Nutty Professor Has Solution to Mitigate Global Warming.
His solution would see hundreds of rockets filled with sulphur launched into the stratosphere.
1995 Nobel Prize winner Professor Paul Crutzen believes that sulphur particles similar to those erupting from volcanoes could act as a natural cooling device for the planet, by creating a "blanket" that would stop the Sun's rays from reaching the Earth. Check out the story.
Mount Pinatubo ejected about 10,000,000 tons of sulphur into the stratosphere at about 10-40km above the Earth's surface. For two years after Pinatubo erupted, the average temperature across the Earth decreased by 0.6C.
This eruption, while relatively large in magnitude, pales in comparison the truly catastrophic events such as Krakatoa in the 19th century.
His plan ignores the combined effects of the amounts of sulphur currently being injected into the atmosphere, as you read this, by any of the 8-12 volcanoes worldwide that are erupting at any given moment.
Professor Crutzen may have won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, but he is sorely lacking in Mathematics, Logic, and sadly, simple common sense.
The plan is wildly ignorant of what would have to occur logistically and what enormous amounts of capital would be required. A fleet of America's largest payload rocket: the TITAN V - which carries a maximum payload of less than 3 tons - would take Millenia to build. Assuming an extremely and totally unrealistic accelerated lead time of (1) month to build and launch a Titan V, it would take 22,222 years to accomplish only 1/10th of what Pinatubo did in a few weeks.
Do The Math
1- Amount of So2 needed: 1,000,000 tons (2,000,000,000 Lbs)
2- Titan IV Rocket Max Payload: 7,500 Lbs
3- Amount of Launches needed: 266,667
4- Cost of Launch: $110,000,000 USD
5- Cost for So2 shield $293,333,333,000,000 USD
The cost does not take into account the of the sulphur. Launch costs verified at this authoritative website.
All this to reduce the Global Avarage Temperature a mere 0.06C.
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To: Uncle Peter
Is this guy on RUdy's GW advisory team yet?
2 posted on
03/07/2007 10:31:41 AM PST by
pissant
(http://www.gohunter08.com/)
To: Uncle Peter
Such a scheme would never be done with Titans (for one thing, they're retired, for another, it's not necessary to go all the way to orbit, and it's a very expensive vehicle). It would be done with suborbital reusable vehicles, like the ones currently being developed for space tourism. Their cost per flight, and cost per pound to the upper atmosphere, would be lower by orders of magnitude. It would actually provide a great market for them.
To: Uncle Peter
It would be easier and cheaper to coax a volcano into erupting...............perhaps several........
4 posted on
03/07/2007 10:37:17 AM PST by
Red Badger
(Britney Spears shaved her head............Well, that's one way of getting rid of headlice.........)
To: Uncle Peter
Hey, let's add some potassium nitrate and charcoal. Anyone got a match?
5 posted on
03/07/2007 10:39:16 AM PST by
isthisnickcool
(Oh! The Obamanation! Durka durka durka...)
To: Uncle Peter
I'm amused that liberals want to expend a lot of energy for a trade off that is worth virtually nothing. What this professor wants to build isn't even a perpetual motion machine! snort>
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
6 posted on
03/07/2007 10:40:24 AM PST by
goldstategop
(In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
To: Uncle Peter
It was my understanding in order to "Save the World," you have to save the cheerleader. :D
7 posted on
03/07/2007 10:41:41 AM PST by
Tucker822
To: Uncle Peter
4- Cost of Launch: $110,000,000 USD
5- Cost for So2 shield $293,333,333,000,000 USD
This money would be put to much better use devising a system to detect and deflect large asteroids which could strike the Earth.
To: Uncle Peter
Feeding cattle "Bean-o" would probably have the same effect only be less costly. Of course Al Gore is saving the planet by the purchase of global warming indulgences.
12 posted on
03/07/2007 11:16:28 AM PST by
The Great RJ
("Mir we bleiwen wat mir sin" or "We want to remain what we are." ..Luxembourg motto)
To: Uncle Peter
I have a question.
WHY IS THIS GUY WORRIED ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING?
It happens every 1000 or so years like clockwork.
This graph shows the climate history of the last thousand years: clearly depicting the Mediaeval Warm period and the Little Ice Age: it also shows that temperatures are increasing once again.
This rather more sciencematifical one showing the sinusoidal variation in temperature rather more clearly
And this complex set of study results show a variation from mostly warmer (red) temperatures in 1000 AD through a colder (blue) period (1500 AD) to today's hotter/redder periods again. There can be very little doubt about this sinusoidal global warming - but this periodic climate change has nothing whatever to do with CO2 or man's activity. It's completely natural.
To: Uncle Peter
To: Uncle Peter
Good night! What happened to flubber? We could fly the sulfur up on flubber! Yeh! That's the ticket!
/sarcasm.
To: Uncle Peter
According to Hugo Chavez, all we have to do is get President Bush to give a few speeches at the United Nations, and the problem is solved.
-PJ
To: DaveLoneRanger; texianyankee; JayB; ElkGroveDan; markman46; palmer; Bahbah; Paradox; FOG724; ...
To: Uncle Peter
Couldn't you just let passenger jets user higher sulphur fuel?
To: Uncle Peter
Ping to myself for later reading. Although these might be viewed by some as hairbrained, I am glad some thinking is going into this, "just in case". And yes, I have read the "debate" that is going on in here..
33 posted on
03/08/2007 4:51:56 AM PST by
Paradox
(Secular Conservative, thank God!)
To: Uncle Peter
Just poke an unstable volcano with a few nukes.
To: Uncle Peter
It’s the sun that’s the problem. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to just build a giant polarized lens to shield the earth?
46 posted on
04/09/2007 6:15:22 PM PDT by
Trteamer
( (Eat Meat, Wear Fur, Own Guns, FReep Leftists, Drive an SUV, Drill A.N.W.R., Drill the Gulf, Vote)
To: Uncle Peter
Isn’t this the same guy who wanted to inject methane or kerosene into the atmosphere to restore the ozone layer about 20 years ago?
48 posted on
04/09/2007 6:33:12 PM PDT by
Old Professer
(The critic writes with rapier pen, dips it twice, and writes again.)
To: Uncle Peter
To me, it’s much simpler just to kill all the Chinese, all the Middle East, except Israel, and kill all the Indonesians. We could then start to cull the Russians that don’t agree with us and some western Euro’s like France that don’t contribute anything constructive to the world. Just sending American Democrats to re education camps and then killing the mental defectives of the bunch that won’t conform would go along way to solving most of the world’s ills. That should alleviate much of the worlds trash problems, overcrowding, fuel shortages, and GW gasses. It would also stop most of the abortions and we could have a new crop of people that may have not been damaged by crack and heroin.
Anyone that I forgot to mention would at least decide America meant business and sit down and shut up.( Like Mexico and South America)
49 posted on
04/09/2007 6:35:28 PM PDT by
chuckles
To: Uncle Peter
More evidence of mass hysteria sweeping the country and leading people to suggest crazy things.
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