Greg Benford had a rather depressing presentation on the whole energy, carbon and climate story. Basically, we need about 12 TW currently, and even though our efficiency (E/GDP) is improving, GDP is rising faster, so the overall energy requirement is also increasing.
Even if we weren't afraid of nuclear power stations, we'd need them by the thousand - perhaps building one per day. Similarly, one can calculate how much solar and/or wind power are would need to be built per day, and that too is a lot, well above what we can see ourselves building.
As far as I recall, he had two or three suggestions that he basically supported. Firstly, carbon sequestering: take farm refuse (corn husks and the like), float it down to the sea on barges and sink it in deep water. He estimates that the Kyoto-equivalent for the US would cost $5b, while Kyoto itself had been estimated at $85b. Secondly, albedo changes - make the Earth lighter. If we paved roads with something lighter than black asphalt, and our roofs, we'd not only help the global environment, but also the local one. Not sure how big this effect would be.
His final proposal, though, had grandeur. Forget about trying to control the carbon, and instead place a Fresnel lens at the Earth-Sun L1 point, dispersing the sunlight ever so slightly, for a 1% reduction of insolation. The lens would have to be the size of North America, but it would be doable.
One other point raised (from the floor, I think) was that climate stability is not a natural phenomenon. We might want it, very much, but it would be an artificial situation, thus we will need to employ artifice if we are to have it. Climate is stable like a drunk man wandering along the edge of a cliff.
⇦ Conflux or bust... | ⇨ Worldbuilding (Conflux) |
