SOME UNCONVENTIONAL IDEAS FOR COMBATING THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
This page summarises briefly some of the more unusual ideas that have been
proposed for combating the threat of climate change. The word 'unconventional'
is not meant to be sneering or derogatory. It is meant to
indicate that these ideas do seem to have potential but most of them still need
to be thoroughly developed and evaluated for effectiveness, cost and the
possibility of unwanted side effects.
Extracting CO2 from the atmosphere
Some people are proposing that it is technically feasible to extract CO2 from the atmosphere and store it permanently so that CO2 concentrations can be progressively reduced to pre-industrial levels (or other
agreed level), even allowing for current and future
emissions of CO2. All this at an acceptable cost!
Links:
Shielding the earth from the sun
One idea is to increase cloud cover and increase the ability of clouds to
reflect sunlight by increasing the amount of salty seaspray (A
plan to counter global warming).
Other ideas include launching a giant sunshield into space or releasing
millions of small helium-filled balloons that would reflect sunlight and thus
lower the temperature of the earth (Giant
space shield to save the planet).
Kites for ships
In the heyday of sail, commercial shipping was feasible but suffered the
inconvenience of tacking to sail up wind and slow progress or becalming when the
wind dropped. An idea for fuel-saving without these inconveniences is to equip
each engine-driven ship with a large kite that can help to pull the ship along
when the wind direction is favourable. (SkySails)
My own (totally untested) idea in the same vein is to equip each ship with a
wind turbine designed to transmit energy (electrically or mechanically) to the
main drive shaft and thus reduce the load on the main engine with a corresponding
reduction in
fuel demands.
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