Geoengineering will happen, China controlling rain across Tibet

Climate change is the byproduct of the industrial economy. Production of CO2 and black carbon (soot and particulates) are not the goal of industry and transportation. However, CO2 and black carbon have been produced in huge quantities.

Indoor and outdoor air pollution (mainly particulates but also sulfur dioxide) kills about 7 million people per year and causes many more to be sick. Increases in air pollution in any day causes a corresponding increase in visits to hospitals.

Some people claim that we should not interfere with the earth’s atmosphere with geoengineering to mitigate climate change. However, we have already been experimenting with the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans with the climate changes that we have already been making for over 200 years. Even before the industrial age that there have been large-scale environmental changes with the destruction of forest or expansion of deserts.

China and 23 other countries already engage in significant weather modification. China is setting up or has already set up a level of rain control across Tibet and other parts of China. Tens of thousands of fuel-burning chambers will be installed across the Tibetan mountains, with a view to boosting rainfall in the region by up to 10 billion tons of rain annually. In 2013, China was already producing 55 billion tons per year of artificially induced rain. China is expanding this to over 250 billion tons per year.

23 other countries also engage in cloud seeding and weather modification.

Australia will be engaging in localized geoengineering to preserve the great barrier reef coral.

Climate scientists debate whether we should spend a billion dollars to ten billion dollars per year to effectively bring the Earth’s temperature down by a degree. The climate scientists then push for $2-4 trillion per year to be spent on upending the world economy to stop using fossil fuels by 2050. People already know that simulating a large volcano will reduce the Earths temperature. The methods will work and will be super cheap relative to the money China already spends on weather modification and transferring water from the South to the North with super-canals and for fighting air pollution. The cost of geoengineering is also trivial relative to the 100-year plan for over $100 trillion to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.

Will any one country or a few countries “cheat” and use a few billion dollars per year to fix the climate temperature and take many more decades and save trillions of dollars to slowly getting around to converting off fossil fuels.

Let us review the massive amounts of artillery and missile launchers that China has been using to seed clouds. We can also review the effort in China’s war on air pollution.

Then we can review if we think China would stoop to using geoengineering.

China has a four-year-old war on air pollution. China has spent over $150 billion to reduce coal usage and reduce particulates and soot.

China is launching the world’s largest weather-control machine, with the ability to modify the weather in an area similar to the size of Alaska.

China’s state-owned Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation is implementing a plan to send thousands of rain-inducing machines across the Tibetan Plateau to increase rainfall along the region.

The Tibetan Plateau is the source of much of China’s water, running down from the mountainous highlands via the massive Yangtze, Mekong, and Yellow rivers. These rivers, which originate on the Tibetan Plateau, are fed by glacial and snow meltwater and drain down into the fertile Chinese farmlands.

In order for water vapor (humidity) in the air to form clouds and eventually rain, it requires a nucleating particle. Typically, this is a tiny particle of dust which en masse produces the clouds we see in the sky. By artificially “seeding” the Tibetan Plateau with silver iodide particles the Chinese government is inducing the formation of clouds where there weren’t any before. Once the clouds become unstable, this leads to artificially induced rainfall.

Each rain machine (chamber) is expected to create a 3-mile long strip of billowing clouds. When multiplied by the thousands of chambers China is installing along the Tibetan Plateau, it is estimated that China will be artificially controlling the weather over an area similar to the size of Alaska.

China plans to monitor the system through weather satellites and supplement with silver iodide particles deployed from planes and shot out of ground artillery. In total, the Chinese government expects the system, which will span 620,000 square miles, to produce up to 10 billion cubic meters of rainfall each year.

If the system works as expected, it would equal roughly 7 percent of China’s annual water consumption.

The ground-based network also comes at a relatively low price – each burning unit costs about 50,000 yuan (US$8,000) to build and install. Costs are likely to drop further due to mass production.

In comparison, a cloud-seeding plane costs several million yuan and covers a smaller area.

One downside of the burning chambers, however, is that they will not work in the absence of wind or when the wind is blowing the wrong direction.

Pollution reducing towers 500 meters tall

China has built a 100 meter tall (40 story) tower to help purify the air. It sucks in air into a large greenhouse at the bottom. The system works and helps clean the air.

China will build hundreds of full-sized towers that will reach 500 meters (1,640 feet) high with a diameter of 200 meters (656 feet). The size of the greenhouses could cover nearly 30 square kilometers (11.6 square miles) and the plant would be powerful enough to purify the air for a small-sized city.

Yes, it is a tough prediction. Will some country or group of countries geoengineer and stop global warming in its tracks for 100 years for a few billion dollars per year and have a gradual and cheap transition to solar and nuclear energy over the next 100 years. Or would they listen to the climate alarmists and deal with climate the “moral” way and shutdown every coal plant within ten years and scrap all of the 2 billion combustion engine cars within 20 years. Those would be the down-payment steps to get to half of the CO2 emissions of 2010 by 2030 and then to zero emissions by the 2040s.

Is China scared of “tampering with the environment”? A country that will make 250 billion tons per year of artificial rain? A country that has a tens of thousands of soldiers firing massive amount of iodine and cloud seeding material into clouds. A country that will make tens of thousands of burners to generate clouds across all of Tibet?

Will China be worried about what other countries will think about them affecting global climate? China just happens to take the tens of billions of tons of rain from Vietnam, India and other countries.

Geoengineering is only 1000 times cheaper and 100 times faster. It is only guaranteed to drop the temperature because it is simulating volcano effects where the temperature did drop.

Take it to the bank. Geoengineering will happen. Global temperatures will not go to 1.5 degrees celsius over the industrial age. Temperatures will not be stopped because the world decided to scrap capitalism. Temperatures will not be stopped because we chose to get rid of all fossil fuel usage by 2040 by spending $50 trillion.

The initiation of geoengineering will not involve a global public debate or vote.

Do not bother having debates about if or will we use geoengineering. The best thing is to work out the best combination of approaches to make it work the best way possible and minimize side effects. We will probably end up learning a fair bit after we start implementing.

China controls weather and will not blink before starting geoengineering when they think it is needed.

I, for one, will welcome our weather control geoengineering overlords.

Background on how easy it would be to geoengineer

The cost to construct a Stratospheric Shield with a pumping capacity of 100,000 tons a year of sulfur dioxide would be roughly $24 million, including transportation and assembly. Annual operating costs would run approximately $10 million. The system would use only technologies and materials that already exist—although some improvements may be needed to existing atomizer technology in order to achieve wide sprays of nanometer-scale sulfur dioxide particles and to prevent the particles from coalescing into larger droplets. Even if these cost estimates are off by a factor of 10 (and we think that is unlikely), this work appears to remove cost as an obstacle to cooling an overheated planet by technological means.

The Stratospheric Shield was designed by Intellectual Ventures Lab. Nathan Paul Myhrvold , formerly Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft, is co-founder of Intellectual Ventures. Founded in 2000, Intellectual Ventures is a privately-held invention capital company. They are building a market for invention by making invention a profitable activity. With more than $6 billion committed capital and more than 40,000 IP assets in active monetization programs, they own one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing intellectual property portfolios, which they license to the world’s most innovative companies. Investors include a mix of Fortune 500 companies, individuals, and institutions.


HIGH-FLYING BLIMPS, based on existing protoypes, could support a hose no thicker than a fire hose (above) to carry sulfur dioxide as a clear liquid up to the stratosphere, where one or more nozzles (below) would atomize it into a fine mist of nanometer-scale aerosol particles.

The stratosphere is the weather-free portion of the atmosphere at altitudes between about 10 kilometers and 50 kilometers, or 33,000 to 165,000 feet.) The attractiveness of this approach stems largely from the fact that it happens naturally during large volcanic eruptions, such as the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991. Intensive scientific study of the Pinatubo eruption showed that sulfur dioxide aerosols injected high in the atmosphere cooled the planet by reflecting more incoming sunlight back into space. An even larger eruption in 1815 of Mount Tambora in Indonesia led to the second-coldest year in the northern hemisphere in four centuries, the “year without a summer”.

Preliminary modeling studies suggest that two million to five million metric tons of sulfur dioxide aerosols (carrying one million to 2.5 million tons of sulfur), injected into the stratosphere each year, would reverse global warming due to a doubling of CO₂, if the aerosol particles are sufficiently small and well dispersed. Two million tons may sound like a lot, but it equates to roughly 2% of the SO₂ that now rises into the atmosphere each year, about half of it from manmade sources, and far less than the 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide released over the course of a few days by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Scientific studies published so far conclude that any increase in the acidity of rain and snow as several million additional tons a year of SO₂ precipitate out of the atmosphere would be minuscule and would not disrupt ecosystems.

A rough first-order estimate is that injection of as little as 200,000 metric tons a year of sulfur dioxide aerosol into the stratosphere above this region could offset warming within the Arctic.

Details

Although 100,000 tons a year sounds like a lot of liquid, when pumped continuously through a hose, that amounts to just 3.2 kilograms per second and, at a liquid SO₂ density of 1.46 grams per cubic centimeter, a mere 34 gallons (150 liters) per minute. A garden hose with a ¾-inch inner diameter can deliver liquid that fast.

It takes quite a bit of energy to lift material into the stratosphere: about 30 trillion Joules of potential energy, in fact, to lift 100,000 tons to a height of 30 kilometers. If the work is spread out over the course of a year, however, that energy translates to a required power of just 1,000 kilowatts. Inefficiencies and other practical considerations will increase this amount, possibly by several times; nonetheless, the power levels are not daunting by industrial standards.

To pump 34 gallons a minute up a 30-kilometer-long hose, the system must overcome both the gravitational head and the flow resistance. The gravitational head, which is simply another way of talking about the potential energy considered previously, would amount to a pressure of 4,300 bar (62,000 p.s.i.) if the liquid has a constant density of 1.46 g/cm³—not taking into account the small attenuation in the strength of gravity with increasing altitude.

94 thoughts on “Geoengineering will happen, China controlling rain across Tibet”

  1. I think they’ll try to take rain that usually later falls in the wetter parts of china.

    Most of the annual MONSOON rain in china is wasted via excess floodwaters and flows to the sea. Approx a massive 76 percent of all monsoon rain on the mainland is wasted because they fall on a non water catchment area plus crops can’t use all that water in such a short period.

    If they can direct and channel aka move the annual rain to fall over the tibetan plateu insteadC hina will become the biggest water superpower even if it’s just 10 percent of the rain moved. The costs are still worth it.

    To rain heavily over a normally dry but potential water catchment area or water resovioir the size 3 times bigger than spai would be a massive world changing achievement. As the tibetan plateu also feeds many of the major rivers in east asia.

    However people overestimate the scope. It’s very difficult to move 100 percent of the rain. Best case scenario is moving a quarter over one area. Lol

  2. It’s about efficiency. Most of the annual MONSOON rain in china is wasted via excess floodwaters and flows to the sea. Approx a massive 76 percent of all monsoon rain on the mainland is wasted because they fall on a non water catchment area plus crops can’t use all that water in such a short period.

    If they can direct and channel aka move the annual rain to fall over the tibetan plateu insteadC hina will become the biggest water superpower even if it’s just 10 percent of the rain moved. The costs are still worth it.

    To rain heavily over a normally dry but potential water catchment area or water resovioir the size 3 times bigger than spai would be a massive world changing achievement. As the tibetan plateu also feeds many of the major rivers in east asia.

    However people overestimate the scope. It’s very difficult to move 100 percent of the rain. Best case scenario is moving a quarter over one area. Lol

  3. If you follow the monsoon patterms, they barely touch russia. Most of it falls on china’s coastline and become less and less as you go inland.

  4. Number one thing – get rid of the carbon in the atmosphere. Cooling the planet doesn’t solve the central problem. And this carbon is effecting the oceans and all plant life.

  5. Just to get this straight, China is building air-cleaning machines to clean the air polluted by power-generating machines, using the power created by power-generating machines…got it?

  6. Volcano-style sulfur aerosols will definitely reduce the temperature, but they will also lower monsoon rainfall, which China would not be happy about. Pinatubo lowered temperatures for a bit over a year, by about 0.4 C – it coincided with my taking up skiing in New Zealand, and just about ruined the sport for me, in comparison, for the next twenty years. David Keith, of Harvard, has calculated that combining sulfur aerosols with other techniques, such as cloud brightening, could allow cooling without so many side effects, especially on rainfall. That would certainly need international cooperation. The other question is, how far you can go with this. The ballpark range of warming for a doubling of CO2 is about 3 C, but that’s only the short term effect. Longer feedbacks, like changes in vegetation and ice cover, are also mostly positive. That’s why the Earth could alternate between full ice ages and interglacials with only a minor nudge from orbital changes – the fast feedbacks are positive, the slow ones, like weathering or fossil fuel formation, take millenia. At current rates, we should go fairly seamlessly to about 6 degrees C up. One bright side is that the secondary feedbacks work in both directions – cooling from Pinatubo, for example, not only lowered temperatures, but also lowered CO2 levels, as a cooler ocean doesn’t gas out so much. If we’re still burning dinosaur juice for power at the end of the century, how much gunk can we put in the sky without wrecking agriculture ? China will have to get cracking on olivine sequestration, as well. Side note – they’ve just established yet another positive warming feedback. Melting permafrost not only emits methane and carbon dioxide, it also leaches acid. The acid erodes rock, releasing more carbon dioxide. ( To sequester CO2, eroded rock should be silicates, preferably iron- and magnesium-rich, not carbonates. ) One more positive feedback would be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, once the pack ice melts. Iro

  7. Just to get this straight China is building air-cleaning machines to clean the air polluted by power-generating machines using the power created by power-generating machines…got it?

  8. Volcano-style sulfur aerosols will definitely reduce the temperature but they will also lower monsoon rainfall which China would not be happy about. Pinatubo lowered temperatures for a bit over a year by about 0.4 C – it coincided with my taking up skiing in New Zealand and just about ruined the sport for me in comparison for the next twenty years.David Keith of Harvard has calculated that combining sulfur aerosols with other techniques such as cloud brightening could allow cooling without so many side effects especially on rainfall. That would certainly need international cooperation. The other question is how far you can go with this. The ballpark range of warming for a doubling of CO2 is about 3 C but that’s only the short term effect. Longer feedbacks like changes in vegetation and ice cover are also mostly positive. That’s why the Earth could alternate between full ice ages and interglacials with only a minor nudge from orbital changes – the fast feedbacks are positive the slow ones like weathering or fossil fuel formation take millenia. At current rates we should go fairly seamlessly to about 6 degrees C up. One bright side is that the secondary feedbacks work in both directions – cooling from Pinatubo for example not only lowered temperatures but also lowered CO2 levels as a cooler ocean doesn’t gas out so much.If we’re still burning dinosaur juice for power at the end of the century how much gunk can we put in the sky without wrecking agriculture ? China will have to get cracking on olivine sequestration as well. Side note – they’ve just established yet another positive warming feedback. Melting permafrost not only emits methane and carbon dioxide it also leaches acid. The acid erodes rock releasing more carbon dioxide. ( To sequester CO2 eroded rock should be silicates preferably iron- and magnesium-rich not carbonates. ) One more positive feedback would be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean once the pack ice melts. Ironically those oil de

  9. You do not understand how climate systems work or what the consequences are of what you are proposing. What you say is just a lot of hyperbole and nonsense.

  10. In a complex system there is a huge difference between 1 big intervention and a series of finite incremental steps. Read Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is like saying taking 30 steps down a stair is the same as jumping two floors. One will break your legs the other you will be fine. You should educate yourself before promoting idiotic interventions. The same applies to genetic engineering versus evolution (augmented trough breeding or selecting species). Not drinking for 10 hours every day for 10 days is not the same as not drinking for 100 consecutive hours. One you will be fine, the other might kill you.

  11. Speaking of that an Iranian general just recently accused Israel of stealing its rain by seeding the clouds before they get to Iran. Who knows if it is true but it is certainly feasible and could be an interesting tactic for countries positioned just the right way.

  12. So China taps the clouds but those water will be eventually missed on its original target in inner Asia. Maybe Russia. That means war.

  13. So this is why we had 5 feet of snow outside my door last winter. It wasn’t crazy weather caused by Trump, it was China Weather Service at my (dis) service. Did China cause Hurricane Michael? are they melting the glaciers?

  14. You do not understand how climate systems work or what the consequences are of what you are proposing. What you say is just a lot of hyperbole and nonsense.

  15. In a complex system there is a huge difference between 1 big intervention and a series of finite incremental steps. Read Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is like saying taking 30 steps down a stair is the same as jumping two floors. One will break your legs the other you will be fine. You should educate yourself before promoting idiotic interventions. The same applies to genetic engineering versus evolution (augmented trough breeding or selecting species). Not drinking for 10 hours every day for 10 days is not the same as not drinking for 100 consecutive hours. One you will be fine the other might kill you.

  16. Speaking of that an Iranian general just recently accused Israel of stealing its rain by seeding the clouds before they get to Iran. Who knows if it is true but it is certainly feasible and could be an interesting tactic for countries positioned just the right way.

  17. So China taps the clouds but those water will be eventually missed on its original target in inner Asia. Maybe Russia. That means war.

  18. So this is why we had 5 feet of snow outside my door last winter. It wasn’t crazy weather caused by Trump it was China Weather Service at my (dis) service. Did China cause Hurricane Michael? are they melting the glaciers?

  19. FWIW there has been a program in Alberta to seed clouds that would drop hail so we get lots of small hailstones instead of a smaller number of large hailstones that would do more damage.

  20. to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.” Translation: Impose a dictatorial ‘technate’ as the technocracy elites have envisioned for a 100 years now. Of course, the Watermelons will take that over and wreck the outcome but seize a whole lotta power in the process.

  21. FWIW there has been a program in Alberta to seed clouds that would drop hail so we get lots of small hailstones instead of a smaller number of large hailstones that would do more damage.

  22. to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.””Translation: Impose a dictatorial ‘technate’ as the technocracy elites have envisioned for a 100 years now. Of course”””” the Watermelons will take that over and wreck the outcome but seize a whole lotta power in the process.”””””””

  23. Completely untrue, rain is controlled by humidity The more humidity you have the slower water evaporates Humidity can increase until it hits 100%, at 100% humidity water no longer evaporates and it turns into mist or dew When it rains/mist/dew the humidity decreases In addition raining destroy clouds which reflects sunlight, so thus more sunlight can hit the earth and start evaporating water and increasing humidity This is why cloud seeding works, after it rains the increased sunlight and lower humidity rapidly allows the air to absorb moisture again. Thus increasing the total rainfall over time.

  24. Sulfur dioxide SO₂ by hose, yep? First… you’ve got the mass of the hose. From a liquid-transportation perspective, you’d want to have the fluid in the hose moving no faster than a few meters per second. 100,000 tons a year is ⋅⋅⋅ (((( 100,000 ton × 1,000 kg/ton ÷ 365 ) ÷ 24 ) ÷ 60 ) ÷ 60 ) = 3.17 kg/s ⋅⋅⋅ 3.17 kg/s ÷ 1.46 kg/L (SO₂) = 2.17ℓ/s Say 2 meters per second? My engineering chops says that’s good. ⋅⋅⋅ 2.17ℓ × 0.001 m³/L = 0.00217 m³/s Now for that pipe. 1 inch inside diameter? ⋅⋅⋅ 0.00217 m³/s / ( ( 1 in • .0254 m/in )² • π/4 ) = 4.3 m/s … rather higher than the 2.0 m/s I was hoping for. Requires 4.3 ÷ 2.0 = 2.15× greater area, √(2.15) = 1.46 greater diameter. 1.46 inches. Inside diameter. Pretty big hose! Let’s see. The SO₂ at 1.46 kg/L (1460 kg/m³) will weigh ⋅⋅⋅ 1,460 × 30,000 × ( 1.46 in × 0.0254 in/m )² • π/4 ) → 47,000 kg As noted the pressure would be over 4200 bar, or ⋅⋅⋅ 4200 bar × 101400 Pa/bar → 425,000,000 Pa. 425 megapascals. That’s a heck of a pressure. Going to require some THICK hose with multiple layers of kevlar reinforcement at the bottom ⅓, single layers from 10 km to 20 km. and lighter hose near the top. Some hose. Probably 3× heavier than the SO₂. 4× all told. Call it 200,000 kg. Two hundred tons. Lifted by balloon? “up there” has a pressure of: ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 101300 Pa/bar → 2,870 Pa. Or in terms of lifting density: ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 1.28 kg/m³ → 0.0363 kg/m³ That’d be for a blob of helium without a bag. 36 grams of lifting power per m³. ⋅⋅⋅ 200,000 kg ÷ 0.0363 kg/m³ → 5,500,000 m³ ⋅⋅⋅ cube root( ¾π 5,500,000 ) × 2 → 220 m So the inflated balloon would be about 220 meters in diameter, if spherical. Not if onion shaped. That’s pretty big. Again, that’s for a weightless bag. It still needs exterior netting and other lift-transer mechanisms to bear the weight of the hose hanging underneath. Maybe half again larger? To account for hot-in-the-day-co

  25. That short scale smog tower is kinda interesting but it seems like they might be able to achieve their rain goals in tibet more easily and passively with a proper kilometer tall solar updraft tower. They love megaengineering which a solar updraft tower satisfies. It sucks in lower level air which has more particulates and sends it up so it may achieve some of the nucleating particle effects aturally””. If the solar greenhouse field is sufficient”””” then you can also extract power from the updraft as well.”””

  26. Completely untrue rain is controlled by humidityThe more humidity you have the slower water evaporatesHumidity can increase until it hits 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} at 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} humidity water no longer evaporates and it turns into mist or dew When it rains/mist/dew the humidity decreases In addition raining destroy clouds which reflects sunlight so thus more sunlight can hit the earth and start evaporating water and increasing humidityThis is why cloud seeding works after it rains the increased sunlight and lower humidity rapidly allows the air to absorb moisture again. Thus increasing the total rainfall over time.

  27. Sulfur dioxide SO₂ by hose yep?First… you’ve got the mass of the hose. From a liquid-transportation perspective you’d want to have the fluid in the hose moving no faster than a few meters per second. 100000 tons a year is ⋅⋅⋅ (((( 100000 ton × 1000 kg/ton ÷ 365 ) ÷ 24 ) ÷ 60 ) ÷ 60 ) = 3.17 kg/s⋅⋅⋅ 3.17 kg/s ÷ 1.46 kg/L (SO₂) = 2.17ℓ/sSay 2 meters per second? My engineering chops says that’s good.⋅⋅⋅ 2.17ℓ × 0.001 m³/L = 0.00217 m³/s Now for that pipe. 1 inch inside diameter? ⋅⋅⋅ 0.00217 m³/s / ( ( 1 in • .0254 m/in )² • π/4 ) = 4.3 m/s … rather higher than the 2.0 m/s I was hoping for. Requires 4.3 ÷ 2.0 = 2.15× greater area √(2.15) = 1.46 greater diameter. 1.46 inches. Inside diameter. Pretty big hose!Let’s see. The SO₂ at 1.46 kg/L (1460 kg/m³) will weigh⋅⋅⋅ 1460 × 30000 × ( 1.46 in × 0.0254 in/m )² • π/4 ) → 47000 kgAs noted the pressure would be over 4200 bar or ⋅⋅⋅ 4200 bar × 101400 Pa/bar → 425000000 Pa. 425 megapascals.That’s a heck of a pressure. Going to require some THICK hose with multiple layers of kevlar reinforcement at the bottom ⅓ single layers from 10 km to 20 km. and lighter hose near the top. Some hose. Probably 3× heavier than the SO₂. 4× all told. Call it 200000 kg. Two hundred tons. Lifted by balloon?“up there” has a pressure of:⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 101300 Pa/bar → 2870 Pa. Or in terms of lifting density:⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 1.28 kg/m³ → 0.0363 kg/m³That’d be for a blob of helium without a bag. 36 grams of lifting power per m³. ⋅⋅⋅ 200000 kg ÷ 0.0363 kg/m³ → 5500000 m³⋅⋅⋅ cube root( ¾π 5500000 ) × 2 → 220 mSo the inflated balloon would be about 220 meters in diameter if spherical. Not if onion shaped. That’s pretty big. Again that’s for a weightless bag. It still needs exterior netting and other lift-transer mechanisms to bear the weight of the hose hanging underneath. Maybe half again larger?

  28. So in that case the Chinese may not be completely stealing all the rain from whomever is downwind (India?) but they are increasing the evaporation from those locations. There is still less water in the downwind countries.

  29. The “electricity from the sun causes rain” was just cute in it’s childishness. But this story is like a low budget SF film. Needs more work before it’s even interesting enough to debate. 2/10 try again.

  30. That short scale smog tower is kinda interesting, but it seems like they might be able to achieve their rain goals in tibet more easily and passively with a proper kilometer tall solar updraft tower. They love megaengineering, which a solar updraft tower satisfies. It sucks in lower level air which has more particulates and sends it up, so it may achieve some of the nucleating particle effects “naturally”. If the solar greenhouse field is sufficient, then you can also extract power from the updraft as well.

  31. So in that case the Chinese may not be completely stealing all the rain from whomever is downwind (India?) but they are increasing the evaporation from those locations.There is still less water in the downwind countries.

  32. The electricity from the sun causes rain”” was just cute in it’s childishness. But this story is like a low budget SF film. Needs more work before it’s even interesting enough to debate.2/10 try again.”””

  33. Except that estimates of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling have been falling, not rising. And if positive feedbacks really did predominate, the Earth would have had runaway warming long ago when atmospheric CO2 was 15 times what it is now.

  34. Except that estimates of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling have been falling not rising. And if positive feedbacks really did predominate the Earth would have had runaway warming long ago when atmospheric CO2 was 15 times what it is now.

  35. Except that estimates of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling have been falling, not rising. And if positive feedbacks really did predominate, the Earth would have had runaway warming long ago when atmospheric CO2 was 15 times what it is now.

  36. Except that estimates of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling have been falling not rising. And if positive feedbacks really did predominate the Earth would have had runaway warming long ago when atmospheric CO2 was 15 times what it is now.

  37. Except that estimates of climate sensitivity to a CO2 doubling have been falling, not rising. And if positive feedbacks really did predominate, the Earth would have had runaway warming long ago when atmospheric CO2 was 15 times what it is now.

  38. So in that case the Chinese may not be completely stealing all the rain from whomever is downwind (India?) but they are increasing the evaporation from those locations. There is still less water in the downwind countries.

  39. So in that case the Chinese may not be completely stealing all the rain from whomever is downwind (India?) but they are increasing the evaporation from those locations.There is still less water in the downwind countries.

  40. The “electricity from the sun causes rain” was just cute in it’s childishness. But this story is like a low budget SF film. Needs more work before it’s even interesting enough to debate. 2/10 try again.

  41. The electricity from the sun causes rain”” was just cute in it’s childishness. But this story is like a low budget SF film. Needs more work before it’s even interesting enough to debate.2/10 try again.”””

  42. That short scale smog tower is kinda interesting, but it seems like they might be able to achieve their rain goals in tibet more easily and passively with a proper kilometer tall solar updraft tower. They love megaengineering, which a solar updraft tower satisfies. It sucks in lower level air which has more particulates and sends it up, so it may achieve some of the nucleating particle effects “naturally”. If the solar greenhouse field is sufficient, then you can also extract power from the updraft as well.

  43. That short scale smog tower is kinda interesting but it seems like they might be able to achieve their rain goals in tibet more easily and passively with a proper kilometer tall solar updraft tower. They love megaengineering which a solar updraft tower satisfies. It sucks in lower level air which has more particulates and sends it up so it may achieve some of the nucleating particle effects aturally””. If the solar greenhouse field is sufficient”””” then you can also extract power from the updraft as well.”””

  44. Completely untrue, rain is controlled by humidity The more humidity you have the slower water evaporates Humidity can increase until it hits 100%, at 100% humidity water no longer evaporates and it turns into mist or dew When it rains/mist/dew the humidity decreases In addition raining destroy clouds which reflects sunlight, so thus more sunlight can hit the earth and start evaporating water and increasing humidity This is why cloud seeding works, after it rains the increased sunlight and lower humidity rapidly allows the air to absorb moisture again. Thus increasing the total rainfall over time.

  45. Completely untrue rain is controlled by humidityThe more humidity you have the slower water evaporatesHumidity can increase until it hits 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} at 100{22800fc54956079738b58e74e4dcd846757aa319aad70fcf90c97a58f3119a12} humidity water no longer evaporates and it turns into mist or dew When it rains/mist/dew the humidity decreases In addition raining destroy clouds which reflects sunlight so thus more sunlight can hit the earth and start evaporating water and increasing humidityThis is why cloud seeding works after it rains the increased sunlight and lower humidity rapidly allows the air to absorb moisture again. Thus increasing the total rainfall over time.

  46. Sulfur dioxide SO₂ by hose, yep? First… you’ve got the mass of the hose. From a liquid-transportation perspective, you’d want to have the fluid in the hose moving no faster than a few meters per second. 100,000 tons a year is ⋅⋅⋅ (((( 100,000 ton × 1,000 kg/ton ÷ 365 ) ÷ 24 ) ÷ 60 ) ÷ 60 ) = 3.17 kg/s ⋅⋅⋅ 3.17 kg/s ÷ 1.46 kg/L (SO₂) = 2.17ℓ/s Say 2 meters per second? My engineering chops says that’s good. ⋅⋅⋅ 2.17ℓ × 0.001 m³/L = 0.00217 m³/s Now for that pipe. 1 inch inside diameter? ⋅⋅⋅ 0.00217 m³/s / ( ( 1 in • .0254 m/in )² • π/4 ) = 4.3 m/s … rather higher than the 2.0 m/s I was hoping for. Requires 4.3 ÷ 2.0 = 2.15× greater area, √(2.15) = 1.46 greater diameter. 1.46 inches. Inside diameter. Pretty big hose! Let’s see. The SO₂ at 1.46 kg/L (1460 kg/m³) will weigh ⋅⋅⋅ 1,460 × 30,000 × ( 1.46 in × 0.0254 in/m )² • π/4 ) → 47,000 kg As noted the pressure would be over 4200 bar, or ⋅⋅⋅ 4200 bar × 101400 Pa/bar → 425,000,000 Pa. 425 megapascals. That’s a heck of a pressure. Going to require some THICK hose with multiple layers of kevlar reinforcement at the bottom ⅓, single layers from 10 km to 20 km. and lighter hose near the top. Some hose. Probably 3× heavier than the SO₂. 4× all told. Call it 200,000 kg. Two hundred tons. Lifted by balloon? “up there” has a pressure of: ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 101300 Pa/bar → 2,870 Pa. Or in terms of lifting density: ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 1.28 kg/m³ → 0.0363 kg/m³ That’d be for a blob of helium without a bag. 36 grams of lifting power per m³. ⋅⋅⋅ 200,000 kg ÷ 0.0363 kg/m³ → 5,500,000 m³ ⋅⋅⋅ cube root( ¾π 5,500,000 ) × 2 → 220 m So the inflated balloon would be about 220 meters in diameter, if spherical. Not if onion shaped. That’s pretty big. Again, that’s for a weightless bag. It still needs exterior netting and other lift-transer mechanisms to bear the weight of the hose hanging underneath. Maybe half again larger? To account for hot-in-the-day-co

  47. Sulfur dioxide SO₂ by hose yep?First… you’ve got the mass of the hose. From a liquid-transportation perspective you’d want to have the fluid in the hose moving no faster than a few meters per second. 100000 tons a year is ⋅⋅⋅ (((( 100000 ton × 1000 kg/ton ÷ 365 ) ÷ 24 ) ÷ 60 ) ÷ 60 ) = 3.17 kg/s⋅⋅⋅ 3.17 kg/s ÷ 1.46 kg/L (SO₂) = 2.17ℓ/sSay 2 meters per second? My engineering chops says that’s good.⋅⋅⋅ 2.17ℓ × 0.001 m³/L = 0.00217 m³/s Now for that pipe. 1 inch inside diameter? ⋅⋅⋅ 0.00217 m³/s / ( ( 1 in • .0254 m/in )² • π/4 ) = 4.3 m/s … rather higher than the 2.0 m/s I was hoping for. Requires 4.3 ÷ 2.0 = 2.15× greater area √(2.15) = 1.46 greater diameter. 1.46 inches. Inside diameter. Pretty big hose!Let’s see. The SO₂ at 1.46 kg/L (1460 kg/m³) will weigh⋅⋅⋅ 1460 × 30000 × ( 1.46 in × 0.0254 in/m )² • π/4 ) → 47000 kgAs noted the pressure would be over 4200 bar or ⋅⋅⋅ 4200 bar × 101400 Pa/bar → 425000000 Pa. 425 megapascals.That’s a heck of a pressure. Going to require some THICK hose with multiple layers of kevlar reinforcement at the bottom ⅓ single layers from 10 km to 20 km. and lighter hose near the top. Some hose. Probably 3× heavier than the SO₂. 4× all told. Call it 200000 kg. Two hundred tons. Lifted by balloon?“up there” has a pressure of:⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 101300 Pa/bar → 2870 Pa. Or in terms of lifting density:⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 1.28 kg/m³ → 0.0363 kg/m³That’d be for a blob of helium without a bag. 36 grams of lifting power per m³. ⋅⋅⋅ 200000 kg ÷ 0.0363 kg/m³ → 5500000 m³⋅⋅⋅ cube root( ¾π 5500000 ) × 2 → 220 mSo the inflated balloon would be about 220 meters in diameter if spherical. Not if onion shaped. That’s pretty big. Again that’s for a weightless bag. It still needs exterior netting and other lift-transer mechanisms to bear the weight of the hose hanging underneath. Maybe half again larger?

  48. FWIW there has been a program in Alberta to seed clouds that would drop hail so we get lots of small hailstones instead of a smaller number of large hailstones that would do more damage.

  49. FWIW there has been a program in Alberta to seed clouds that would drop hail so we get lots of small hailstones instead of a smaller number of large hailstones that would do more damage.

  50. to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.” Translation: Impose a dictatorial ‘technate’ as the technocracy elites have envisioned for a 100 years now. Of course, the Watermelons will take that over and wreck the outcome but seize a whole lotta power in the process.

  51. to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.””Translation: Impose a dictatorial ‘technate’ as the technocracy elites have envisioned for a 100 years now. Of course”””” the Watermelons will take that over and wreck the outcome but seize a whole lotta power in the process.”””””””

  52. You do not understand how climate systems work or what the consequences are of what you are proposing. What you say is just a lot of hyperbole and nonsense.

  53. You do not understand how climate systems work or what the consequences are of what you are proposing. What you say is just a lot of hyperbole and nonsense.

  54. In a complex system there is a huge difference between 1 big intervention and a series of finite incremental steps. Read Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is like saying taking 30 steps down a stair is the same as jumping two floors. One will break your legs the other you will be fine. You should educate yourself before promoting idiotic interventions. The same applies to genetic engineering versus evolution (augmented trough breeding or selecting species). Not drinking for 10 hours every day for 10 days is not the same as not drinking for 100 consecutive hours. One you will be fine, the other might kill you.

  55. In a complex system there is a huge difference between 1 big intervention and a series of finite incremental steps. Read Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is like saying taking 30 steps down a stair is the same as jumping two floors. One will break your legs the other you will be fine. You should educate yourself before promoting idiotic interventions. The same applies to genetic engineering versus evolution (augmented trough breeding or selecting species). Not drinking for 10 hours every day for 10 days is not the same as not drinking for 100 consecutive hours. One you will be fine the other might kill you.

  56. Speaking of that an Iranian general just recently accused Israel of stealing its rain by seeding the clouds before they get to Iran. Who knows if it is true but it is certainly feasible and could be an interesting tactic for countries positioned just the right way.

  57. Speaking of that an Iranian general just recently accused Israel of stealing its rain by seeding the clouds before they get to Iran. Who knows if it is true but it is certainly feasible and could be an interesting tactic for countries positioned just the right way.

  58. So China taps the clouds but those water will be eventually missed on its original target in inner Asia. Maybe Russia. That means war.

  59. So China taps the clouds but those water will be eventually missed on its original target in inner Asia. Maybe Russia. That means war.

  60. So in that case the Chinese may not be completely stealing all the rain from whomever is downwind (India?) but they are increasing the evaporation from those locations.

    There is still less water in the downwind countries.

  61. The “electricity from the sun causes rain” was just cute in it’s childishness. But this story is like a low budget SF film. Needs more work before it’s even interesting enough to debate.
    2/10 try again.

  62. So this is why we had 5 feet of snow outside my door last winter. It wasn’t crazy weather caused by Trump, it was China Weather Service at my (dis) service. Did China cause Hurricane Michael? are they melting the glaciers?

  63. So this is why we had 5 feet of snow outside my door last winter. It wasn’t crazy weather caused by Trump it was China Weather Service at my (dis) service. Did China cause Hurricane Michael? are they melting the glaciers?

  64. Just to get this straight, China is building air-cleaning machines to clean the air polluted by power-generating machines, using the power created by power-generating machines…got it?

  65. Just to get this straight China is building air-cleaning machines to clean the air polluted by power-generating machines using the power created by power-generating machines…got it?

  66. That short scale smog tower is kinda interesting, but it seems like they might be able to achieve their rain goals in tibet more easily and passively with a proper kilometer tall solar updraft tower. They love megaengineering, which a solar updraft tower satisfies. It sucks in lower level air which has more particulates and sends it up, so it may achieve some of the nucleating particle effects “naturally”. If the solar greenhouse field is sufficient, then you can also extract power from the updraft as well.

  67. Volcano-style sulfur aerosols will definitely reduce the temperature, but they will also lower monsoon rainfall, which China would not be happy about. Pinatubo lowered temperatures for a bit over a year, by about 0.4 C – it coincided with my taking up skiing in New Zealand, and just about ruined the sport for me, in comparison, for the next twenty years. David Keith, of Harvard, has calculated that combining sulfur aerosols with other techniques, such as cloud brightening, could allow cooling without so many side effects, especially on rainfall. That would certainly need international cooperation. The other question is, how far you can go with this. The ballpark range of warming for a doubling of CO2 is about 3 C, but that’s only the short term effect. Longer feedbacks, like changes in vegetation and ice cover, are also mostly positive. That’s why the Earth could alternate between full ice ages and interglacials with only a minor nudge from orbital changes – the fast feedbacks are positive, the slow ones, like weathering or fossil fuel formation, take millenia. At current rates, we should go fairly seamlessly to about 6 degrees C up. One bright side is that the secondary feedbacks work in both directions – cooling from Pinatubo, for example, not only lowered temperatures, but also lowered CO2 levels, as a cooler ocean doesn’t gas out so much. If we’re still burning dinosaur juice for power at the end of the century, how much gunk can we put in the sky without wrecking agriculture ? China will have to get cracking on olivine sequestration, as well. Side note – they’ve just established yet another positive warming feedback. Melting permafrost not only emits methane and carbon dioxide, it also leaches acid. The acid erodes rock, releasing more carbon dioxide. ( To sequester CO2, eroded rock should be silicates, preferably iron- and magnesium-rich, not carbonates. ) One more positive feedback would be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, once the pack ice melts. Iro

  68. Volcano-style sulfur aerosols will definitely reduce the temperature but they will also lower monsoon rainfall which China would not be happy about. Pinatubo lowered temperatures for a bit over a year by about 0.4 C – it coincided with my taking up skiing in New Zealand and just about ruined the sport for me in comparison for the next twenty years.David Keith of Harvard has calculated that combining sulfur aerosols with other techniques such as cloud brightening could allow cooling without so many side effects especially on rainfall. That would certainly need international cooperation. The other question is how far you can go with this. The ballpark range of warming for a doubling of CO2 is about 3 C but that’s only the short term effect. Longer feedbacks like changes in vegetation and ice cover are also mostly positive. That’s why the Earth could alternate between full ice ages and interglacials with only a minor nudge from orbital changes – the fast feedbacks are positive the slow ones like weathering or fossil fuel formation take millenia. At current rates we should go fairly seamlessly to about 6 degrees C up. One bright side is that the secondary feedbacks work in both directions – cooling from Pinatubo for example not only lowered temperatures but also lowered CO2 levels as a cooler ocean doesn’t gas out so much.If we’re still burning dinosaur juice for power at the end of the century how much gunk can we put in the sky without wrecking agriculture ? China will have to get cracking on olivine sequestration as well. Side note – they’ve just established yet another positive warming feedback. Melting permafrost not only emits methane and carbon dioxide it also leaches acid. The acid erodes rock releasing more carbon dioxide. ( To sequester CO2 eroded rock should be silicates preferably iron- and magnesium-rich not carbonates. ) One more positive feedback would be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean once the pack ice melts. Ironically those oil de

  69. Completely untrue, rain is controlled by humidity

    The more humidity you have the slower water evaporates

    Humidity can increase until it hits 100%, at 100% humidity water no longer evaporates and it turns into mist or dew

    When it rains/mist/dew the humidity decreases

    In addition raining destroy clouds which reflects sunlight,
    so thus more sunlight can hit the earth and start evaporating water and increasing humidity

    This is why cloud seeding works, after it rains the increased sunlight and lower humidity rapidly allows the air to absorb moisture again. Thus increasing the total rainfall over time.

  70. Sulfur dioxide SO₂ by hose, yep?

    First… you’ve got the mass of the hose. From a liquid-transportation perspective, you’d want to have the fluid in the hose moving no faster than a few meters per second. 100,000 tons a year is

    ⋅⋅⋅ (((( 100,000 ton × 1,000 kg/ton ÷ 365 ) ÷ 24 ) ÷ 60 ) ÷ 60 ) = 3.17 kg/s
    ⋅⋅⋅ 3.17 kg/s ÷ 1.46 kg/L (SO₂) = 2.17ℓ/s

    Say 2 meters per second? My engineering chops says that’s good.

    ⋅⋅⋅ 2.17ℓ × 0.001 m³/L = 0.00217 m³/s

    Now for that pipe. 1 inch inside diameter?

    ⋅⋅⋅ 0.00217 m³/s / ( ( 1 in • .0254 m/in )² • π/4 ) = 4.3 m/s …

    rather higher than the 2.0 m/s I was hoping for. Requires 4.3 ÷ 2.0 = 2.15× greater area, √(2.15) = 1.46 greater diameter. 1.46 inches.

    Inside diameter.
    Pretty big hose!

    Let’s see. The SO₂ at 1.46 kg/L (1460 kg/m³) will weigh

    ⋅⋅⋅ 1,460 × 30,000 × ( 1.46 in × 0.0254 in/m )² • π/4 ) → 47,000 kg

    As noted the pressure would be over 4200 bar, or

    ⋅⋅⋅ 4200 bar × 101400 Pa/bar → 425,000,000 Pa. 425 megapascals.

    That’s a heck of a pressure. Going to require some THICK hose with multiple layers of kevlar reinforcement at the bottom ⅓, single layers from 10 km to 20 km. and lighter hose near the top. Some hose. Probably 3× heavier than the SO₂. 4× all told.

    Call it 200,000 kg. Two hundred tons.
    Lifted by balloon?

    “up there” has a pressure of:

    ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 101300 Pa/bar → 2,870 Pa. Or in terms of lifting density:
    ⋅⋅⋅ 0.888³⁰ → 0.0283 bar × 1.28 kg/m³ → 0.0363 kg/m³

    That’d be for a blob of helium without a bag. 36 grams of lifting power per m³.

    ⋅⋅⋅ 200,000 kg ÷ 0.0363 kg/m³ → 5,500,000 m³
    ⋅⋅⋅ cube root( ¾π 5,500,000 ) × 2 → 220 m

    So the inflated balloon would be about 220 meters in diameter, if spherical. Not if onion shaped. That’s pretty big.

    Again, that’s for a weightless bag. It still needs exterior netting and other lift-transer mechanisms to bear the weight of the hose hanging underneath. Maybe half again larger? To account for hot-in-the-day-cold-at-night variable lift. Just saying.

    Of course the thing would be a veritable MAGNET for lightning strikes. And wind storms would whip it around like crazy. And the shear between stratospheric winds and tropospheric regime patterns.

    Just saying.
    It seems like a silly idea.
    To me.

    GoatGuy

  71. FWIW there has been a program in Alberta to seed clouds that would drop hail so we get lots of small hailstones instead of a smaller number of large hailstones that would do more damage.

  72. “to convert world energy and transportation in the “right” way.”

    Translation: Impose a dictatorial ‘technate’ as the technocracy elites have envisioned for a 100 years now. Of course, the Watermelons will take that over and wreck the outcome but seize a whole lotta power in the process.

  73. In a complex system there is a huge difference between 1 big intervention and a series of finite incremental steps. Read Nicholas Nassim Taleb. It is like saying taking 30 steps down a stair is the same as jumping two floors. One will break your legs the other you will be fine. You should educate yourself before promoting idiotic interventions. The same applies to genetic engineering versus evolution (augmented trough breeding or selecting species). Not drinking for 10 hours every day for 10 days is not the same as not drinking for 100 consecutive hours. One you will be fine, the other might kill you.

  74. Speaking of that an Iranian general just recently accused Israel of stealing its rain by seeding the clouds before they get to Iran. Who knows if it is true but it is certainly feasible and could be an interesting tactic for countries positioned just the right way.

  75. So this is why we had 5 feet of snow outside my door last winter. It wasn’t crazy weather caused by Trump, it was China Weather Service at my (dis) service. Did China cause Hurricane Michael? are they melting the glaciers?

  76. Just to get this straight, China is building air-cleaning machines to clean the air polluted by power-generating machines, using the power created by power-generating machines…got it?

  77. Volcano-style sulfur aerosols will definitely reduce the temperature, but they will also lower monsoon rainfall, which China would not be happy about. Pinatubo lowered temperatures for a bit over a year, by about 0.4 C – it coincided with my taking up skiing in New Zealand, and just about ruined the sport for me, in comparison, for the next twenty years.
    David Keith, of Harvard, has calculated that combining sulfur aerosols with other techniques, such as cloud brightening, could allow cooling without so many side effects, especially on rainfall. That would certainly need international cooperation.
    The other question is, how far you can go with this. The ballpark range of warming for a doubling of CO2 is about 3 C, but that’s only the short term effect. Longer feedbacks, like changes in vegetation and ice cover, are also mostly positive. That’s why the Earth could alternate between full ice ages and interglacials with only a minor nudge from orbital changes – the fast feedbacks are positive, the slow ones, like weathering or fossil fuel formation, take millenia. At current rates, we should go fairly seamlessly to about 6 degrees C up. One bright side is that the secondary feedbacks work in both directions – cooling from Pinatubo, for example, not only lowered temperatures, but also lowered CO2 levels, as a cooler ocean doesn’t gas out so much.
    If we’re still burning dinosaur juice for power at the end of the century, how much gunk can we put in the sky without wrecking agriculture ? China will have to get cracking on olivine sequestration, as well.
    Side note – they’ve just established yet another positive warming feedback. Melting permafrost not only emits methane and carbon dioxide, it also leaches acid. The acid erodes rock, releasing more carbon dioxide. ( To sequester CO2, eroded rock should be silicates, preferably iron- and magnesium-rich, not carbonates. )
    One more positive feedback would be drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean, once the pack ice melts. Ironically, those oil deposits are the cleanup from the last major event of runaway CO2 overheating – the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum. After that, the Arctic Ocean was a freshwater lake full of crocodiles and such tropical critters. A floating plant called Azolla thrived in the warm, 24-hour sun conditions, growing prolifically, then sinking layer after annual layer to the anoxic seabed. In only 800,000 years, it lowered CO2 levels in the air by almost 3,000 parts per million. Although that’s a very fast rate by geological standards, it’s nearly a hundred times slower than the rate we’re currently adding CO2. The Azolla is now oil – burning it will reverse the whole process.

Comments are closed.