Thanks, Russell. Do you have a citation for the power numbers for natural rays (although I've ignored the rarer, high-energy rays)? The numbers you've provided contradict my sources, which are many orders of magnitude lower.
For clarity, the comparator technology is an ion thruster, not a research particle accelerator. These have to be efficient, otherwise they'd impart a very large energy penalty on space probes. A On Mon, 20 Aug 2018, 01:55 Russell Seitz, <[email protected]> wrote: > The grid-to-beam efficiency of greater than GEV particle accelerators > ranges from kess than 5 % for high current systems , to as little as 0.02% > for superconducting colliders like the LHC. As the global cosmic ray flux > is of the order of 5 GW, matching it might therefore take anywhere from a > hundred GW to several tens of terawatts. > > At the high end of that power range one runs into a serious feedback- the > cloud nucleation cooling might be overwhelmed by extra CO2 radiative > forcing from the thermal plants in the grid powering the accelerators. > > On Sunday, August 19, 2018 at 10:17:58 AM UTC-4, Andrew Lockley wrote: >> >> Cosmic rays cause cloud condensation nuclei. They are therefore believed >> to affect cloudiness, and therefore climate. If we made more cosmic rays, >> that would likely make it more cloudy. Whether this was a warming or >> cooling effect would depend on whether it was cirrus or cumulus clouds (NB, >> sometimes making cirrus ultimately removes water, resulting in less cirrus) >> >> Cosmic rays are almost all protons, with an typical energy peak >> distribution of 0.3GEv. (4.8×10−11 J). No idea if that's the right >> energy for CCN, but we can tweak that later. >> >> Creating artificial cosmic rays is possible, using a linear particle >> accelerator. This is similar to an ion thruster, as used in space probes. >> >> To affect climate, you'd probably have to get densities of the order of >> 1/s/sqm (more on that, later). >> >> 360 million square kilometers of ocean is 360tn sqm or 3.6x10^14sqm. You >> don't really want to send particles into people, and the cleaner air over >> the oceans makes them more effective. >> >> A kilo of hydrogen contains 6x10^26 protons. >> >> That means 1kg of H2 gives you enough material for 1.6x10^12s = roughly >> 50 years - so a satellite could easily carry enough material to do the job. >> >> Power is 3.6x10^14 x 4.8x10^-11J/s = 17kW - again, well within what a >> satellite could muster (roughly 100sqm of solar panels, at around 20% panel >> efficiency (conservative) and 50pc conversion (made up) efficiency). >> >> Cheap satellites are about $50m - well within the capabilities of a rich >> philanthropist. Even if this is not cheap, it's still only perhaps 500m >> >> If I'm out by 5 orders (1 ray per sq cm, not per sq m each second), then >> that's only 10,000 satellites. That's expensive, but not outlandish. >> Superficially, that would be $500bn at the lower cost, but there is likely >> a 10x or 100x experience curve cost reduction, meaning the whole programme >> would be about $5-50bn max. >> >> As an alternative, you could use aircraft or balloons, but beam >> attenuation would be a serious issue. 40km balloons can be launched, albeit >> with small payloads. They would fly at the bottom of the mesosphere, over >> 99.9pc of the atmosphere. So maybe beam attenuation would be tolerable, at >> that height. I don't know how to calculate it, but I'm guessing it would be >> cms to kms - so not really far enough to make a difference to climate. You >> could perhaps have mountaintop accelerators with very high powers, and a >> sweeping beam (like a lighthouse). If the power requirement was GW-range, >> then maybe the beam range would be a hundred km, or so. That might be >> enough to work, but it would have some pretty significant effects on local >> atmospheric chemistry - so probably not a good idea. >> >> Any thoughts from anyone? >> >> Andrew Lockley >> >> >> -- > 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 https://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
