“The greatest power lay in subtlety,.., the recondite support and extension of natural processes.”
A Water Matter. Jay Lake
OBJECTIVES of the Foundation: to encourage the following
- To utilize large areas in hot-dry (arid desert) regions of the land to first create evaporative cooling surfaces on a grand scale to cool large areas of the earth.
- To do this by tunneling or piping or channel construction from the sea to the evaporation areas.
- To provide research and design assistance to provide the stimulus for local governments to carry them out.
- To utilize the salt flats where they are generated as part of or alongside of these evaporation areas as reflectors of sunlight.
- To use the salt produced to sequester or capture carbon, preferably directly with an ongoing reaction in the salt flats if a method can be developed, or in a production facility .
- To work in conjunction with carbon sequestration projects using regenerative farming in areas near the evaporation areas using dew or nighttime condensate or desalinated water from part of the daytime evaporation.
- To build computer climate models of each of many such projects in different parts of the world and to begin one such project as soon as possible.
- Through these actions to HELP OFFSET GLOBAL WARMING.
- To encourage use of areas of land below sea level of which there are many around the world ranging from Lake Eyre in South Australia to the Dead Sea in Israel and the Qattara Depression in Egypt (lowest point 133 meters below sea level and utilizable lake area of 12 -20,000 square km with a tunnel 55 kilometers to the Mediterranean Sea).
- To attract to the foundation some of the large numbers of concerned citizens who see the crisis arriving, the too slow effectiveness of carbon reduction and who want to help reduce global warming.
- To provide an action point for those citizens who wish to avoid the crisis of runaway carbon dioxide generation when it can no longer be stopped, otherwise known as the tipping point for CO2 generation. Warming releases naturally stored carbon with wildfires (bushfires), thaws the vast frozen tundra (releasing methane hydrates, worse than CO2), and melts the protective ice and snow sheets allowing the sun to heat the earth further.
- To encourage local governments to authorize and support such projects through our computer modeling, project planning, and perhaps arranging financing and even, if necessary, the engineering of the project.
- To remain bipartisan and non-political wherever possible as we see this as properly identified as a worldwide problem with support coming from peoples of all persuasions.
- To stay outside the political fights over carbon taxing of fossil fuels even though we think it will be very necessary for the planet to survive and focus on these methods to mitigate or help offset global warming.
- To welcome and recognize donors from all countries and, if acceptable by them, to publish donors names as contributors. Additionally, if they wish, to also publish the names of their children or grandchildren they wish to protect.
- To encourage a SPACE CHILL RACE with a cup or award for each of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth country to set up evaporation cooling space of at least 10,000 square kilometers evaporating one meter per annum on their land or elsewhere or the equivalent in cooling effect by other means. The race for survival is on!
- To encourage the SPACE GREEN RACE with a cup or award for each of the first, second, third, fourth, and fifth country to implement a carbon sequestration or capture plan to capture carbon at the rate of one million tons of CO2 per annum.
- To encourage innovation in carbon sequestration by individuals and companies through the use of awards.
- To provide a voice and action points for the millions of citizens who are frustrated and cynical and almost to the point of despairing a way to remedy our excessive abuses of the planet.
- To provide a way to encourage mega projects for all the millions who have taken some small steps, e.g. better light bulbs, smaller cars, electric cars, and lower thermostats to help the planet on a bigger scale.
The Best Idea
It was announced by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation in December 2018 that they would finance research at Harvard into a Space Umbrella consisting of chalk particles shot into the upper atmosphere so as the reflect sunlight before it could warm the atmosphere or the earth. This illustrates their foundation’s great concern for our current trajectory of accelerated global warming.
This is the best solution physical and probably necessary within 30 years but our crude estimates are that it could cost trillions of dollars to maintain every year if the particles were sent from earth. It also assumes that the quantity required would be something like the quantity of 22 million tons of sulphur particles thrown into space by Mt Pinatabu in 1994 that resulted in about 1 degree of cooling of the earth for approximately 18 months. The lowest cost of shooting material into space from the earth is estimated at $20 per lb using technology get to be developed, a giant electromagnetic gun embedded in a mountain. Technology that is not yet developed.
It would be a much lower cost if we used moon dust and fired it from the moon but such a weapon on the moon would give the operators possible world dominance so would have to be operated by many nations and handled with great political as well as technical skill. It might however greatly lower the costs of operation due to available cheap material and low gravity to overcome.
We think our projects will buy some time for this plan to be optimized and developed.
An article by the BBC gave a broad view of possible space umbrella ideas :
What is Old is New Again
There is nothing new about planning the use of below sea level areas. In 1912, the purpose then was to provide hydroelectric power with fresh water from the Nile to run into the Qattara Depression, in which the constant evaporation would mean that the flow and the generation of power could continue.
The alternate source of water for hydroelectric power would be the Mediterranean and a tunnel of approximately 55 to 80 km, whereas the freshwater proposal would need 200 miles or 320 km of pipe and would use potentially valuable freshwater to evaporate, the saltwater source would have the advantage of providing salt crystals to reflect sunlight and then be processed to capture or sequester carbon or to sell for other industrial purposes.
This depression alone covers an area of 19,605 square kilometers or 7,570 square miles. If we were able to use a significant portion of this area for evaporation, salt flat generation and salt production for the use of carbon sequestration then significant effects will occur.
Offset Model
The Salt Flat Evaporation surfaces’ viability will be sufficiently proven possible by developing algorithms or computer models similar to computer weather models, which we will call the Offset Model. The model will enable a forecast to be made of the necessary area (number of thousands of square miles) and surface type to affect a significant temperature change.Initial calculations indicate that we will need 170,000 square kilometer or 6600 square miles of evaporation surfaces to make any significant effect on global temperatures.
A dominant contributor to cooling will be the water evaporation as the latent heat of evaporation pulls heat out of the hot air.
The reflective index of the salt crystals is another one of the variables in the model. Other standard weather variables including wind velocities at the surface level and the rate of saltwater input rates will play a part along with the dominant evaporation rates by area.