Space Ring Could Combat Global Warming 955
telstar writes "Though the debate continues around global warming, a new proposal suggests building an artificial space ring around the Earth to block the light of the sun and bring a balance to solar radiation, cloud cover, and heat-trapping greenhouse gases. The ring could be comprised of particles which would scatter the sunlight, or be built by an interconnected ring of spaceships aligned to block the light. The former proposal is estimated to cost anywhere from $6 trillion to $200 trillion dollars, while the spaceship solution would run approximately $500 billion. Halo fans rejoice."
So... why a ring? (Score:5, Interesting)
We know how well solar eclipses work... why not just a permanent 'dimming'?
Solar Power! (Score:4, Interesting)
$6-200 Trillion? (Score:5, Interesting)
$500 billion? (Score:4, Interesting)
Honestly, how much would it cost to require an SUV to get 30+ MPG instead of 15?
Allready done?????? (Score:2, Interesting)
Posting from the People's Republic of Fantasia ... (Score:5, Interesting)
That might even take the pressure off the environment, as you could probably shut down most of the world's coal-fired power stations.
$200 Trillion? (Score:3, Interesting)
$200 trillion (2.0 x 10e14 dollars), or even $1 trillion, is a big chunk of change to go spending on something we don't even know would fix the problem. What if it's not enough? How much money do you dump down the hole (or in this case, throw into the air) before you start thinking about alternate solutions?
How much seawater could you pump into the central Sahara for $1 trillion? Make a giant salt marsh the size of say, Texas. Still plenty of desert left over, don't worry. But how much cooler would that make the globe? Don't even use 4-degree Celsius water from the Atlantic, but get 20C water from the Red Sea. It'll fill back up.
Or, maybe we could just accept the changes in climate as the natural order of things (even if they're our fault - we're natural, too). If the oceans rise, move to higher ground.
It could happen (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a bigger problem, though. How do you convice 6 billion to put up with constant illumination of the night sky? Not to mention, the Astrologer's Union would be rioting in the streets.
Re:Um. (Score:3, Interesting)
Wouldn't it be cheaper and easier to just have a sane debate about how we treat our back-yard?
Oh bother, go ahead. Do whatever you want. I'll watch. It's going to be fun watching the next 20 years of wild arm-waving at least.
Re:Posting from the People's Republic of Fantasia (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I'd like to have the huge space-bound solar collector with microwave transmitter, but in a place where it doesn't reduce the sunlight on earth. If we clean up our act with emissions we should have plenty of breathing room and not have to block out the sun just yet. And sunlight is useful for so many things.
Re:$6-200 Trillion? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Solar Cells (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Would it? (Score:2, Interesting)
I just don't think they really know what is really happening, there are a lot of inner dependencies and not all are fully known or understood yet.
- Justin
What about rain-forests? (Score:2, Interesting)
The rainforests getting less radiation means diminished CO2 absorbing capacity of the whole planet. If not done carefully, this could lead to dangerous levels of CO2 in atmosphere.
Indian.
Re:Debate?!? (Score:2, Interesting)
The problem is, which debate is he referring to?
This one [nasa.gov]. Let's see, "some "greenhouse skeptics" subvert the scientific process, ceasing to act as objective scientists, rather presenting only one side, as if they were lawyers hired to defend a particular viewpoint. But some of the topics focused on by the skeptics are recognized as legitimate research questions " (emphasis mine).
Legitimate research questions? That sounds like, scientifically, there is a real debate, because there are some things we do not know.
From the same page: "We now know (Hansen et al. 1998a, 1998b) that the growth rate of greenhouse gases in the period 1988-1998 has been flat". And "it is apparent that the model did a good job of predicting global temperature change. But the period of comparison is too short and the climate change too small compared to natural variability for the comparison to provide a meaningful check on the model's sensitivity to climate forcings.".
That sounds to me like the current models do not know whether or not man is impacting the climate and causing global warming. Don't let the actions of extemists cloud your views on the subject. Just because there are a large amount of people arguing that there isn't global warming, using only the facts that support their case and omitting others, does not mean that the case against global warming relies on omitting fact. Just because some people are arguing a case badly doesn't mean that there isn't a case to argue.
Re:Debate?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people aren't really worried about the Earth. They're worried about the inhabitants. Mass extinctions usually accompany planetary wide climate change.
Re:$500 billion? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Um. (Score:2, Interesting)
Whatever.
Notice how it's called "climate change" and not "global warming" any more? PBS did a great show about the advertising biz. Apparantly the Bush regime worked really hard to remove the meme "global warming" and insert "climate change" so the likes of you will be less scared of it. Seems to have worked well on everyone, especially the 'mainstream media'.
I'm not that afraid of nuclear power plants, but if Bush is involved, then "nukulur power plant" is probaly a euphimism for Domestic Terrorst Watch Tower. Read this. [msu.edu] I got that link from metafilter. [metafilter.com]
Re:Debate?!? (Score:4, Interesting)
I find the resistance to taking even the slightest measure a little ridiculous. Much like evolution, no one has definitively proved anything. Also like evolution, the basic mechanics are of global warming are understood and the theory has been sitting around 100+ years waiting for someone to poke holes in it (GW was first posulated in 1890) [wikipedia.org]. No one has.
In simpliest terms: There is no doubt adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will tend to raise temperatures. There is no doubt that we are adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. There is no doubt that temperatures are rising. Q.E.D.
Suppose... (Score:3, Interesting)
Fine. Now you are blocking the sun on bunch of other countries that A) didn't pay for it B) don't want you to block their sun.
This thing would be way TOO big not to block unwanted countries.
If my math is correct, For each 8 tons of gold (or similar material that you can make very thin) you can create a ring of 1m wide, 10nm thick around the earth. (I did the math for "just above sealevel", or about where the spaceshuttle flies).
This 8 ton ring would block
Re:Debate?!? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you come around the corner of a building and someone is there, pointing a gun at you (or at least in your direction), do you stand there arguing with your freind as to if the gun is a gun, if it's loaded, if it's really intended to kill you? Or, did you take the nescessary action to go back around the corner, out of the line of fire of that gunman?
Stupidest analogy ever.
We don't know if there's a clear and present danger, like a gun. We definitely don't know enough to justify a 'fix' that could be much, much worse then the problem if we turn out to be wrong.
This discussion is about putting something between us and the sun so as to cool down the earth. But what if we're wrong and cooling down the earth sends the climate into global chaos? What if we trigger an ice age?
I'm not advocating we continue with our current fossil fuel levels or anything like that. I'm advocating the view that we don't know enough to take such a drastic step.
To go back to your laughable gunman example, you're advocating that me and my friend don't back around the corner (which would be like cutting back on our emissions), you're advocating that we dive into an open manhole to put something between us and him. Until we know where that manhole leads, maybe we should back off with the drastic measures?
Re:It didn't happen last time (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, what amases me about the political debate, is that a lot of the people who claim climate sciencists don't know what they are talking about and more research is needed before even doing the slightest initative that might help prevent global warming getting worse, are usually exactly the the same people that says that the risk is too high and we have to have pre-emptive wars however thin the intelligence and fact based knowledge is. I really can't figure out why killing thousands of people on flimsy evidence is so easy and then to turn their backs of thousands of scientific papers with worrying evidence and patterns since "we don't know enough yet to do anything that might solve this possible disaster for human kind"??? A terrorist might succeed to kill thousands of people in one go, or maybe millions, but how many will die if our climate goes beserke and water resources and food resources become to spare for the human population on this earth now?
Another thing that amases me is that people list all these so-called facts, that suggest that global warming isn't happening or that the data only show that global warming only happens in some neighbourhoods around Cleveland, and then don't stop to think why climate scientist who spend a whole carrier studying this don't realise these simple "facts". Do deniers believe that there is some political conspiracy among climate scientist? Or that the journals Nature and Science are deliberatly attacking/suppresing climate scientist that have other evidence than what is published in the major science journals of the world? I really don't know the answers to these questions, but I find it very strange indeed.
Re:It didn't happen last time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:It didn't happen last time (Score:4, Interesting)
Inuit has a nice ring too, it's not cumbersome like the 'African-American' conjunction is.
Re:Posting from the People's Republic of Fantasia (Score:4, Interesting)
That was examined in considerable detail a few decades ago, with an eye to preventing exactly that scenario (along with things like microwave-cooked birds falling out of the sky ready to eat). A fine solution was found:
First: Pick a frequency that, unlike the band used in microwave ovens, is NOT readily absorbed by the water composing most obstructions or potentially damagable natural structures (clouds, birds, cows, plants) or by other materials found in lifeforms. (There are some fine bands for this in the milimeter wavelengths.)
Second: Put up a "rectenna" site (antennas with microwave semiconductors - "Crystal sets of Inconcevable Power" to quote a pardoy of Doc Smith). This covers tens or hundreds of acres, and catches essentially all of the energy while letting most of the sunlight through. (You can graze cattle under it if it's not at Fort Stinkin' Desert - and even there it won't bother the lifeforms beneath it once the constructin is done.) Even if the beam were pure heat it would only be a large-single-digit multiple of the amount of sunlight shining on the area on a clear day, and it's nearly all caught by the rectenna.
Third: Transmit a "pilot carrier" from an antenna in the middle of the array to synchronize the transmitters spread out across the broad structure of your solar collectors (or across a number of them).
The result is a "synthetic aperture" antenna of large size, tightly focussing the return power on the receiving rectenna site. If the pilot signal is lost the beam immediately defocusses - within milliseconds - as the syncronization is lost, with most of the energy missing the entire planet and the rest being orders of magnitude weaker than a distant radar site. (Ditto for the energy from an individual transmitter that loses sync - it stops being combined with the rest of the beam and turns into a much smaller microwave beacon.)
From synchronous orbit the earth is a small fraction of the visible sky, and any target on it is not visible to the naked eye. If the energy from the beam were all visible light and defocussed you'd have a hard time spotting it in daylight.
You could do the same pilot beam hack with laser light. But why bother? Lasers are less efficient, more more would be absorbed by the atmosphere, and less converted to useful power at the output. Even with the tech available in the '70s you could get 85% or better from DC in at the satellites to power to the grid on Earth.
Construction costs would be comparable to those of an earthbound plant. Then fuel is free for the life of the plant and there's no waste to dump (except the plant itself if you ever decommission it, or any burned-out parts).
Semiconductors on the ground. Vacuum transmitting tubes in orbit. (Vacuum tubes are EASY in orbit, and very efficient. B-) )