilizers and insecticides as their US counterparts.
The only way out is developing poly fueled transportation. As many as 3 per vehicle. That way, some type of fuel, whatever is avaialble and or econimical in any particular region can be used.
Ultimately it's going nuke for electricity and I suspect that in the long term overland transportation energy will have to shift to electrical.
That won't be practical for many types of transportation fuels, so they will likely remain on distillate fuels.
What's Warren Ellis doing posting to Greg's blog? :)
Today's captcha word is "adeupeal", a measure of how attractively someone says goodbye.
interesting but... china?
"The likelihood of our being able to dramatically reduce carbon emissions in the short term is nonexistent, particularly given the Chinese"
www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_con-energy-oil-consumption
usa takes 3 times the oil of china.
and on per capita terms, usa takes 18 times the oil consumption of china.
usa need to awake from their media injected boozyness.
coco,
Remember: oil is only one component of CO2 emissions, and CO2 is only one component of the greenhouse effect.
As of yesterday, China officially became the world's largest emitter of CO2, at 6.2 billion tons in the past year. Much of this is due to China's coal use, and a nontrivial amount of the country's contribution to global warming is due to non-CO2 production such as uncaptured coalbed methane. (By now, China should be implementing Montreal, and no longer producing ozone-depleting and greenhouse-producing substances like carbon tet.)
twb
saying that china is the world largest co2 emitter is nothing more than an euphemism to hide reality. is nonsense to think that co2 emissions should be evaluated on a per country bassis. in fact, it can be proved that is nonsense.
even more, that fact is recognised in the kyoto protocol, the biggets global effort to regulate co2 emissions, which usa has refused to sign for many years, and still continues to be the only big country that refuses to accept the treaty. and china, yes signed it a long time ago. the kyoto protocol evaluates co2 emissions on a per capita basis.
on a per capita basis, china co2 emissions are way below global averages. so is ridiculous to point to china as the culprit of global warming.
it would be undescriptively sad, to start seeing usa citizen, requesting china to take ation to control co2 emissions. but given the levels of confussion that usa people has, that may happen.
source: united nations
(hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/204.html)
year: 2003
% of co2 emission per country
1- usa 23 %
2- china 16.5 %
year: 2003
(metric tons) of CO2 - PER CAPITA -
usa 19.8
china 3.2
the sensationalist news that recently circulated, saying "oh wow, now china has surpased usa in co2 emissions, point your eyes to them" requires that china has growth his emission at a rate of around 20% annual in recent years, wich is simply an absurd assumption. it seems more the tipical mediatic bullshit employed by usa government to confuse more the usa public. whats next? now usa will invade china to save the earth from co2 emissions? i wouldnt be surprised.
Ron Paul 2008!
He's the only guy that'll scale back government and stop subsidizing oil, helping the free market adapt naturally to the transition.
That fact that China is now the worlds worst polluter is even more striking considering their realitvely low per capita pollution rate. How are they managing to pollute so much ? It must be due to carelessness in the extreme. In fact, I can say, having traveled there many times, that it is true they are relatively careless about the modes of pollution generation they utilize.
China accepted Kyoto because they were exempted from it. Let's see, penalize every other ecomonoy on Earth and not your own...heck yes, I'd sign it too.
Yeah, hella thing about pollution and borders. I have to suck air that Mexicans, only 20 miles away, pollute with abandon. I still am getting annual smog checks to certify that my car emits nothing while in Mexico there isn't even a requirement for BACT, much less certification. Go figure.
I have to pay to treat our sewage that gets passed to the Tijuana river while Mexicans dump raw untreated sewage into the same river. In fact, I now have to pay to treat their sewage.
"...the most intractable problems the globe faces are easily solvable, if you have a coupla drinks and a sense of humor."
I hereby nominate this as quote of the week. : )
"...With this, China tops the list of CO2 emitting countries for the first time. In 2005, CO2 emissions of China were still 2% below those of the USA. These figures are based on a preliminary estimate by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (MNP), using recently published BP (British Petroleum) energy data and cement production data"
i will remark the words PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE, NETHERLANDS Environmental Assessment Agency, and BRITISH PETROLEUM.
CREDIBILITY LEVEL FROM 0 TO 10: 1
REALITY FACT: the most recent United nation data, reveal that IF china maintain an awesome co2 emissions growth, it may reach US levels around year 2010.
WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS NEWS: US government will not be seen as highly responsible from the world pollution, to his ellectors. as they will see as other countrys are growing their CO2 like crazy. as ellectors dont mobilise or press for actions, US companys will not have to reduce a few % from their growth projections, to assume the cost of reducing co2 emissions. oil prices and oil corporations, will not be affected by possible policies.
co2 emissions per capita:
metric tons of CO2
usa 19.8
mexico 4.0
china 3.2
yes anonimus. maybe the kyoto protocol should enforce the chinesse to eat raw uncooked food, or live in bamboo houses, to reduce their co2 emissions. maybe is now time for a surgical bombing of their energy facilities, to save the globe from evil.
for your info, china is an exemplary country in the world, doing an huge national effort, to massively reduce population. and with this, doing what is an unprecedent contribution to humanity wellbeing, saving the world of the huge pollution that 400 million of chinesse would have produced. 400 million of people less is the result of the admirably policies impossed by china government, and assuming the sacrifices that mean and having the oldest average popullation ages in the world
compare that to the world center of energy waste, that the usa is, and lets not enter in other usa "contributions" to the world.
you are doing great, critisizing the chinese and the mexicans. with citizens like you, is no surprise at all, usa perfomance in the world.
The Chinese are saving themselves from famine and disaster, not anyone else. They are responsible for their population, not anyone else.
Mexico exports it's poverty problems to the USA. I like Mexicans in general, except the ones who think like you do.
You are doing great at blindly hating the USA and it's citizens. You are the worst kind of person in the world, one who blindly hates people they don't even know, for reasons they don't even understand.
dont wanna spam, just had this browser game in my mind when I read the last thread.
http://s2.bitefight.org/c.php?uid=109100
take care!
I think that spammers need to be more relevant to today's issues.
"If you are too scared to click this link, the terrorists have won."
Wow Greg, you managed to attract the attention of the Chinese net patrol. I guess CO2 is a new filter on the Great Firewall of China. Usually they are out patrolling for Taiwanese or Tibetan Separatism, or even Fulan Gong proselytization, but we are getting them here on a games board - well done!
Memo to coco:
I would take any stats provided by the UN with a colossal grain of salt. One of the primary functions of that body is to engineer/facilitate/extort cash-transfers from G7 countries to poorer nastier sorts of places. Almost anything put out by undp.org is at least contributory to that task.
...also, the biggest problem with TGV to, well anywhere with a population concentration to justify it, is another acronym - NIMBY. And with population concentration there are a lot of backyards to upset.
1. Legalize the phosphates that were banned in the 70's - they caused global cooling in the preceding 20 years.
2. Set off a bunch of volcanoes!!!
Since water vapour is the biggest greenhouse gas, ban people from having showers.
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