{"id":8465,"date":"2019-05-10T11:43:49","date_gmt":"2019-05-10T10:43:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8465"},"modified":"2019-05-10T11:43:49","modified_gmt":"2019-05-10T10:43:49","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-climate-fix-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8465","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week – climate fix research"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"beech<\/a>A new institute for climate fix research has just been announced today based at Cambridge University.\u00a0 Its mission – to investigate the unthinkable.\u00a0 That is geoengineering solutions to climate change.\u00a0 Before moving on to briefly look at some of the suggested solutions its important to say this is an act of desperation.\u00a0 The best\u00a0climate fix is to stop producing CO2<\/sub>.\u00a0 The scientists led by the former chief scientific advisor Sir David King are obviously pessimistic about our chances of doing so.\u00a0 A variety of climate fix(s) have been suggested.\u00a0 These include;<\/p>\n

Coating the Arctic in light coloured plastic.<\/strong>\u00a0 As you should know dark materials absorb for infra red than light ones.\u00a0 With all the problems with plastic this is a non-starter.\u00a0 It would shred in winter storms.\u00a0 Its probably not practical to do anyway. The area of plastic required would be huge.<\/p>\n

Spraying salt water into the atmosphere above the poles.\u00a0<\/strong> This is a variation on spraying water into the atmosphere, world wide.\u00a0 A solution I’ve heard of before.\u00a0 The idea is that the salt water increases the cloud cover.\u00a0 This reflects light back and causes the Arctic to freeze.\u00a0 The advantage of this method is that the increased snow and ice cover could cause a virtuous circle, reflecting more light and therefore heat back into space.\u00a0 This is the opposite to what is happening at the moment, where any rock liberated of ice absorbs more heat.\u00a0 The idea is to used unmanned drone ships powered by the wind.\u00a0 Still very difficult to envisage on the scale required.<\/p>\n

Carbon capture and storage.<\/strong>\u00a0 In general I don’t approve of the idea of filling old oil or gas wells with CO2<\/sub>.\u00a0 It smacks to much of hiding dirt under the carpet, whilst producing a lot more dirt.\u00a0 However there is a variation on this theme.\u00a0 To turn the CO2<\/sub> into fuel by combining it with hydrogen.\u00a0 This has the advantage that you would by tying a lot of CO2<\/sub> up in stored fuel (think how much petrol or diesel you have in the tank of your car alone).\u00a0 One major problem we looked in our book<\/a> was where the hydrogen comes from.\u00a0 Another disadvantage is that for other reasons we want to stop using carbon fuels and there is a big push on electric cars.\u00a0 It could allow people to fly, but there are other good reasons for stopping airport expansion.\u00a0 One area where it does interest me is in making methane for the gas grid.\u00a0 This would allow us to use our existing boilers when renewable heat is such a problem.<\/p>\n

Ocean greening.<\/strong>\u00a0 The next two solutions in my view are more benign although this solution still has its critics. If you add iron to the seas then it encourages the growth of phytoplankton.\u00a0 That is plankton that are photosynthetic.\u00a0 They enter the food chain and end up the bottom of the ocean where the sediment is a huge carbon sink.\u00a0 Its been tried on a small scale with mixed results.\u00a0 Again critics think it could harm the eco systems, it also needs to be done on a vast scale.\u00a0 Interestingly enough NASA research shows that a decline in phytoplankton that was happening has now reversed (at least in shallow coastal waters).\u00a0 There is also a question as to whether the sequestration is permanent.<\/p>\n

Planting trees.<\/strong>\u00a0 Agriculture is a relatively easy win as far as cutting emissions is concerned.\u00a0 The Committee on Climate Change suggested planting 1.5 billion trees in the UK.\u00a0 National forests in Scotland and Wales are underway but progress on both is far too slow.\u00a0 This is the most benign solution of the lot.\u00a0 Very few people will object to tree planting.\u00a0 If the wood is used in building then the CO2<\/sub> can be sequestrated\u00a0 The problems are can it mop enough in time?\u00a0 And the trees must be protected.\u00a0 There are plenty of upland areas in the UK that could be used and indeed used to be forested.<\/p>\n

All of this is one huge danger.\u00a0 That governments will assume that new CO2<\/sub> emissions don’t need to be cut.\u00a0 The above is for emergency use only.\u00a0 Not a get out jail card.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new institute for climate fix research has just been announced today based at Cambridge University.\u00a0 Its mission – to investigate the unthinkable.\u00a0 That is geoengineering solutions to climate change.\u00a0 Before moving on to briefly look at some of the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-change","category-one-thing-we-have-learnt-this-week"],"yoast_head":"\nOne thing we have learnt this week - climate fix research - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8465\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8465\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=8465\",\"name\":\"One thing we have learnt this week - 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