Mark etal The phrase "aluminum toxicity" is seen over and over again in the Biochar literature - in the sense of Biochar having a positive effect. Unfortunately, I have not yet found any technical papers to explain in detail why Biochar should help. The best reference I have found so far on aluminum toxicity (1995 publication, pre-Biochar) is at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC157131/pdf/1070315.pdf which says the toxicity is associated only with acidic soils. It is relatively easy to manufacture char which is highly basic (up to pH=12; one can also produce char which is low as pH=4) - so I think the very general statements have validity. I shall keep looking - but can look harder if this is of import. Ron ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Massmann" <m2des...@cablespeed.com> To: "David Keith" <ke...@ucalgary.ca>, "John Nissen" <j...@cloudworld.co.uk> Cc: "Ken Caldeira" <kcalde...@stanford.edu>, "karolyn massmann" <massm...@cablespeed.com>, "Kevin Layton" <kevinlay...@live.com>, "Mike MacCracken" <mmacc...@comcast.net>, "Andrew Lockley" <and...@andrewlockley.com>, "P. Wadhams" <p...@cam.ac.uk>, "John Gorman" <gorm...@waitrose.com>, "Geoengineering" <Geoengineering@googlegroups.com> Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 4:49:19 AM Subject: [geo] RE: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols? David and All- The large-scale release of aluminum particulates would be very dangerous to people and the ecology, especially since this approach would be ongoing, so aluminum fallout would to accumulate over time on land. Even if release was limited to ocean regions, particles would spread in the stratosphere and still deposit over land. This was shocking to me as I read it, but aluminum is already making crop growth more difficult for as much as HALF the world's arable land (shown in the attached image)! The following quote from http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/SoilsKochian.kr.html explains: " When soils are too acidic, aluminum that is locked up in clay minerals dissolves into the soil as toxic, electrically charged particles called ions, making it hard for most plants to grow. In fact, aluminum toxicity in acidic soils limits crop production in as much as half the world's arable land, mostly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and South America. " I don't know if this issue is enough to make this concept off-limits (it does in my mind), but as a minimum I believe this approach should require oversight by experts in ecology who would be able to determine its true risks and balance them against its potential benefits. Best Regards- Mark From: David Keith [mailto:ke...@ucalgary.ca] Sent: Monday, July 11, 2011 6:30 PM To: John Nissen; Mark Massmann Cc: Ken Caldeira; karolyn massmann; Kevin Layton; Mike MacCracken; Andrew Lockley; P. Wadhams; John Gorman; Geoengineering Subject: RE: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols? Folks Building on the work we did on the direct formation of small aerosols in the stratosphere, see paper link below, Jeff Peirce, Debra Weisenstein and I are beginning work looking at alumina aerosol. This is motivated by the fact that one could, in principle, form alumina aerosol using similar methods to the ones we examined in the previous paper. The benefits of using alumina might be: 1. Lower potential for chlorine activation per unit surface area. (Maybe, we are reviewing the old lit.) 2. Higher index of refraction à less particles needed for a given radiative forcing à smaller coalescence rate à slower growth à longer lifetime à even less particles needed. This effect might be quite large. 3. Lower IR emissivity. 4. Smaller aerosols à less forward scattering problem. Of course this is all preliminary, but this gives us a sense that it might be that alumina aerosols would have less side effects per unit radiative forcing. Yours, David Paper: Jeffrey R. Pierce, Debra K. Weisenstein, Patricia Heckendorn, Thomas Peter and David W. Keith. (2010). Efficient formation of stratospheric aerosol for geoengineering by emission of condensable vapor from aircraft. Geophysical Research Letters , 37, L18805, doi:10.1029/2010GL043975, http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2010/2010GL043975.shtml From: John Nissen [mailto:j...@cloudworld.co.uk] Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2011 4:18 PM To: Mark Massmann Cc: Ken Caldeira; David Keith; karolyn massmann; Kevin Layton; Mike MacCracken; Andrew Lockley; P. Wadhams; John Gorman; Geoengineering Subject: Re: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols? Hi Mark, You might be interested in this work [1] - I attended the presentation at the EGU 2011 geoengineering session, and they were talking about producing engineered microparticles (of titanium for example) rather than the usual sulphate aerosol. A major advantage is to be able to control the size, which is critical to SRM effectiveness [2] and ozone side-effects. I don't remember anything being said about health! I'm copying to Peter Wadhams, in case he knows about the work at Cambridge. John Gorman has also been thinking about alternatives to sulphate aerosol. We certainly need to be considering a combination of aerosols and cloud brightening techniques to cool the Arctic, try to save the Arctic sea ice and help to stop the methane - though ideally we should have started deployment years ago, because the situation is so critical now with both sea ice [3] and methane [4]. Cheers, John [1] http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/EGU2011-10375.pdf [2] Solar Radiation Management by reflecting solar radiation back into space [3] http://climateprogress.org/2011/05/19/arctic-sea-ice-volume-death-spiral/ [4] http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/exclusive-the-methane-time-bomb-938932.html --- On 25/05/2011 16:37, Ken Caldeira wrote: On ChemTrails, check out this site: http://contrailscience.com/chemtrail-non-science/ On Wed, May 25, 2011 at 1:45 AM, Mark Massmann < m2des...@cablespeed.com > wrote: Dr. Caldiera- As I said before, I am not researching the existence of "chemtrails" here. I was mainly trying to understand if aluminum is being considered for SRM and if so, what you believe the side-effects could be. I'm not sure what data format you would require to consider the data is "good" or "high quality". The following link includes test results for Pheonix in June 2008, where levels of aluminum were 6,400 times above the toxic limit. This is another "chemtrail" discussion, but in spite of that the data appears to be legit (you might have to paste this to your browser for the link to work): http://www.rense.com/general82/chemit.htm MORE IMPORTANTLY, your statement of, "There is no "official" consideration of anything. There are just individuals thinking, talking, and writing." highlights what I believe is a fundamental problem which is preventing the geoengineering effort as a whole from making significant progress- THE APPROACH USED TO SOLICIT AND COMPARE GEOENGINEERING SCHEMES HAS TO DATE BEEN FAR TOO INFORMAL. It has mostly been as you say- "just individuals thinking, talking, writing". I don't understand how this process is going to identify the most effective mitigation strategies and get them ready for implementation ASAP. Most of the geoengineering schemes currently being considered are more than 20 years old (ref the 1992 NAS report on "greenhouse warming"). We've already lost valuable time in the last 20 years, and further time is wasting that we cannot afford (especially in the Arctic). A typical example is with MCB. Dr. Salter posted some information 2 days ago trying to address my concern of underwater turbines causing excessive drag. I had originally informed him that I had this concern along with several others over 2 years ago (see January 2009 attachment). It is now May 2011, and MCB is considered one of the most feasible SRM solutions, yet these potentially fatal issues remain that could have been addressed in the last 2 years. A formal process would enable issues like this to be documented in a centrallized/transparent location, along with providing direction (i.e. "next steps" required) to resolve them. Here direction might be, "Obtain preliminary analysis from marine architect on feasibility of the proposed Flettner vessel configuration. This shall include structural and dynamic loading from Flettner rotors and underwater turbines over the expected wind range and sea-surface conditions." I would hope that a more formalized process would also help ensure that concepts like mine (on the large-scale release of Lair- which has multiple potential applications) are evaluated more-fairly by including whatever clarifications are necessary to make sure it is properly understood. Please let me know your thoughts on this. Thank you- Mark Massmann From: kcalde...@gmail.com [mailto: kcalde...@gmail.com ] On Behalf Of Ken Caldeira Sent: Monday, May 23, 2011 12:51 PM To: Mark Massmann Cc: keith; karolyn massmann; Kevin Layton; Dennis O'Keefe Subject: Re: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols? There is no "official" consideration of anything. There are just individuals thinking, talking, and writing. I have no expertise in environmental toxicology. My understanding is that most aluminum in dust has soil or rock sources. If there is good data showing trends in atmospheric deposition of metals, I would like to see them. I attach a paper look at dust in the southwestern US that sees no unusual inexplicable trends in dust composition. Here is an older paper that also sees nothing strange: http://thesalmons.org/lynn/trends.pdf Where is the high quality data showing recent changes in dust composition? ___________________________________________________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegie.stanford.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 12:33 PM, Mark Massmann < m2des...@cablespeed.com > wrote: Dr. Caldiera- The paper you reference only includes data to the year 2000. I believe that the public concern being expressed on rising aluminum levels mainly includes what has occurred over the last 10 years. If there's a more recent report on this data please let me know. Let me say again that I'm not concerned about a Chem Trail "conspiracy". I would mainly like to understand the following, from both your perspective and that of Dr. Keith (if you please)- 1. Is aluminum being officially considered as a replacement for sulfate aerosols and why? 2. What do you believe the potential side-effects could be from an ongoing release of aluminum particles (esp the potential worst-case effects on living organisms)? I haven't otherwise found answers to these questions. Thanks again for your help- Mark From: Ken Caldeira [mailto: kcalde...@gmail.com ] Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2011 9:11 AM To: Mark Massmann Cc: ke...@ucalgary.ca ; karolyn massmann; Kevin Layton; Dennis O'Keefe Subject: Re: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols? This ChemTrail stuff is conspiratorial fantasy as far as I can tell. I have no special information on this. Where is the peer-reviewed literature documenting and attributing causes for trends in dust composition? Look at the attached paper. Why don't we see any clear trend in aluminum at Mt Everest if this is supposed to be some global aluminum spraying program? ___________________________________________________ Ken Caldeira Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA +1 650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegie.stanford.edu http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira On Sat, May 21, 2011 at 7:44 AM, Mark Massmann < m2des...@cablespeed.com > wrote: Dr. Caldiera- I had sent you an email (below) about one year ago, asking you if aluminum particles were being considered as a (supposedly) more-effective replacement for sulfate aerosols, and how aluminum could even be considered due to it's toxicity. I am not a conspiracy-theorist, but after seeing so many articles this last year, I'm hoping you can share some information about it: Are aluminum particles being released to try and mitigate global warming, and if so, how are the contamination risks being justified? As I mentioned last year, there has been growing public concern over the ecological damage and health risks which can result from releasing very large amounts of aluminum (and barium) particles over land, and this concern has grown significantly since then. Aluminum (no matter how common it may be in the earth's crust) is a very toxic metal that accumulates in the body, so that it can cause greater illness from more and more exposure. Aluminum toxicity is thought to be a cause of Alzheimer's, and it can contaminate the groundsoil over time to the point where only "aluminum resistant" crops will grow (the fact that Monsanto is creating these specific GMO seeds gives me the creeps). There is a good, recent summary on chemtrails here: http://theintelhub.com/2011/03/30/secret-presidential-chemtrail-budget-uncovered-exceeds-billions-to-spray-populations-like-roaches/ I realize I'm probably not telling you anything new, but please respond when you find some time. Finally, in terms of my Lair concept, I remain very convinced that one or more Lair strategies for increasing global cloud albedo will work, if only those scenarios can be tested properly. Lair's expansion ratio at high altitudes is enormous (7,500 times at 50,000 ft), and as Dr. Rasch stated to me in a recent email, " Introducing dramatic changes in temperature and supersaturation can produce lots of interesting and unpredictable effects (contrails are an example)." From my studies so far of atmospheric physics, it seems like there are still many things that are poorly understood, making it very hard to predict what will happen when these concepts are tested in the real world. The fact that Lair could also be used to help reduce hurricane strength, reduce tornados or even fight wildfires (which even seem to be burning more intensely where trees are coated with Chemtrail fallout) using liquid nitrogen. Best Regards, Mark From: Ken Caldeira [mailto: kcalde...@gmail.com ] Sent: Sunday, May 09, 2010 9:38 AM To: Mark Massmann Cc: Ken Caldeira; < ke...@ucalgary.ca > Subject: Re: Aluminum particles as a replacement for sulfate aerosols Aluminum is the most common metalic element in earth's crust so of course it is common in naturally occurring dust. There is no official organization 'considering' anything so I am not sure what your question means. I would say these are good questions for the [clim] group ______________ Sent from a limited typing keyboard Ken Caldeira +1650 704 7212 kcalde...@carnegie.stanford.edu On May 9, 2010, at 16:52, "Mark Massmann" < m2des...@cablespeed.com > wrote: Dr. Caldiera- I have been hearing and reading more and more that aluminum particles are being considered as an improvement over sulfate aerosols, with "conspiracy theorists" claiming it is already being implemented to create "chemtrails" in various parts of the world. Some are claiming that measurements of aluminum are showing toxic levels present in rainwater and soil, and are very concerned about its ramifications. Is it true that aluminum is under serious consideration, and if so how is this being justified in light of its toxicity? Best Regards Mark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
