RE: [geo] Meanwhile: 'Irreversible' Melting Threatens 'Considerable Increase' to Sea Level Rise
This is a marvelous concept that is new to me. Envision a large number of such pipes installed in polar ice sheets. One might focus on two goals. The first would be to lower the temperature of the bottom of the ice sheet in order to promote its growth from the bottom. This has the merit of avoiding the issue of salt in ice: when ice forms at the bottom of an ice sheet the ice itself is low in salt and a brine sinks away from the ice. Would one have to keep sinking the pipe into the ice sheet as the ice thickens. But alternatively, one might simply have a long pipe with the goal of just getting more heat above the ice, to be ultimately radiated away, with a goal of countering deep ocean temperature rise. Interesting technical concept. Peter Peter Flynn, P. Eng., Ph. D. Emeritus Professor and Poole Chair in Management for Engineers Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Alberta peter.fl...@ualberta.ca cell: 928 451 4455 *From:* Ronal W. Larson [mailto:rongretlar...@comcast.net] *Sent:* January-14-14 6:04 PM *To:* Keith Henson; John Nissen; Peter Flynn *Cc:* RAU greg; Geoengineering *Subject:* Re: [geo] Meanwhile: 'Irreversible' Melting Threatens 'Considerable Increase' to Sea Level Rise 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? 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. 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” Best stop until we hear more about past pipeline economics, and more knowledgable feasibility responses than mine. Again thanks. 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
Re: [geo] Case Study by Holly Buck on Haida Gwaii OIF demonstration
Hi Jim, Part of the purpose of the piece is to show how such an event can have diverse and contested interpretations; I appreciate hearing yours and Gloria's perspectives. I do think the idea of village science is more than just a framing or PR, and worthy of further thought. For me village science connotes something about scale. I've been to HSRC's company office in Vancouver, as well as spent some time in the village of Old Massett, and there's a huge jump between the resources HSRC had and what would be available to a lab in a research university. You can hardly compare it— so I don't mean that all the work was literally done in a village, but that both the funds and the research protocol were smaller, more personal and DIY, than what you would get in what would have been a very expensive study if it had been done by an established research institution. I think it's village science by comparison to science with national-scale funding, levels of formality and hierarchy, less personal relationships, etc. The reason I think this is important to think about is that it's quite possible that people other than university scientists may want to participate in various types of science / climate remediation / geoengineering, and not all of them will be rogue; some may be concerned citizens or makers, though of course at this point it's hard to imagine a group taking an action that has planetary-level effects. I think there's a cultural turn— with the idolization of Silicon Valley wizards who didn't go to college, and bootstrapping, and everyone should learn to code, and the maker movement— towards people without advanced research degrees being involved in data-driven science, and not just for creating flashy apps, but for real-world problems. Traditional research institutions can try to keep a monopoly on solutions and research, or find more creative ways to engage with other groups who might have different methods and levels of expertise and resources. So it's worth thinking about what scales geoengineering might happen on, and the interactions between these scales, no matter if you're seeking moratoriums or increased research funding or governance protocols. Cheers, Holly On 15 Jan 2014, at 11:54 AM, jim thomas j...@etcgroup.org wrote: Hi Holly Thanks for the interesting paper and comments below Regarding whether a cook describes themself as a cook or an engineer describes themself as an engineer (does a con artist describe themselves as a con artist??): I think you maybe give a little too much credence to John Disney's after-the-fact claim that I never once heard the term ‘geoengineering’.. Of course its important to take your interview subjects at their word and give them the benefit of the doubt but John Disney had worked for many years with his colleague Russ George whose previous iron fertilization endeavours with Planktos have been widely and very commonly described as geoengineering going back to at least 2003. I find it very surprising that John Disney would not have heard this word associated with ocean fertilization. Russ George himself certainly knew his own work was commonly described as geoengineering. Until last year Russ was the main mover behind HSRC, he appears to have written all of their public materials, owned a majority of the company, chaired the board and seemingly made all the key decisions until he became too much of a liability for the Old Massett band council to be associated with. All the deliberate framing of 'village science' and 'stewardship of ocean pastures' is 100% Russ George PR talk. The 'village science' framing is especially open to question as to its authenticity. As I understand it from reports out of the village and what names were publically shared almost the entire crew of the Ocean Pearl was non-Haida, - the same is true of its past and present day to day leadership, The 'research' and most of the company activities was carried out in Vancouver (not in old Massett). An account of what happened in the village by Gloria Tauber which you can read on p4 of the attached newsletter describes that the crew had been assembled and contracts signed before the village even learned about the scheme. let alone voted on it. I just noticed that Gloria has also posted an extensive response on your original piece that gives a bit more of the 'village perspective'. a few other small points: You quote an interview subject (Macnamee?) as describing the research purpose of the ocean fertilization event to be answering the question “Does adding a trace amount of iron to an HNLC[1] ocean eddy located in a known salmon migration route cause phytoplankton to grow, and if so, what are the resulting environmental benefits or costs?”. Once again this is an after-the-fact description. As far as i'm aware no research protocols were ever made available to the
[geo] Making ice (change of thread title)
Keith: I go through line by line - but deleting as much as I can. Mine all in bold caps. On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: Again thanks Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. I don't see it being the bottom. The ocean is thousands of feet deep and I can't see making these thing more than a 100 feet, say 30 meters long. [RWL1: I am projecting only adding like a meter to ice that is already (hypothetically) a meter thick - so it can get through a September area/extent minimum. Most Arctic ice forms from the bottom - only a little from falling snow. Asking Peter for more input here on best thickness change projections. I project something that can be thrown from a helicopter wherever an opening crack appears. Only operates when there is already a little ice. This might work also to extend the area of Antarctic ice, keeping the area/extent up for more months. By not deploying in some areas, you can keep some transport lanes open. Snip two 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 doubt it. The floating versions have to stand a fair amount of pressure just from the water pressure on them. But no matter the cost, who is going to pay for them? Polar bears? [RWL2: I don’t get the “pressure” issue. These can be relatively thick walled plastic, and the shape is appropriate for compression forces. I don’t see much shear for floating ice a few meters thick. Again - Peter? 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. It would take a few days with a spreadsheet. I think I figured them out years ago on the basis of a 5 year ball of ice several hundred feet in diameter. But that's just the start of the complexity. The wind blows the ice around and in spite if being in the middle of some very hard ice, the heat pipes are going to get broken on a regular basis. Make a case that someone would pay for it and I can run off the calculation. Then again, you can probably ignore the hardware cost since the legal expenses are likely to dominate. [RWL3: We have very different geometries in mind - as above, I am hoping for diameters like yours , but only a thickness like a meter. I ask Peter Flynn for support on whether this might seem possible. Re breakage, that would be the purpose of some early testing. I’m afraid in this game there are no design funds - all open source. again snip a bit It would be great if anyone could make a synthetic char, starting with CO2. That's been done decades ago. NASA had a project that would reduce CO2 to carbon flakes and oxygen. It's also an energy hog, not as bad as synthetic wax or oil, but you can't pump char. [RWL4: I don’t want carbon, I want something that has big interior surface area and very low density; charcoal. I have not looked into the NASA literature on recycling CO2 and will. But hope someone can comment. I doubt it will lead to a structure that looks like charcoal (needed to get high CEC - cation exchange capacity and other desirable features that cost nothing with char.). 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.) Melted rock is easy. But I don't get a carbon-negative stove. Plants *and* a char process together are carbon negative, sort of. The carbon returns to the air in less than geological time. [RWL5. Sorry, I didn’t explain enough on the lava question. I am looking for a very light weight porous but very strong, heat resistive material. I have seen an ideal product that is “sawn”commercially out of a solid lava mountain in Nicaragua. Melted rock is not what is needed - too dense. Any char-making stove (look up the word “TLUD”) can be carbon negative if the char is placed in soil (then changing name to “biochar”). Yes lifetime is an issue, but char is used for anthropological dating going back millions of years. We will be happy with a commonly used value of 1000 - and can live with less. 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. No, the hot end goes down to the lowest temperature of the air, less relatively minor heat leakage. [RWL6: Not understanding. Ask for Peter Flynn’s help again. If you are
[geo] Building Climate Solutions Conference
Good news - looks like buildings, agriculture, and natural resources are going to do the heavy lifting in solving AGW. Geoengineers need not apply. Greg [Email-Banner-2]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/ [2014-Vision-2]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/51cbfca3f702fc2ba8130b34/ [2014-Registration]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/523af4fc0cf264abcd6728be/ [2014-Agenda]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/51cbfca3f702fc2ba8130b33/ [2014-Venue2014]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/523a08ef0cf264abcd587ac3/ [2014-Leadership]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/51cbfca2f702fc2ba8130aa0 [2014-Sponsorship]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/523208a70cf2ea76e5235e3a/ [2014-Exhibit]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/52320c310cf264abcccfb669 [2014-Posters]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/5238d2b30cf264abcd4024cd/ [2014-Collabs]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/523711040cf2ea76e573f557 [2014-Affiliates]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/5239e8f10cf2ea76e5aa415d Please note the NEW VENUE: Hyatt Regency Crystal Cityhttp://crystalcity.hyatt.com/en/hotel/our-hotel/map-and-directions.html at Washington, D.C. National Airport Hotel reservations close January 13, 2014 HYATT VIP WELCOME CONTEST What can make the soothing décor of a Hyatt Regency Crystal City Guestroom more inviting? What about a plate of Chocolate Truffles or an Artisans Meats and Cheese platter when you arrive? Each month a lucky conference attendee will randomly be selected to receive a complementary Hyatt VIP Welcome Amenity. You must be registered for the conferencehttps://www.cvent.com/events/2014-building-climate-solutions-conference/registration-715b726def1245288b37276db2dc3c38.aspx and book at least one night stay at the host hotelhttps://aws.passkey.com/g/20484301 to be eligible. One more winner will be announce before the conference! Registration Rates: Individual Attendee: $495 - three days $275 - single day Full-time Student: $345 - three days $190 - single day Federal Employee: $445 - three days $250 - single day ___ Non-profit Organization: $395 - three days $220 - single day University or Community College Affiliate Member: Complimentary The 14th National Conference and Global Forum on Science, Policy and the Environment: Building Climate Solutions will engage over 1,200 key individuals from many fields of sciences and engineering, government and policy, business and civil society to advance solutions to minimize the causes and consequences of anthropogenic climate change. The conference will be organized around two areas: [1]The Built Environment; and [2] Agriculture and Natural Resources. Under these two themes, 24 tracks connect the conference to specific initiatives led by partnering organizations that advance solutions. In this manner, participants will engage with and have lasting impact on real world responses to climate change. We invite you to join with others, work across traditional boundaries, and contribute your insights and skills to addressing the most significant environmental challenge of our time. [Register-Now-Button3]http://www.buildingclimatesolutions.org/topics/view/523af4fc0cf264abcd6728be/ Don't Miss These Keynote Speakers [James Hansen cvent photo] James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), is Adjunct Professor and at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, where he directs a program in Climate Science, Awareness and Solutions. He was trained in physics and astronomy in the space science program of Dr. James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. His early research on the clouds of Venus helped identify their composition as sulfuric acid. Since the late 1970s, he has focused his research on Earth's climate, especially human-made climate change. Dr. Hansen is best known for his testimony on climate change to congressional committees in the 1980s that helped raise broad awareness of the global warming issue. He was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 and was designated by Time Magazine in 2006 as one of the 100 most influential people on Earth. He has received numerous awards including the Carl-Gustaf Rossby and Roger Revelle Research Medals, the Sophie Prize and the Blue Planet Prize. Dr. Hansen is recognized for speaking truth to power, for identifying ineffectual policies as greenwash, and for outlining actions that the public must take to protect the future of young people and other life on our planet. Hansen will receive the John H. Chafee Memorial Lecture Wednesday, January 29th at 6:15 p.m. [Gummer - cvent] Rt. Hon. John Gummer, Lord Deben,Chairman of the UK Government’s Committee on Climate Change, served for sixteen years as a British minister in the governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, as
Re: [geo] Making ice (change of thread title)
Personally, I can't see these thermal diodes being at all practical. Far cheaper and simpler to just break up the ice, or pump water on top of it. The maths is pretty simple. The thermal diode can only be at a temperature of the water, at a maximum. It's heat transfer is a function of the surface area exposed to the air. This heat exchanger is a manufactured item, and thus expensive, with a small surface area. Flooding the ice with seawater gives a far higher surface area and thus far higher heat transfer. A On 15 January 2014 21:58, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: I go through line by line - but deleting as much as I can. Mine all in bold caps. On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: Again thanks Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. I don't see it being the bottom. The ocean is thousands of feet deep and I can't see making these thing more than a 100 feet, say 30 meters long. [RWL1: I am projecting only adding like a meter to ice that is already (hypothetically) a meter thick - so it can get through a September area/extent minimum. Most Arctic ice forms from the bottom - only a little from falling snow. Asking Peter for more input here on best thickness change projections. I project something that can be thrown from a helicopter wherever an opening crack appears. Only operates when there is already a little ice. This might work also to extend the area of Antarctic ice, keeping the area/extent up for more months. By not deploying in some areas, you can keep some transport lanes open. Snip two 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 doubt it. The floating versions have to stand a fair amount of pressure just from the water pressure on them. But no matter the cost, who is going to pay for them? Polar bears? [RWL2: I don’t get the “pressure” issue. These can be relatively thick walled plastic, and the shape is appropriate for compression forces. I don’t see much shear for floating ice a few meters thick. Again - Peter? 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. It would take a few days with a spreadsheet. I think I figured them out years ago on the basis of a 5 year ball of ice several hundred feet in diameter. But that's just the start of the complexity. The wind blows the ice around and in spite if being in the middle of some very hard ice, the heat pipes are going to get broken on a regular basis. Make a case that someone would pay for it and I can run off the calculation. Then again, you can probably ignore the hardware cost since the legal expenses are likely to dominate. [RWL3: We have very different geometries in mind - as above, I am hoping for diameters like yours , but only a thickness like a meter. I ask Peter Flynn for support on whether this might seem possible. Re breakage, that would be the purpose of some early testing. I’m afraid in this game there are no design funds - all open source. again snip a bit It would be great if anyone could make a synthetic char, starting with CO2. That's been done decades ago. NASA had a project that would reduce CO2 to carbon flakes and oxygen. It's also an energy hog, not as bad as synthetic wax or oil, but you can't pump char. [RWL4: I don’t want carbon, I want something that has big interior surface area and very low density; charcoal. I have not looked into the NASA literature on recycling CO2 and will. But hope someone can comment. I doubt it will lead to a structure that looks like charcoal (needed to get high CEC - cation exchange capacity and other desirable features that cost nothing with char.). 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.) Melted rock is easy. But I don't get a carbon-negative stove. Plants *and* a char process together are carbon negative, sort of. The carbon returns to the air in less than geological time. [RWL5. Sorry, I didn’t explain enough on the lava question. I am looking for a very light weight porous but very strong, heat resistive material. I have seen an ideal product that is “sawn”commercially out of a solid lava mountain in Nicaragua. Melted rock is not what is needed - too dense. Any char-making stove (look up the word “TLUD”) can be carbon negative if the char is
[geo] Re: Making ice (change of thread title)
On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 1:58 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: I go through line by line - but deleting as much as I can. Mine all in bold caps. On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: Again thanks Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. I don't see it being the bottom. The ocean is thousands of feet deep and I can't see making these thing more than a 100 feet, say 30 meters long. [RWL1: I am projecting only adding like a meter to ice that is already (hypothetically) a meter thick - so it can get through a September area/extent minimum. Most Arctic ice forms from the bottom - only a little from falling snow. Asking Peter for more input here on best thickness change projections. I see, bottom of the ice layer, not bottom of the ocean. I project something that can be thrown from a helicopter wherever an opening crack appears. Only operates when there is already a little ice. That's a long way from how I modeled this. I figured starting with open water and freezing cylinders of ice in the 100 meter diameter range and that deep. They would drift into hexagonal aggregations that would be harder to overturn and perhaps thick enough to resist buckling from wind forces. Dropping anything from a helicopter runs the price up by an order of magnitude, at least. This might work also to extend the area of Antarctic ice, keeping the area/extent up for more months. By not deploying in some areas, you can keep some transport lanes open. Snip two 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 doubt it. The floating versions have to stand a fair amount of pressure just from the water pressure on them. But no matter the cost, who is going to pay for them? Polar bears? [RWL2: I don’t get the “pressure” issue. These can be relatively thick walled plastic, and the shape is appropriate for compression forces. I don’t see much shear for floating ice a few meters thick. Again - Peter? The walls have to be thick enough to deal with the pressure of propane or ammonia at least. Then they have to resist the effects of a few atmospheres of water pressure on them at the bottom. Think of the wall thickness fraction as being at least that of a propane bottle you hook up to the grill. 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. It would take a few days with a spreadsheet. I think I figured them out years ago on the basis of a 5 year ball of ice several hundred feet in diameter. But that's just the start of the complexity. The wind blows the ice around and in spite if being in the middle of some very hard ice, the heat pipes are going to get broken on a regular basis. Make a case that someone would pay for it and I can run off the calculation. Then again, you can probably ignore the hardware cost since the legal expenses are likely to dominate. [RWL3: We have very different geometries in mind - as above, I am hoping for diameters like yours , but only a thickness like a meter. I ask Peter Flynn for support on whether this might seem possible. Re breakage, that would be the purpose of some early testing. I’m afraid in this game there are no design funds - all open source. Not concerned with getting paid for the design work, but it's pointless if nobody will ever pay for testing or deployment. Any ideas? Do you suppose friends of the polar bears might fund a test? snip 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. No, the hot end goes down to the lowest temperature of the air, less relatively minor heat leakage. [RWL6: Not understanding. Ask for Peter Flynn’s help again. If you are boiling a fluid at the bottom the thermal energy movement is upward. Maybe we are not disagreeing - but the bottom “hot end in a heat pipe sense has to be a good bit warmer than the atmospheric above ground (condensing) temperature to have heat transfer. That's not the case. Heat pipes have the capacity to move heat thousands of time better than the best metal conductors. I would be surprised to find more than a degree difference from the bottom of the pipe to the top. As the cold end gets colder, the pressure in the heat pipe decreases, which lowers the boiling point of the working fluid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pipe
RE: [geo] Making ice (change of thread title)
The only advantage is the disposition of the salt - making ice thicker at the bottom ensures that the salt stays in the water, not the ice. As has been pointed out before, we don't know what happens with the salt if you flood the ice from the top, nor whether higher-salinity ice creates a problem by melting earlier. However, given that the oil industry seems to use this approach regularly, it seems like it ought to be relatively straightforward for the right person to actually collect some data rather than simply trading hypotheses. (The right person almost certainly isn't me, much though I'd love the excuse to head up to the Beaufort sea.) -Original Message- From: geoengineering@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Andrew Lockley Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2014 4:24 PM To: Ronal Larson Cc: Keith Henson; Geoengineering; John Nissen; Peter Flynn; RAU greg Subject: Re: [geo] Making ice (change of thread title) Personally, I can't see these thermal diodes being at all practical. Far cheaper and simpler to just break up the ice, or pump water on top of it. The maths is pretty simple. The thermal diode can only be at a temperature of the water, at a maximum. It's heat transfer is a function of the surface area exposed to the air. This heat exchanger is a manufactured item, and thus expensive, with a small surface area. Flooding the ice with seawater gives a far higher surface area and thus far higher heat transfer. A On 15 January 2014 21:58, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: I go through line by line - but deleting as much as I can. Mine all in bold caps. On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: Again thanks Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. I don't see it being the bottom. The ocean is thousands of feet deep and I can't see making these thing more than a 100 feet, say 30 meters long. [RWL1: I am projecting only adding like a meter to ice that is already (hypothetically) a meter thick - so it can get through a September area/extent minimum. Most Arctic ice forms from the bottom - only a little from falling snow. Asking Peter for more input here on best thickness change projections. I project something that can be thrown from a helicopter wherever an opening crack appears. Only operates when there is already a little ice. This might work also to extend the area of Antarctic ice, keeping the area/extent up for more months. By not deploying in some areas, you can keep some transport lanes open. Snip two 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 doubt it. The floating versions have to stand a fair amount of pressure just from the water pressure on them. But no matter the cost, who is going to pay for them? Polar bears? [RWL2: I don't get the pressure issue. These can be relatively thick walled plastic, and the shape is appropriate for compression forces. I don't see much shear for floating ice a few meters thick. Again - Peter? 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. It would take a few days with a spreadsheet. I think I figured them out years ago on the basis of a 5 year ball of ice several hundred feet in diameter. But that's just the start of the complexity. The wind blows the ice around and in spite if being in the middle of some very hard ice, the heat pipes are going to get broken on a regular basis. Make a case that someone would pay for it and I can run off the calculation. Then again, you can probably ignore the hardware cost since the legal expenses are likely to dominate. [RWL3: We have very different geometries in mind - as above, I am hoping for diameters like yours , but only a thickness like a meter. I ask Peter Flynn for support on whether this might seem possible. Re breakage, that would be the purpose of some early testing. I'm afraid in this game there are no design funds - all open source. again snip a bit It would be great if anyone could make a synthetic char, starting with CO2. That's been done decades ago. NASA had a project that would reduce CO2 to carbon flakes and oxygen. It's also an energy hog, not as bad as synthetic wax or oil, but you can't pump char. [RWL4: I don't want carbon, I want something that has big interior surface area and very low density; charcoal. I have not looked into the NASA literature on recycling CO2 and will. But hope someone can
Re: [geo] Making ice (change of thread title)
Hi I accept that glacier grounding may have a use for thermal diodes, but in sea ice they're pretty useless. Breaking ice works well, because ice is an excellent thermal insulator. Icebreaker paths are cheap. Broken, the cold air hits the sea, and the water can also radiate to deep space. The thermal diodes can't exchange heat any faster than the temperature gradient over their surface area will allow. Mechanical pumps expose a huge area of water (the same temperature as the base of the thermal diodes). The principle is one of leverage. Small pump - big surface area of water. Vs. Small diode - small surface area of diode. A On 16 January 2014 01:16, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Wed, Jan 15, 2014 at 4:24 PM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: Personally, I can't see these thermal diodes being at all practical. That's probably true. But don't forget that we are considering two problems, nailing down glaciers and restoring ice cover on the ocean. Far cheaper and simpler to just break up the ice, or pump water on top of it. I don't see how braking up the ice will help thicken it so it survives over the summer. Could you explain? The maths is pretty simple. The thermal diode can only be at a temperature of the water, at a maximum. I don't think you have a good model of a thermal diode. The ones along the Alaskan pipeline freeze a large ball of permafrost rock hard because the deep end of the pipe goes down to the minimum air temperature during the winter. It's heat transfer is a function of the surface area exposed to the air. This heat exchanger is a manufactured item, So are pumps. and thus expensive, with a small surface area. Flooding the ice with seawater gives a far higher surface area and thus far higher heat transfer. How many pumps? How do you power them? Does this accomplish the goal of keeping an ice cover on the Arctic ocean over the summer? Not being snarky, I just don't know. Keith A On 15 January 2014 21:58, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: I go through line by line - but deleting as much as I can. Mine all in bold caps. On Jan 15, 2014, at 10:28 AM, Keith Henson hkeithhen...@gmail.com wrote: On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:50 PM, Ronal W. Larson rongretlar...@comcast.net wrote: Keith: Again thanks Re- being able to make thicker ice in the Arctic - from the bottom, not the top. I don't see it being the bottom. The ocean is thousands of feet deep and I can't see making these thing more than a 100 feet, say 30 meters long. [RWL1: I am projecting only adding like a meter to ice that is already (hypothetically) a meter thick - so it can get through a September area/extent minimum. Most Arctic ice forms from the bottom - only a little from falling snow. Asking Peter for more input here on best thickness change projections. I project something that can be thrown from a helicopter wherever an opening crack appears. Only operates when there is already a little ice. This might work also to extend the area of Antarctic ice, keeping the area/extent up for more months. By not deploying in some areas, you can keep some transport lanes open. Snip two 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 doubt it. The floating versions have to stand a fair amount of pressure just from the water pressure on them. But no matter the cost, who is going to pay for them? Polar bears? [RWL2: I don’t get the “pressure” issue. These can be relatively thick walled plastic, and the shape is appropriate for compression forces. I don’t see much shear for floating ice a few meters thick. Again - Peter? 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. It would take a few days with a spreadsheet. I think I figured them out years ago on the basis of a 5 year ball of ice several hundred feet in diameter. But that's just the start of the complexity. The wind blows the ice around and in spite if being in the middle of some very hard ice, the heat pipes are going to get broken on a regular basis. Make a case that someone would pay for it and I can run off the calculation. Then again, you can probably ignore the hardware cost since the legal expenses are likely to dominate. [RWL3: We have very different geometries in mind - as above, I am hoping for diameters like yours , but only a thickness like a meter. I ask Peter Flynn for support on whether this might seem possible. Re breakage, that would be the purpose of some early testing. I’m afraid in this game there are no design funds - all
