I think you must have mistyped here.
When I read the cited article, I find the success to be elusive.
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When I read the cited article, I find the success to be elusive.
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lynnvinc
Guest
This is known as a geo-engineering measure, and it doesn’t seem dangerous like some other schemes, such as emitting SO2 into the atmosphere to cool the planet (but only temporarily and at the cost of killing many people through the SO2 and acid rain).
One of the problems, however, is that a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, desiccating & harming/killing plants and soil, contributing to conditions ripe for wildfires, which along with stronger wind storms (which I believe are also expected with AGW) are indeed causing greater wildfires around the globe.
Now I think your idea should be pursued, but it should also be kept in mind all the (name removed by moderator)uts that would be required to do that – does the output outweight the (name removed by moderator)uts, or is it a boondoggle that contributes more to AGW. It’s worth looking into to see if it could be part of our arsenal to mitigate AGW.
Ultimately we need to do everything at all levels from individuals & families to businesses to governments to the UN. That’s going to mainly be a matter of becoming more energy/resource conservative/efficient. It would also entail getting onto alt energy as much as possible. And some methods of drawing down the CO2…of which your greening project could be a help. I’ve also looked a bit into biochar and olivine (peridot) sequestering – see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar & en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olivine
But step one for us has been to reduce our GHG emissions, which we were able to do cost-effectively by about one-third or more. Then when we moved to Texas, we got onto Green Mountain 100% wind energy, and I guessimate that (along with our other measures) brought down our GHG emissions to 50% below our 1990 emissions. And now just 3 months ago we bought a Chevy Volt, which we plug into that wind energy and drive on the wind. It was expensive, but since we’ve been saving $1000s by implementing our other environmental measures, we were in good shape to buy it, plus I figure it too will be saving us $1000s after it pays for the difference in the other car we looked at in about 6.5 years. And I guesstimate that (along with the other measures) has brought down our GHG emission perhaps 70% below our 1990 emissions. And all have been money-saving measures. Maybe we should look into sacrificing a bit, bring it down to 75% below our 1990 emissions, or there are still many many cost-effective measure we have yet to implement.
I think when we retire in a couple of years, we may look more into the biochar measure – maybe turning our moringa trees (which grow fast like weeds, even in poor, drought, and flooded soils & provide us nutritious food, and spring back after killing freezes – see the PowerPoint in the right column of treesforlife.org/our-work/our-initiatives/moringa ) into a stead feed for biochar.
We need to pursue every avenue, but make sure they are not more harm than good (there are also some issue re biochar, which have to be studied more).
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Anne72
Guest
Just throwing this out there…cause I am a native Floridian (my family has been there since before it was a state. seriously.) All the old timers-years ago-said the ruin of FL would come from the constant growth-the theme parks, bulldozing the orange groves, the golf courses that took the place of cattle ranching and farming. My grandfather and father said a loooong time ago that the massive unchecked growth in FL would destroy the state and in my opinion, it has. I watched Florida die cause of the ‘playground’ mentality. 
I know my comment isn’t scientific and backed with all sorts of research-just a little bit of common sense observation.
I know my comment isn’t scientific and backed with all sorts of research-just a little bit of common sense observation.
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white_sheep
Guest
Paying a wind energy provider doesn’t reduce your carbon footprint. The coal plant runs just as much no matter how much they allow wind electricity onto the grid and spray the coal electricity into the air.
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Farsight001
Guest
The guy is a biologist. He should probably stay away from geology, because he’s not good at it. The deserts are not hot due to lack of plants. They have a lack of plants because they are hot. The heat is the result of proximity to the equator, which provides the most direct sunlight, as well as being on the landward side of mountain ranges, which basically steal precipitation and cloud cover.
Furthermore, the logistics of such an endeavor are astronomical. One can easily pump water from the water table - even deserts have them. But pump too much, and you kill the water table, which would actually make the deserts even hotter and have even less plant life. This means that the water would have to be pumped from elsewhere.
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manualman
Guest
This is generally not the case, nor a valid criticism of wind power. Coal and nuclear plants are part of the base load planning strategy of a power company. They don’t ramp them up and down with hourly fluctuations in power demand. They make up the steady demand below which the demand never (or at least rarely) drops.
Electric utilities address the peak end of the power demand curve with more flexible power sources, especially gas fired turbines which can quickly be started up, ramped up/down or shut down in response to power demand changes.
The valid criticism of wind power is that a utility can never depend on them. If you build 50 megawatts of wind generation, odds are that you ALSO had to build 50 megawatts of gas fired turbines so that the capacity is there, even if you get a non-windy day (like those stifling hot summer days when everybody cranks up the AC). This will forever make wind power a VERY high front end cost endeavor since you must build BOTH the wind turbines AND the gas turbines. You just don’t run the gas units when the wind is blowing. The basic bean counter question inevitably arises: “How about we save a few hundred million and just build the gas units?” Without subsidies, the extra cost of the wind turbines never pays for itself over their useful life. All those wind farms popping up all over out there only exist due to the massive tax dollar subsidies we are pumping into them via our great grandchildren’s debt payments.
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lynnvinc
Guest
A better strategy might include having wind farms throughout the state or nation; if it isn’t windy in one place, it may be in another. Also having a wind and solar mix (the prices are edging down and expected to become competitive) – when it is sunny it might not be windy, and it is often more windy during the night and when it isn’t sunny.
I’m not sure if the wind subsidies are that much higher than the tremendous subsidies for fossil fuel – esp when you consider wars and military security operations we have to conduct to secure our supplies. (I know nuke is very high.) I would hope costs for wind and solar would continue to come down and become more competitive.
However, there are other hidden costs in conventional energy – the health and environmental harms costs that are externalities by vested on our children and the elderly especially – from local pollution to regional acid rain (–>lung problems), from mining/extraction pollution/harms to energy generation harms, to waste hazards (like coal ash spills). It’s the people harmed that have to pick up those tabs.
And then there are the very heavy health costs of AGW effect, including food production reduction, disease spread, heat deaths/stress, etc. – which will be playing out a lot more on future generations. Maybe even hydrogen sulfide outgasing. See: geology.geoscienceworld.org/content/33/5/397.short
If we had a magic ball and could see into the future and could know with more certainty how those harms (and costs for wind power) will play out, we could see what the future generations have to say about it, and whether they indict us for malfeasance because we failed to protect their well-being.
We should not risk other people’s lives. And life is more precious than money.
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manualman
Guest
Lynne makes a good point about oil and the military subsidies that support it. I would actually support a law that made it required to amortize the cost of any war in an oil - exporting country to amortize the cost of that war over 15 years and pay for it via a tax on crude oil. THAT would be free market economics at work. What we have now where all taxpayers fund the military protection of the oil economy whether they use oil or not is central planning, not free markets!
But it has almost nothing to do with electricity. America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We don’t fight wars to keep the natural gas supplies flowing. There may come a day when Americans are willing to allow the power company to turn off their AC units if the wind isn’t blowing hard enough to make the juice needed. But it ain’t today, so power companies DO need to build enough fossil fuel peaker plants to back up the wind farms.
But it has almost nothing to do with electricity. America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. We don’t fight wars to keep the natural gas supplies flowing. There may come a day when Americans are willing to allow the power company to turn off their AC units if the wind isn’t blowing hard enough to make the juice needed. But it ain’t today, so power companies DO need to build enough fossil fuel peaker plants to back up the wind farms.
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Non_sum_dignus
Guest
My strategy is to wait for the next ice age, like the one we apparently had 40,000 years ago. There wasn’t much human industry to blame for that ice age, or for the subsequent heating.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Scientists are saying there won’t be another ice age due to AGW, but suppose there were, then that’s another good reason to leave the coal, gas, and oil in the ground – fpr future generations so they won’t freeze to death.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Well, you are right as it stands re electricity and the need for other than wind sources.
Even nuke needs some type of back up peaking plants for high demand times, since it has to run fairly constantly 24/7. We had a ComEd guy come to our parish environmental committee meeting in Aurora, IL in the mid-90s and we discussed it with him (ComEd runs on 75% nuke, 25% coal), and he suggested some water reservoir idea, whereby the water is pumped up by nuke into a higher level reservoir during the non-peak times, then released to generate hydro-electric power during peak times (I think it’s being done in some places). I got into talking about EVs that the Fox Valley EV Association (meets at COD) were converting and those slated to be produced in the future by auto companies, and he got all excited. He said if enough people were plugging in their EVs at night, during non-peak times, ComEd might be able to cut its electricity rate even in half!
I think wind might be able to supply maybe 20% or 30% of our electricity demands. And solar, nukes, and hydro some more, maybe up to 50% or so all combined. Since America is only at 3% wind power now, there is a great ways to go. Iowa is generating 20% of its electricity from wind right now.
And they are working on various other ideas like geothermal, tidal power ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_power ) and air-borne wind turbines (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airborne_wind_turbine ), etc.
Also algae fuel (see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biofuel_from_algae ), fuel from a fungus that produces a fuel nearly identical to diesel fuel (sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103192319.htm ) other biofuels from other non-food sources. There are lots of ideas out there and experiments going on, some of which could pan out and help supplement our energy needs.
Then there is the 5th energy source – efficiency/conservation. It’s been calculated that our American economy could reduce its energy demand by over 75% cost-effectively through these means without lowering productivity (see rmi.org and natcap.org ).
We reduced our household energy demand by some 30% or so from 1990-95 cost-effecitively without even doing everything we could have done (I was keeping records for years back in the early 90s, even figuring in the monthly average temps, provided by the gas co, and saw our gas bill go down and our electricity bill plummet). This was before we went on 100% wind power here in Texas in 2002, and then just recently got a Volt.
Energy reduction also includes “reduce & reuse,” bec there is an energy component in every product & in water (esp hot water). We’d been frugal before; we just become somewhat more frugal after 1990 in our efforts to reduce our harms. Aurora, IL had really great garage sales – a good reuse measure. I also had a bike there and off-set some driving by cycling – which is good for the health, reduces neighborhood crime, and (I felt) good for the spirit. Just be sure the bicycle routes re safe enough from reckless drivers, if you plan to do some cycling.
So my guessimate is that beyond our initial 30% or so cut in energy use, with wind power and our Volt we’ve perhaps cut our fossil fuel energy use by maybe 60 to 70% (all measures combined). And, with nearly everything we have been doing for this fossil fuel reduction either saving us money or not costing.
If one puts their mind and heart into it, and calls on God in prayer, nothing is impossible!
I doubt the scientists have enough understanding of climate change to make that assessment with any degree of accuracy.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Well, it was only one scientist I heard that from – your best friend James Hansen – and it wasn’t in a peer-reviewed study, just his expert opinion based on his vast knowledge and sense of things…including his knowledge that the sun is ever increasing (albeit slowly) in irradiance on its way to self-destruction in some billions of years.
But even if there were to be an ice age in the future, wouldn’t we want to save some coal and oil for them to keep warm? That’s just the prudent and humane thing to do – leave some of it in the ground for them.
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Geist
Guest
The Sahara was a massive forest, three times actually. It appears to cycle back and forth with the tilt of earths axis.
dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/12/-earths-orbit-transformed-greem-sahara-into-planets-largest-desert.html
National Geographic had a really good article on it a few months back.
dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/12/-earths-orbit-transformed-greem-sahara-into-planets-largest-desert.html
National Geographic had a really good article on it a few months back.
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Farsight001
Guest
Tilt of Earth’s axis? No. The entire African continent was once much further south because the continent itself has moved.
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Non_sum_dignus
Guest
Scientists were also warning us that we were hastening the next ice age a couple decades before they warned us that we were turning the earth into a giant, fried hush puppy.
Anyway, I suspect that coal-mining would be most unpleasant with those big, honkin’ sheets of ice covering everything.
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Farsight001
Guest
I don’t think scientists are saying that. In fact, from what I know, it appears that they’re saying the opposite - the temperature rising will probably help springboard another ice age.
He is not my friend, I do not know the man.
But thanks for clarifying the opinion.
Why?
I believe it would be more prudent to spend what we have towards research of alternatives.
It is a safe bet that the oil will not be around forever, so we should utilize the resource now to find alternatives to it later.
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lynnvinc
Guest
Isn’t that sort of like saying, potable water won’t be around for ever, so let the children figure out some way to get theirs…as tech is always advancing and I really want us to use all our potable water now for fracking & other industrial processes, and don’t care if all the water gets polluted and lights on fire when you put a match to it. Let the children drink salt water; there’s plenty in the ocean.
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TheRealJuliane
Guest
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