Has anyone done any research on aerosol coagulation influenced by electrostatics? Superficially, it would seems sensible to give particles a whopping great electrostatic charge upon release, so they run away from each other. Over time, it's not clear to me whether there would be any lasting benefit from this approach - as I guess the charge would fade away pretty quick. But if the charge could be made persistent, they'd still despise being in each others' company for as long as it stuck around - and that could have a long-term influence on the reflectivity and fall rate.
An alternative would be to use a charged aerosol wrapped in an insulator - somewhat like a scotch egg. This might be able to maintain the charge for much longer, provided it doesn't get gummed up with opposite-charge gunk stuck all over the outside of it. But there's not much gunk in the stratosphere, so it's unlikely to end up covered in bacteria, soot, grit or whatnot. The issue with this approach is that it would seem to be pretty tricky to put the charge on in the first place. If you're using an aircraft or artillery shell, you'd likely have to dump the unwanted opposite charge out onto some ballast material, which is ejected (hopefully falling fast enough not to hop back up and mess up your aerosols). However, the approach would tend to favour balloons, because you can just wire them up to the ground, and stick whatever charge you like up a tiny wire - the amps would be pretty small. Any thoughts? A -- 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 [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
