Posted on 09/17/2011 7:30:16 AM PDT by Red Badger
In October, British researchers supported by the U.K. government will attempt to pump water a kilometer into the air using little more than a helium balloon and a rubber hose. The experiment, which will take place at a military airfield along England's east coast, is meant as a test of a proposed geoengineering technique for offsetting the warming effects of greenhouse gases. If the balloon and hose can handle the water's weight and pressure, similar pipes rising 20 kilometers could pump tons of reflective aerosols into the stratosphere.
The scheme, called SPICE (stratospheric particle injection for climate engineering), is one of several proposed geoengineering methods under study. In this case, the idea is that particles injected into the stratosphere would reflect a small percentage of the sun's energy back into space, thereby cooling the planet. The concept seeks to mimic the cooling effect of volcanoes that inject sulfide particles into the stratosphere in large quantity. A 2009 study by the U.K. meteorological office estimated that 10 million metric tons of sulfide particles injected annually into the stratosphere would cool the planet by approximately 2 °C within a few years.
Other methods of geoengineering have also been tested, including fertilizing oceans to encourage algae blooms and pulling carbon dioxide out of the air. But a 2009 report by the U.K.'s Royal Society concluded that reflective aerosol injected into the stratosphere would be the least expensive and most effective way to rapidly cool the planet.
In addition to the pipe tethered to the balloon, airplanes and rockets could be used to deploy the particles. But Hugh Hunt, a senior lecturer in engineering at the University of Cambridge and a member of the SPICE project, says the balloon-and-pipe approach that his group is testing would be significantly less expensive. "Trying to use airplanes or rockets ends up costing 100 or 1,000 times more than a pipe and balloon," Hunt says. "At an altitude of 20 kilometers, an airplane can only carry one, maybe two, tons of payload. That means five to 10 million flights per year, burning roughly 1 percent of global oil production. It seems unlikely to me that that would be economically viable when a few dozen pipes would do just as good a job."
The current pilot program will pump 100 kilograms of water per hour to an altitude of one kilometer. Full-scale designs call for as many as 64 pipes spread around the world, each lifting five kilograms of sulfur dioxide or other reflective particles per second—approximately 160,000 metric tons per year. Each pipe alone would weigh 30 tons and would be held aloft by a balloon 100 meters in diameter, slightly larger than the largest balloons ever built. The biggest challenge of all, however, would be developing a flexible pipe that can withstand ultrahigh pressures. To raise the particles to a height of 20 kilometers, the pipe would have to withstand 4,000 to 6,000 bar, or atmospheres of pressure.
The only thing that makes sense is to pump it from the ground up to the balloon. For a 1 km elevation change, you would need to pump water to a pressure of at least 1420 psig just to overcome the elevation change, without taking into account any losses due to friction while flowing.
This would require a pretty thick “hose” at ground level. It could get thinner at higher elevations where the water pressure would be less. Something like what is used in hydraulic systems, or pressurized water cleaning (hydroblasting) machines, would be required.
If the hose is 1/4” inside diameter, the weight of water in a 1 km hose is about 70 lbs. If the hose is 1/2” ID, the weight of water is 280 lbs. The weight of the hose, however, would need to be added. Putting other pumps along the way would obviously cause the weight to go up considerably, and would put a lot of stress on the hose.
Or the temperature would freeze it solid somewhere along the way.
Not to make it harder for you to sleep but even if all works as “planned” it might make a good terrorist opportunity to inject some bio agent over, say, half the world ... Nite. Nite. Don’t let the bio bugs bite. ;-)
That sucks............or not......
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.