Keith: Again thanks
Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. Glad to see you were a decade or more ahead of me. Have you seen the idea in print? I guess the many in use along the pipeline says it doesn’t need further experimental proof. But some of their operating data would be nice. The Antarctic case seems a bit harder - with a need for stiffer, stronger pipe. Any reason the floating Arctic unit couldn’t be made of a thinner plastic and get closer to a $1 or so per foot (with a total of (?) less than 10 feet?) I hope you can find your earlier cost calculations. I think we have a chicken and egg situation. The person finding the money (John Nissen?) will have to have some cost calculations. I like the term “thermal diode”. It gets across the idea well. More like the term “biochar” than the term CDR, however. Speaking of biochar, offhand it seems to offer more value (because of surface area) than the “synthetic wax” you cite below. Would seem to be cheaper even if the wax was also carbon negative somehow. It would be great if anyone could make a synthetic char, starting with CO2. I once read that no-one knows how to make a synthetic volcanic lava (maybe no longer true, anyone? It would make a great material for simple char-making carbon-negative stoves.) Your proposed diode will operate with the “hot” side always around 0 oC, and the cold side dependent on the nighttime air temperature that (not looking anything up) might average -30 or -40 oC. This is about the same as OTEC systems I think, which also use evaporation techniques, but with a needed thousands of feet of large-diameter pipe. I believe the OTEC literature has talked of such low temperature opportunities, but not using the term “diode”. Re 20 per sqmi. For PR purposes, I suggest using the same max number as allowed for fracking wells (16?) Again, thanks, for the new added data. I hope someone can shoot the idea down soon, if obviously not practical. Best of luck also with your satellite power system work. Ron On Jan 14, 2014, at 8:56 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhen...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 5:03 PM, Ronal W. Larson > <rongretlar...@comcast.net> wrote: >> Keith etal (adding in John Nissen and Peter Flynn ) >> >> 1. Most interesting. I own a solar thermal system with the same heat pipe >> theory at work - and would have never carried it over to your Pine Island >> example. This to answer your first question on my part. Thanks. >> >> 2. Adding John and Peter because of their interest in the northern >> equivalent. I think there we are talking of possibly being able also to add >> ice just below the existing surface layer, so as to maybe add months to the >> ice area/extent lifetime. Maybe especially to be located where there is >> known methane below. >> >> 3. One beauty is that this is a closed system. Any cites on the liquids >> used for the Alaska pipeline? > > Ammonia. > > Somewhere, years ago, I read a report on detecting the ones that had > failed because the top of the pipes had filled up with hydrogen and > how they were repaired. I think propane would be as good or better. > >> Should be able to design something that >> floats; totally passive. Has potential multi-year usage even if nothing >> possible during part of the summer. Maybe a gang could be tied together >> underwater. > > Some years ago I ran off an estimate of how much ice would form over a > winter and how much would melt back in the summer. They were really > rough calculations. Searching on the net, it looks like I never > mentioned this idea. The earliest mention in my email files is 2006, > searching my hard drive turned up this from Sept. 2012. > > ^^^^^^^^^^ > > Why not ask the Engineers? > > Not too many years ago, when people had problems like floods or things > they wanted to do like going to the moon, they asked engineers how to > do it and how much it would cost. Then after some political debate, > they had big companies with thousands of engineers and related > technical workers do the job. The Transcontinental railroad, Panama > Canal, Hover Dam, Manhattan Project, Apollo, you get the drift. > > However, in recent years, people have not been asking the engineers. > There has been a tendency to assume we already know how to fix a > problem. The solutions assumed are usually the "hair shirt" kind with > a religious flavor to them and lots of sacrifice—for other people of > course. > > Just being an old engineer, I can't say how society could be induced > into asking engineers how to solve the problems again. However, on > the off chance that someone might ask, I have put some thinking into > the problems that show up in the daily news. > > Take sea ice melting in the Arctic. > > One solution, which might work, is vast numbers of floating thermal > diodes. These are not new. They were developed for the Alaskan > pipeline as pipe supports where the pipe ran across areas of > permafrost. They were very simple, a pipe sealed on both ends with a > gallon or two of ammonia in it. When the air temperature is lower > than the permafrost, the ammonia boils at the bottom end, condenses at > the top end where it is exposed to very cold air. It then runs down > the pipe to boil again. When the air temperature is higher than the > permafrost, the ammonia stays in the bottom. I ran the analysis and > found that in a few years each pipe would become a 100-foot ball of > very hard ice, too cold to melt over the summer. It takes a lot of > them, millions, but they are dead simple and not very expensive. > > The same thermal diodes could freeze glaciers to bedrock. The > large-scale effect would be to raise the wintertime temperature in the > Polar Regions, which increases the radiation into space. > > For low cost energy, I have been talking for a few years about > building lasers propulsion to get the cost of hauling millions of tons > of power satellite parts into orbit. This has become a 26-page > document full of numbers. > > However, we could do something else with a large transportation system > into space, sunshades that lower the brightness of the sun. Robert > Kennedy and his co-authors have produced a 25-page paper analyzing how > this would work and what it might cost. > > An alternative is to overbuild the power satellites and put CO2 back > in the ground as synthetic wax. > > Lots of answers, the problem is how to get people to ask. > > ^^^^^ > > But it may not have been posted anywhere, at least not somewhere Google > indexes. > > Incidentally, Robert Kennedy told me recently that the article > mentioned above should be in the mail to subscribers of the Journal of > the British Interplanetary Society. > >> 4. Answering your second and final question, I would guess that the idea >> does qualify as “geoengineering” - but not under the SRM or CDR categories. >> The Oxford dictionary says: >> >> the deliberate large-scale manipulation of an environmental process that >> affects the earth’s climate, in an attempt to counteract the effects of >> global warming. >> >> 5. Since you “obviously" need a three-letter acronym, a few possibilities >> (has to work at both poles, with both long and short pipes) are: “PIM= >> Polar Ice Making”, “PPI = Polar Passive Ice-Making”, “PHP = Polar Heat >> Pipe”, “PHI = Polar Heatpipe Ice-making” . >> These are maybe not inclusive enough terms. Maybe “TET = Thermal Energy >> Transfer” or “PET=Passive Energy Transfer” or “POC - Passive Ocean >> Cooling” > > If they are used to pin down glaciers, perhaps we call them GG for Glacier > Glue. > >> Best stop until we hear more about past pipeline economics, and more >> knowledgable feasibility responses than mine. Again thanks. > > I think that before even working out what they would cost to build and > install, the first thing would be to figure out who might pay for > them. > > Keith > > PS > > https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alaska_Pipeline.jpg > > You can see the aluminum radiators on the top of the pipes. > > It an OLD idea. The pipeline is close to 40 years old. > > Re cost, the pipe alone, perhaps $10 a foot. My guess is that 20 per > square mile would be enough, but that's just a guess. > >> Ron >> >> >> On Jan 14, 2014, at 3:59 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhen...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> I wonder if anyone has thought about stopping the Pine Island Glacier >> by freezing it to bedrock? >> >> What it would take is a number of thermal diodes. They were used on >> the Alaskan pipeline to keep it from sinking over areas of permafrost. >> >> All they are is a hole drilled to the bottom of the glacier, lined >> with a closed end pipe, a heat radiator on the top and a few gallons >> of propane or ammonia. >> >> The way they work is that when the air is colder than the bottom of >> the pipe, the liquid boils at the bottom, sucking out heat, vapors go >> up and liquid runs back down. The process stops when it is warmer on >> top than at the bottom. >> >> They are not very expensive, each one (over time) freezes a large area >> of the glacier to the underlying rock. >> >> A floating version can freeze a substantial block of ice out of >> seawater in the winter. >> >> I wonder if this would be considered geoengineering? >> >> Keith >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 2:31 PM, Ronal W. Larson >> <rongretlar...@comcast.net> wrote: >> >> Greg etal >> >> Because this paper is behind a paywall, I can barely glean from their >> figures that they may be looking at a fifty year time horizon. Did they >> look at all at either SRM or CDR when using the term “irreversibility? >> (quotes in the original - why?) >> >> Ron >> >> >> On Jan 14, 2014, at 12:43 PM, Greg Rau <gh...@sbcglobal.net> wrote: >> >> http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/01/13-2 >> Antarctic Glacier's 'Irreversible' Melting Threatens 'Considerable Increase' >> to Sea Level Rise >> New study on Pine Island Glacier shows 'striking vision of the near future,' >> says co-author >> - Andrea Germanos, staff writer >> An Antarctic glacier is melting "irreversibly," offering "a striking vision >> of the near future," a new study shows. >> The study published Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change looked at >> Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in the >> Antarctic. >> The team of scientists used three ice flow models to look at the glacier's >> grounding line, which separates the grounded ice sheet from the floating ice >> shelf. >> The grounding line, which has already retreated by about 10 kilometers in >> the last decade, "is probably engaged in an unstable 40 kilometer retreat," >> the study finds. >> The glacier "has started a phase of self-sustained retreat and will >> irreversibly continue its decline," said Gael Durand, a glaciologist with >> France's Grenoble Alps University and study co-author. >> Durand says the findings show "a striking vision of the near future. All the >> models suggest that [the glacier's] recession will not stop, cannot be >> reversed and that more ice will be transferred into the ocean.” >> Agence France-Presse adds: >> >> A massive river of ice, the glacier by itself is responsible for 20 per cent >> of total ice loss from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet today. >> On average, it shed 20 billion tonnes of ice annually from 1992-2011, a loss >> that is likely to increase up to and above 100 billion tonnes each year, >> said the study. >> >> "The Pine Island Glacier shows the biggest changes in this area at the >> moment, but if it is unstable it may have implications for the entire West >> Antarctic Ice Sheet," Planet Earth Online reports study co-author G. Hilmar >> Gudmundsson from the National Environment Research Council's British >> Antarctic Survey as saying. >> "Currently we see around two millimeters of sea level rise a year, and the >> Pine Island Glacier retreat could contribute an additional 3.5 - 5 >> millimeters in the next twenty years, so it would lead to a considerable >> increase from this area alone. But the potential is much larger," >> Gudmundsson warned. >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "geoengineering" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "geoengineering" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "geoengineering" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. 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