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Can man create technology to prevent sea levels from rising, in the future? There is one scientist who thinks we can freeze the ice caps with reflective particles, to them from melting and raising sea levels. Other ideas that have been pitched include building a giant manmade lake in the middle of America (or other countries) to allow excess ocean water to flow into it, evening out the sea levels. Also what about hurricanes, earthquakes and tsunamis... can man's technologies eventually overcome these in the far future?
We can plus with how fast solar technology is advancing we will be off fossil fuels by the 2030's. Way before the new climate report by the UN said we need to be.
As to rising sea levels, the area of Cleopatra's palace is under 30' of sea water. Has been happening since the end of the last ice age and it sure wasn't man-made.
Must be the son of the guy that suggested dumping soot all over Antarctica to stop the impending ice age back in the 70's, no I'm not kidding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Josseppie
We can plus with how fast solar technology is advancing we will be off fossil fuels by the 2030's.
Because of the storage issue it will never happen. Both your capacity and storage would have to be such an enormous amount the costs would be insurmountable. Think about this question carefully, we need about 1000GW of capacity to reliably meet demands. How much solar capacity and storage does that require?
Solar gain control is not insurmountable, it just would be continually expensive and a lot of people wouldn't like it for various reasons. Reflective molecules (a la Saturn's rings) placed in orbit around earth above the atmosphere could limit the ensolation, especially in areas around the equator for much of the year. It would be most effective around the solstices, and minimally so around the time of the equinoxes, because of the orbital dynamics. Smaller very temporary polar orbit rings would be less extreme. These would mess up space flight, communications, GPS, possibly wildlife cycles and a bunch of other things.
Storing cool in ice is interesting, but doesn't change the overall amount of heat being received. Albedo changes occur, sometimes naturally. The Sahara reflects a lot more light into space than when it was grass and forestland. Brazil is on track to be doing the same thing.
We can plus with how fast solar technology is advancing we will be off fossil fuels by the 2030's. Way before the new climate report by the UN said we need to be.
We will not be off fossil fuel by 2030, no offense, but. This is wishful thinking that is not based on reality.
If by 2030 we will supplement our fossil fuel by green energy by 30%, that will be a very aggressive step forward.
This is broad question, but. In theory we can, only it costs lot's of money and there is no point in spending it, unless we limit our pollution first.
for examale, the diminishing ozone layer is largely responsible for ice caps melting, we can create an artificial ozone, but it's costly, if we stooped casing ozone depletion and further funded ozone research....
As long as we stop causing global warming in the first place.
This is a science discussion and I feel that we can not talk about global warming without mentioning that not every-one believes in global warming. we have started keeping weather related records only recently. So for all we know the global warming we are seeing could be natural weather patterns. We really have to consider this opinion to have an intelligent discussion that relates to science.
If by 2030 we will supplement our fossil fuel by green energy by 30%,
I'd be surprised if it got that high ever at least as far as solar and wind goes. You have to keep in mind you're only idling fossil fuel plants when the sun and wind are affective. You have a dual system where fossil plants will be needed to meet demand when the solar and wind are not producing.
My money is on geothermal in the not so distant future because it does not have the Achilles heal of intermittent production
I'd be surprised if it got that high ever at least as far as solar and wind goes. You have to keep in mind you're only idling fossil fuel plants when the sun and wind are affective. You have a dual system where fossil plants will be needed to meet demand when the solar and wind are not producing.
My money is on geothermal in the not so distant future because it does not have the Achilles heal of intermittent production
We can realistically cut our fossil fuel consumption in the US (oil and gas and coal) by 30% in 15 years. (Cheap green electricity could cut industrial use of gas and coal, better engines can cut oil use for transportation)
Oil prices have come down recently, that might make us lazy in terms of working in that direction.
Do you remember reading about Captain Nemo's submarine while a kid ? It was powered by geothermal
I think we would have to drill like 3,000 miles down for geothermal.
Anyway, it had 2 alloy tentacles one would extend as deep as possible and the other would float up, the difference in temperature would recharge the batteries.
We can realistically have 100% green electricity in the US in 15 years. (I consider Nuclear and Hydro green )
Setting aside nuclear and hydro getting to 30% even if production was affordable is not very realistic. You have compounding expenses the more you add. It can supplement generation from fossil fuel but it can't replace fossil fuel generation. Geothermal doesn't have these issues. It can replace fossil fuel generation so the only real question is how long before it can do it economically.
Nuclear and hydro have their own baggage.
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