Using Barges to Fight Global Warming

An anonymous reader writes "Dr. Peter Flynn, Poole Chair in Management for Engineers in the University of Alberta Department of Mechanical Engineering, has developed what he would like to consider a fall back plan to help combat the effects of global warming, in northern Europe. Flynn proposes using 'more than 8,000 barges moving into the northern ocean in the fall, speeding the initial formation of sea ice by pumping a spray of water into the air, and then, once the ice is formed, pumping ocean water on top of it, trapping the salt in the ice and reaching a thickness of seven meters. In the spring, water would continue to be pumped over the ice to melt it, forming a vast amount of cold, salty water that sinks and adds to the down-welling current to re-strengthen it.'"

CO2 output?

[PIPBoy3000]

I wonder how much the CO2 output of the barges would be? That can't be especially good for the greenhouse gases.

Or...

[truthsearch]

Or we could let the planet do what it's always done: rise and drop in temperature and water levels. Whatever you may think humans have done to the planet, it's gone through much bigger changes before we were ever here. How about we let nature take its course and we worry about changing ourselves instead of the planet?

Energy required to do this?

[digitalgiblet]

First thought I have is "how much energy would be required to do this?"

Eight THOUSAND barges pumping enough water to make a layer seven METERS thick? EACH YEAR.

I'm no scientist, but it seems to me we'd be pumping out some greenhouse gases somewhere in this mix...

Would these be nuclear barges? No greenhouse gases, but instead spent nuclear fuel to contain for a really long time.

They estimate $50 billion USD to do this, but they don't say if that is the ongoing yearly amount.

Maybe easier just to genetically engineer all the plants and animals to deal with the new conditions rather than try to control the ocean currents (and for the humor impaired -- that sentence is meant as a joke).

There's no one-size-fits-all fix for this mess

[StefanJ]

When the bought-off pundits, ideology-addled fanboys, and fossil fuel industry flaks run out of viable talking points in their F.U.D. campaign, the debate over global warming won't be over whether it is happening, but on the most effective and economical ways to slow it down and cope with its effects.

There won't be a one-size-fits-all fix. Conservation and more efficient vehicles will be a big part of it. Environmental remediation projects, like reconstructing coastal wetlands to help them deal with floods and storms, will be another.

Stange notions like seeding the ocean with iron filings, and this oddball idea, are another possibility for the "arsenal" of fixes. I'd definitely put some money into researching them. Figure out the kinks sooner rather than later, so they'll be available if we need them.

Sounds like Brewster's Millions...

[RyanFenton]

This scheme reminds me somewhat of some of the (intentionally) money-wasting schemes of the movie Brewster's millions. Large machines sent thousands and thousands of miles to mechanically move an almost unimaginable ammount of water, along with the fuel needed to do all of this large-scale de-facto terraforming (aquaforming?).

That...or the Futurama episode where it was revealed that global warming had to be fended off with giant ice cubes from Haley's comet every once in a while.

What this scheme ammounts to is a color shift of a rather small portion of the earth's ocean, for a rather small ammount of time, and enormous cost.

You could achieve the same dynamic by:

A) Using some cheaper coloring to semi-permanantly paint large portions of land environments with an already severely limited biological environment, including deserts, rocky areas, upper mountain ranges, near-permafrost (permafrost is already white most of the time), etc. Longer-lasting and cheaper than the ice-cube in the ocean effect. Could be undone with darker color later if needed.

B) Genetically engineer and feed cryophillic bacteria with light pigment in near-arctic ocean areas. Either have it continuously expell bouyant light-color material as part of the life cycle, or else have the body stay boyant and un-edible by further bacteria after death. If this is feasible, and self-sustainable, we'd have a meaningful, if limited engineered biological terraforming. Similarly can be undone with darker color later.

Those are just two quick ideas - I'm sure there's a lot others that would work to do color-based terraforming. Are there any special reasons why this barge idea would... hold water still above such ideas?

Greg Benford's Suggestion

[Nova Express]

He suggested seeding the relatively dead waters of the Southwest Pacific with iron ore to encourage an algee bloom, which would then help absorb greenhouse emissions.

Like his idea, this one will be shot down for the same reason: It might actually do something about the problem, doesn't funnel money to the climatologists pushing Global Warming as a means of securing ever-more funding, and it offends the the civil religion of environmentalism by allowing Western Civilization to escape suffering (in the form of a stagnant economy die to crushing greenhouse gas taxes) for its "environmental sins."

"Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. [michaelcrichton.com] Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths. There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe. Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith. And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them."

Re:Or...

[truthsearch]

Yes.

Or we spend the of thousands of years it'll take before it becomes uninhabitable to learn how to live for generations in space.

Details from the paper

[SiliconEntity]

The original paper [springerlink.com] is unfortunately not available without a subscription, but it has considerably more detail.

The cost breaks down as a capital outley of 45 billion dollars for the barges and equipment; and operating expenses of 1.3 billion dollars per year. The barges would be wind powered for the pumping operations so no substantial CO2 is generated.

8100 barges, with a wind power system, a low volume pump and two high volume pumps per barge. 32 helicopters, 4 harbors, 4 air bases and 1 control center, for the Thunderbirds, I guess.

Re:Or...

[ajs]

Good points. One more to add to the mix: the trend in global warming debate thus far has been to say that CO2 must be the unknown cause of global warming because no other factor could account for the increase in temperature. This is generally said because the increase does not map to the increase in solar output.

However, if solar output were to trigger non-linear increases in global temperatures (e.g. by triggering the ~2% increase in percipitation in the 20th century, trapping solar radiation under increased cloud-cover and water vapor content), then such models could easily be quite wrong.

This is nothing new. Solar researchers have been trying to point out the sun-climate interactions since the 1970s [amazon.com].

Re:Hack?

[FleaPlus]

The estimated cost is about $50 billion.

Wouldn't be better to spend this tiny amount of money with measures to prevent and control the emission of CO2 at the atmosphere?

That depends... would the economic cost of reducing CO2 emissions by the equivalent amount be more or less than $50 billion?

This isn't a completely rhetorical question... if anybody has figures, I'd be very curious to see them.

Mother Earth

[rockwood]

The earth has maintained itself against far worse things then global warming. Ozone holes have been shown to increase and decrease in size. This is most likely not from any of our efforts, but those of mother nature and earth maintaining itself like it has long before any form of human had walked the earth.

Global warming is not all about taking care of 'our earth'. It's about saving our own asses from extinction.

Earth has endured asteroid showers, meteor showers, major volcanic erruptions that produced ice ages and other effects of extreme proportion. Earth will contineu to self-maintain long after the human race died off, or nuked themselves. When a major earth shifting event happens, evolution begins again.

Leave the glabal warming, ozone holes, melting ice alone - It's evident that since we started reducing ozone depleting chemicals, introduced automobile emmission controls, and a bounty of other reversal efforts, that nothing is helping. I strongly feel that we are not causing these things - rather earth is evolving herself, and unfortunately her future plans may or may not include any of the current species. We're beating a dead horse!

Re:as an alternative...

[FooAtWFU]

Actually, if you burn a rich mixture of jet fuel, the particulate fog that results from the engine spreads out and persists for around three months. The particles eventually come down in the rain, and are not especially toxic, and while they're up there they're reflecting sunlight.

This article [reason.com] (admittedly a little dated, 1997) claims that "for about $10 million, this method would offset the 1990 U.S. greenhouse emissions". (It also explores some potential side effects, and similar measures.)

Re:Quick interview on CBC

[vijayiyer]

FWIW, the Thames used to freeze on a regular basis. There used to be fairs held on it when it was frozen. In 1410, it was frozen for more than 3 months.

Re:Sounds like Brewster's Millions...

[FooAtWFU]

How about cities? This article [reason.com] (good lord, this must by my sixth post linking there in this discussion :) notes a potential urban contribution:

A mere 0.5 percent change in Earth's net reflectivity, or albedo, would solve the greenhouse problem completely. The big problem is the oceans, which comprise about 70 percent of our surface area and absorb more light because they are darker than land.

When it comes to increasing albedo, it would be wise to begin the discussion by introducing positive measures that can be easily understood and are close at hand. Reflecting sunlight is not a deep technical idea, after all. Simply adding sand or glass to ordinary asphalt ("glassphalt") doubles its albedo. This is one mitigation measure everyone could see--a clean, passive way to Do Something.

A 1997 UCLA study showed that Los Angeles is 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the surrounding areas, mostly due to dark roofs and asphalt. Cars and power plants contribute, but only a bit; at high noon, the sun delivers to each square mile the power equivalent of a billion-watt electrical plant.

This urban "heat island" effect is common. But white roofs, concrete-colored pavements, and about $10 billion in new shade trees could cool the city below the countryside, cutting air conditioning costs by 18 percent. Cooler roads lessen tire erosion, too. About 1 percent of the United States is covered by human constructions, mostly paving, suggesting that we may already control enough of the land to get at the job.

Paint the cities white, you'll save oil for air conditioning costs AND make for a more reflective Earth.

The article also suggests burning lots of sulfur-rich coal in western Pacific island nations, resulting in more clouds over the ocean and a higher albedo.

Why not just use Sabatier reaction and MCFC?

[layer3switch]

If "BIG IF" a housing/large apartment/buildings are required to install sabatier conversion unit and solar power unit? The energy input (+400C and some pressure) with CO2 and 4H2 intake (even at low efficiency), output would be methane, a source of energy which can heat up the house/building and excess production can feed into molten-carbonate fuel cell plants through existing gas pipe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabatier_process [wikipedia.org]

"Circle of life, Simba, Circle of life."

When the methane is collected and used where molten-carbonate fuel cells are used to further absorb CO2 and use methane as anode gas, it can be used to produce electricity at ~80% efficiency (at the most). Then the circle of life breaks for CO2 with energy conversion gain with less CO2 output as byproduct.

http://www.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/fu elcells/fc_types.html [energy.gov]

Of course, there are problems with MCFC due to high temperature, but this can be easily overcome. I mean, it can't be harder than overcoming FUSION's crazy amount of heat.

Yeah... but I know... I could be talking about of my ass.

Climate engineering makes sense

[Julian Morrison]

According to a report on the projected annual costs of the Kyoto treaty to the United States, issued by the federal Energy Information Agency in October 1998, "The total cost to the economy can be estimated as the loss in actual GDP (the loss in potential GDP plus the macroeconomic adjustment cost) plus the purchase of international permits ... Total costs range from an annual average level for the period 2008 to 2012 of $77 billion to $338 billion 1992 dollars depending on the carbon reduction case and how funds are recycled back to the economy."

BTW, Kyoto is acknowledged even by its defenders as a mere regulatory icebreaker with little direct impact, intended to open a path for far harsher protocols to follow. A modern civilised economy is very energy-hungry, and strangling the main source of energy would brake the economy hard. That has real costs, both in money and in human suffering.

In other words, faced with those sorts of costs, $50bn starts to look like pocket change.

Just from an engineering perspective, surely you can see how a direct attack on the problem makes more sense? It's like the difference between dealing with a slow-dripping spigot that has flooded your floor by stopping the leak and letting the floor dry in its own time (Kyoto) versus mopping the mess up first (climate engineering).

Read your own article...

[Goonie]

OK, some choice quotes from the piece you've linked to, firstly on iron fertilization:

For example, simulations of iron fertilization of the oceans in the Southern Hemisphere initially showed that almost 8 billion tons of carbon would be absorbed by the ocean each year. Yet, after 500 years of continuous fertilization, the net increase in absorption would be less than 1 billion tons of carbon per year.

First, the previously sequestered carbon dioxide does eventually leak back out of the ocean, although the leakage rate is most rapid in the first years.

However, at best, it's only a partial solution to the problem, and it would involve ecosystem management on an unprecedented scale.

This kind of large-scale

And on solar radiation increases:

That does not mean industrial pollution has not been a significant factor, Willson cautioned.

Oh, and as far as "solar forcing" goes, you may wish to have a look at what RealClimate [realclimate.org] have to say. To sum up, there's very little good historical data on the topic, which makes it an easy copout for people seeking alternative explanations for warming.

Re:Quick interview on CBC

[Kaydet81]

This all reminds me of the time they wanted to use Chinook (http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/h-47.htm [fas.org]) helicopters at the US Army Aviation Center to blow the ground fog away from the heliport so everyone could fly.

It didn't work.