Harvard Scientist Proposes Refreezing Arctic to Prevent Global-Warming Disaster (VIDEO)

Harvard University geoengineer and environmental scientist David Keith has a "plan B" in case of an environmental emergency.

Keith's unusual proposal is this: Force reflective particles into the Earth's upper atmosphere -- the stratosphere -- to reverse global warming.

"One approach is to disperse particulates at high altitude to reduce the effective solar flux entering the atmosphere," Keith and his fellow researchers report in the Nature Climate Change journal and Environmental Research Letters.

The idea comes from nature, Keith said in a TED talk. In 1991, Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines erupted and cooled the Earth. About 15 millions tons of sulfur dioxide rose into the upper atmosphere, creating an "hazy layer" of aerosol particles, according to NASA. The plume of particles in the atmosphere shaded the Earth's surface, creating a cooling effect for almost two years.

Keith is proposing something similar to save the Arctic sea ice, which is at an all-time low. The large-scale geoengineering solution could reduce the penetration of the sun by at least 0.5%, according to his papers.

For now, the $8 billion geoengineering plan remains a radical option. The solar geoengineering investigators hope their ongoing research sparks a global conversation about the environment.

"If one is optimistic, one might hope that the injection of this new technology into climate policy will energize the topic, breaking the static trench warfare that now characterizes much of the debate about climate and perhaps producing a better outcome. But, that is a wish, not a prediction," Keith said in a recent Q&A with the Belfer Center Newsletter.

The scientist believes there are solutions for global warming, including enforcing global conversation, reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and increasing wind power. What we currently lack, according to Keith, is urgency, attention to the problem and action.

Do you think we're doing enough to conserve the environment, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Man-made tornadoes may produce green energy (PHOTOS)

 

Massive man-made twisters reaching to the skies from cyclopean structures on the ground may be the future of suburban landscape. A Canadian firm is developing the technology to use the tornadoes to produce electricity – and assures it would be safe.

The company, AVEtec Energy Corporation, is working on a proof-of-concept device after winning this month a grant from The Thiel Foundation, a non-profit organization created by PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. The machine is meant to make a rotating column of air that sucks air from its base like a natural twister.

The company already built a four-meter diameter prototype and will now use the grant money to construct a version twice as big, which it hopes will produce a 40-meter tall vortex with a diameter of 30 centimeters.

 

“Power output increases geometrically with size, so commercialization will become economically viable when we build a 40-meter diameter prototype in 2015” said Louis Michaud, AVEtec president.

The proposed design is not unlike a conventional solar updraft tower, in which the sun heats up air in a large greenhouse-like structure and goes up through a tall chimney in the center. The air convection moves turbines to produce electricity.

The LM-6 prototype. (Photo by AVEtec)

The proposed Atmospheric Vortex Engine (AVE) takes a similar approach, but the air goes inside the tower through tangential inlets and forms a tornado. Thanks to the rotation of the air column it remains stable long after rising past the top of the chimney rather than mixing with the cooler ambient air. It can potentially go up as far as 20 kilometers for a vortex with the base diameter of 100 meters generated in a 200-eter diameter 80-meter high tower, the company’s website explains.

The height of this “virtual chimney” and the low temperature at its “outtake” in the troposphere means that the process can be sustained with a much smaller temperature difference that what is required for an updraft tower power plant to operate. In fact it does not require a solar collector farm, instead pre-heating the air on the intakes to start the process, the company says.

The device in action. (Photo by AVEtec)

The initial heat input may come from industrial waste heat (the company says one of the applications of the technology may be simply replacing cooling towers at plants with cheaper twister generators) or from a natural source like the tropical ocean waters – the same that give energy to the natural tornadoes and hurricanes.

The big ‘if’ in the technology is whether the man-made twister is able to survive a horizontal wind. This question can be answered only after a larger-scale test, the company says. If the concept proves reliable, it may become one of the cheapest sources of energy costing as low as 3 cents per kilowatt hour, which would also not produce additional emission.

Side effects of the technology, if it goes industrial scale, may include producing clouds and rains in a power plant vicinity and making the environment there somewhat cooler. AVEtec assures that an artificial tornado cannot run amok, destroying the plant that produced it and the neighborhood.

Washington: Global Trends 2030 Report - Alternative Worlds

By 2030, 17 years from now, the world will be vastly different from what it is today. For starters, for the first time in history, the majority of the world's people will no longer be impoverished. The middle class will be the dominant economic and social force in most countries by then, a new report says.

This is one of the scenarios laid out in the National Intelligence Council's report Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds. The council, an advisory arm for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, releases a global trends report once every four years after the U.S. presidential election on factors such as globalization, demography and the environment. 

The purpose is to help policymakers in their strategic planning. The report draws from a multitude of sources, including government officials, businesses, universities and think tanks in nearly 20 countries, and is available to the public worldwide.

As the global economy grows and people across the world rise into the middle class, individuals will find themselves empowered as never before to determine their own destinies, according to the report. Individual empowerment will mean greater educational attainment and better health care for more people.

But individual empowerment is not without risks, particularly in the realm of terrorism. "With more widespread access to lethal and disruptive technologies, individuals who are experts in such niche areas as cybersystems might sell their services to the highest bidder," said council chairman Christopher Kojm, briefing reporters December 10.

Parallel with individual empowerment, power will become more diffuse among states, and informal networks will see their influence rise. "We will see growing democratization at both the international and national level," Kojm said.

There will also be dramatic shifts in terms of gross domestic product, population size, military spending and technological investment, with Asia surpassing North America and Europe combined, according to the report.

A good portion of the world's population will lose much of its youthful bloom, the report says. In most of Europe, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, the median age will be above 45. Countries with large aging populations will face challenges to maintain their living standards. Kojm added that the median age in China is younger than that of the United States today, but China's median age will be higher by 2030.

Meanwhile, the shift of people from rural to urban areas will continue. Today half the world's people live in urban areas, but by 2030 the figure will be 60 percent. "What this means is that another 1.4 billion people will need housing, roads, power, infrastructure and employment in urban areas," Kojm said.

At the same time, global demand for food and water will grow between 35 percent and 40 percent by 2030. This reflects mostly the consumption patterns and diets of an expanding middle class.

"We are not necessarily headed into a world of scarcities, but leaders will need to act to avert such a future," Kojm said.

The council chairman described energy independence for the United States in the next 10 to 20 years as another "tectonic shift" with global implications. The trends report predicts that the United States will diminish or stop importing crude oil from its current suppliers -- Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Latin America and West Africa. This change will be brought about by the use of hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, which releases natural gas and oil from shale rock.

 The United States may become a major energy exporter, instead of an importer, in the next decade or so, Kojm said.

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Superhumans, supercities and supercomputers: US intelligence's vision of 2030

Things are about to get a little weird. This according to the National Intelligence Council, at least, a US-based coalition of spy agencies that has just released its predictions for what’s in store for the Earth in 2030.

The NIC released on Monday “Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds,” an 140-page report that brings together the best brains within the intelligence sector to find out what we might expect a few decades down the road. Given the current rate of growth in technology and medicine, the marvels considered in the NIC report shouldn’t come as all too surprising. Only 18 years down the road, however, the ideas being pitched by the people behind the report might not be as much science fiction as soon-to-be-reality. It also might very well be predictive policy making.

“We are at a critical juncture in human history, which could lead to widely contrasting futures,” Council Chairman Christopher Kojm writes in the report.

With the next few years ripe for experiment, the future is “malleable,” Kojm suggests, making no time like the present to start perfecting space-age advances once thought to be out of this world. On the contrary, though, the NIC seems to think cyborg civilians and instant super-cities are thing of the not-so-distant future.

“Our effort is to encourage decision-makers, whether in government or outside, to think and plan for the long term so that negative futures do not occur and positive ones have a better chance of unfolding,” the Council writes. That influence might be a bit impressive for some, though, as it includes suggestions for the world of tomorrow that will be necessary to advance them human race in order to make use of dwindling resources as populations expand around the globe.

“With shale gas, the US will have sufficient natural gas to meet domestic needs and generate potential global exports for decades to come,” the report suggests in one possible outcome. As inequalities explode across the world though, the experts predict that China and the US become strong allies to tackle global issues.

The “most plausible worst-case scenario,” the report adds, involves the risks of interstate conflict increasing to the point that “the US draws inward and globalization stalls.” From there, “megacities [will] flourish and take the lead in confronting global challenges.”

Another possibility, the writers suggest, is as “inequalities explode as some countries become big winners and others fail. … Without completely disengaging, the U.S. is no longer the ‘global policeman’” according to the Council.

No matter who is calling the shots, though, the NIC seems to think that a generation down the line will be a damn exciting time to be a human being. “People may choose to enhance their physical selves as they do with cosmetic surgery today” in 2030, they predict, at which point the replacement-limb technology is expected by the panel to be prevalent.

“Future retinal eye implants could enable night vision, and neuro-enhancements could provide superior memory recall or speed of thought,” the report adds. “Brain-machine interfaces could provide ‘superhuman’ abilities, enhancing strength and speed, as well as providing functions not previously available.”

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Video: Stratfor’s Vice President discusses energy security in the eastern Mediterranean

Stratfor's Vice President of Global Analysis Reva Bhalla discusses energy security in the eastern Mediterranean and how it fits into the broader geopolitical strategies of Israel and Turkey.