The Gulf nations are busy constructing nuclear power plants. These are best operating flat out night and day. But, what to do with the energy they produce during the day? A good idea would be to desalinate water and then irrigate the desert lands of the interior of the Arabian peninsula. Grow brush and graze sheep and goats. Over time, this will transform the topsoil. In the meanwhile, the biomass will draw CO2 out of the atmosphere. Same thing with unreliable wind power. Use it to desalinate and move water, and irrigate the inland of Texas. We can pull a lot of CO2 out of the atmosphere, and in the process irrigate a lot of desert and semi-desert lands.
Having been in the Gulf countries more times than I can recall the first application that comes to mind is air conditioning. A summer afternoon of 115° with 100% humidity really takes the starch out. Very pleasant in mid-winter but the summers are brutal.
But, all that salt water being used will drop the ocean level 14’6’’ by 2083. The little fishies will die. Nitrogen concentration will decrease and plants will die. And it’ll get colder. And global cooling will kill us all./s
Seriously, these idiots want to mess with nature,not knowing the consequences of what happens next. BTW, isn’t it interesting that all these conferees to discuss solar geoengineering and not one engineer in the bunch!
As a Chemical Engineering student at University of Florida, we were taught to ask four questions:
1. What’s the problem?
2. How can we solve the problem?
3. What are consequences?
4. What does it cost?
Fail to answer all questions and you go back to #1.