Dr. MacCracken, Thank you for posting "Engineering of Geoengineering". It is easily the most readable and logical vision of what should be focused in upon. Finding funding is important and finding ways to link GE R&D with other projects is something on my mind. Here are a few suggestions related to your list of "Approaches considered potentially viable".
A few years back there was a (Navy) R&D proposal for the use of micro bubbles (Bright Water) as a means for reducing ship hull drag and thus allowing for high speed surface and submarine propulsion. I will try to run down the work (I found it while reading SBIR proposals). The reason I bring this up is that your call for Bright Water use in the arctic and else where may find some R&D support from the Navy as a means for them to evaluate real world high speed autonomous prototype operations. I can easily envision a large fleet of small Stirling engine/solar powered antonymous "Water Bugs" working the waters. The faster these craft cover the territory, the greater the SRM effect. These 2 R&D efforts seem like a good match. Selective augmentation of tropospheric and lower stratospheric sulfate loading comes into the technical field of "High Wind" energy harvesting as that field is developing means and methods to create reliable operations at those variable altitudes. The DOE did mention some interest in that field of R&D in a road map document a few years ago. Again, I will have to back track my reading. The point is that the these 2 R&D efforts seem to have a good linkage and joint funding may be possible. Here is on example in a recent SBIR, Wind Energy Capture in Non-Conventional Wind Resources" See section 7c http://science.energy.gov/~/media/sbir/pdf/docs/2011topicdescriptions.pdf You bring up the need for a 3rd approach concerning vertical stirring of ocean waters. Professor Salter's leading work in that area can be linked to a DoE effort in the area of "Advanced Component Designs for Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion Systems ". See section 6d in the above link. I am sure I can find other efforts that can be linked to vertical sirring. I can envision a combined platform of High Wind, Salter Sinks with Thermal Conversion. Adding a Bright Water component would be easy. I am not proposing that this group consider going through the SBIR program(s)! The SBIR, however, gives a glimpse as to what these agencies/departments are currently interested in pursuing. If multiple linkages can be pulled together and incorporated in a small number of "nuts-n-bolts" projects, a specific proposal for group funding might be worth spending time on. The science funding related to the evaluation of the effectiveness of the hardware may be folded into the hardware budgets....to a degree. The engineering of the above mentioned hybrid concepts are not difficult and would probably make good quality senior design engineering projects. The nut-n-bolts will be the easy part. Finding the funding for the long term evaluation of the effectiveness of these approaches may be easier if the efforts are combined with non GE projects. IMHO. Thank you again for your work. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
