[D.Rabbit]

Earth Challenge

I don't know, they, as in authorities, offered the same for Saddam and fixing the quagmire of Iraq, but only this small amount for saving the planet?

It's a start and who am I to complain if I actually win it?

Quote

The Virgin Earth Challenge is a prize of $25m for whoever can demonstrate to the judges' satisfaction a commercially viable design which results in the removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases so as to contribute materially to the stability of Earth’s climate.

[Palisade]

^ The prize money was put up by Virgin founder Richard Branson. In order for the U.S. government to do something like this, it would first have to admit that global warming is a serious problem.

[Christopher]

I think the Bush administration has admitted that there's a problem, but it's the Bush kind of admission where he just pretends to admit he made a mistake in order to appease his critics and then just goes on enacting the same policies as before.

[D.Rabbit]

Well Canada is second to last in the clean air category, I guess we can guess who the last one is. At least we have 3 comedy shows that specialize in satirical whimsy, so it's no secret that the Liberals dropped the ball. (did I just say that?) The opposition is using it against them but they aren't going to get up off their chairs and do anything because cleaning up the mess would mean jobs. Rather short sighted.

I read through the quid pro quo, and it's pretty loosely strung together so they can jump in and amend it.

If only one person wins the prise, they get $5, million up front and the other 20 in installments. Not much of an incentive if you spent 10 mil making the prototype.

I certainly have an idea or two that would do the trick, but it would involve legislation, not a marketable device, so I'm leery about their intentions.

These folks are in the business of making money, if they can't turn a dollar on this contest, why bother? Not that the judges are not interested in the next generation's well being....

This post has been edited by D.Rabbit: 12 February 2007 - 05:23 PM

[Chakoteya]

Please note - they want something that will remove the gases from the atmosphere. So they can continue to pollute on the grounds that they have a gizmo that will 'negate' the effects.
Tut.

Better surely to just stop polluting now, and re-evaluate the best way for the world and all it's people to manage on the natural resources without killing everything off.

[Christopher]

Chakoteya, on Feb 13 2007, 07:31 AM, said:

Please note - they want something that will remove the gases from the atmosphere. So they can continue to pollute on the grounds that they have a gizmo that will 'negate' the effects.
Tut.

Better surely to just stop polluting now, and re-evaluate the best way for the world and all it's people to manage on the natural resources without killing everything off.

Actually it isn't. Because the damage is already done. If we stopped polluting now, there would still be an extant and urgent problem due to the greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere. So finding a way to remove those pollutants is a vital part of the solution, every bit as much as halting the production of new pollutants.

Besides, "just stop polluting now" is an easy enough thing to say if you only want to spout slogans and be self-satisfied about your own ideological purity. But it's not a proposal that has any chance in hell of working in the real world, because it would take a lot of time to figure out and implement ways to stop polluting and there would be plenty of people who'd resist it. Wiping out pollution would be a long, hard process taking generations, and that's why it's vital to have something that removes pollution while you're gradually working to reduce its creation.

And you're premature in condemning Sir Richard Branson, because you're taking this announcement out of context. Offering this $25 million prize for discovering ways to remove pollutants is not the only thing he's doing about global warming, not by a long shot. He's committed to investing $3 billion of Virgin's profits over the next ten years to fighting global warming, and he's reportedly investing $1 billion to develop non-polluting alternative fuels.

http://en.wikipedia....Richard_Branson

[D.Rabbit]

So Branson is a self appointed savior of the planet?
Good for him, we need more people with his kind of coin working for the planet, not against it.

True to stop the pollutants would cause economic chaos and we would all have to rethink our standard of living. As it stands we have been very short sighted. I suspect capitalism is at the root of this evil. You can go out and make all the money you want, to hell with anyone or anything else, as long as you have more toys than the next guy when you die, you win.

It's more than just stopping the polluting it's bringing a different ideology to the forefront as well.

Most rich capitalist are not happy people, their inner voice is always screaming at them.
I suspect Branson is listening to his.

[foborg]

Someone give the man a tree.

[Palisade]

^ The prize conditions require a commercially viable design for removing one billion metric tons of carbon gases a year from the atmosphere for ten years. Given that a single mature tree removes about 20 kg of carbon dioxide per year, 50 billion mature trees would be required to meet the prize's removal target. Planting the trees 35 feet apart, 16,000 trees can be planted in a square mile (link) so your solution would require planting 3 million square miles of forest. The U.S. has 3.5 million square miles of land area.

This post has been edited by Solar Wind: 13 February 2007 - 01:54 PM

[D.Rabbit]

Hybrid male sterile poplars grow very fast. They can reach 20 feet in about 8 years. I have 3, 30 footers I planted as sticks 15 years ago keeping my house nice and cool in the summer.

edit: They are not exactly sterile, they proliferate through rhizomes.

They make lousy fire wood and furniture so they are a good crop for the purpose. The only problem is that they are brittle and can't take heavy winds so they have to be planted in wind sheltered areas around the world, not just the US.

Another fast crowning tree is the black ash. This tree is very sturdy. But it would fall to the chain saws for firewood and furniture unless it was protected.

This post has been edited by D.Rabbit: 13 February 2007 - 02:38 PM

[Christopher]

Solar Wind, on Feb 13 2007, 01:44 PM, said:

Planting the trees 35 feet apart, 16,000 trees can be planted in a square mile (link) so your solution would require planting 3 million square miles of forest. The U.S. has 3.5 million square miles of land area.

So does the Sahara Desert. So turning it into the Sahara Forest would solve several problems.

[Raina]

Christopher, on Feb 13 2007, 01:08 PM, said:

Solar Wind, on Feb 13 2007, 01:44 PM, said:

Planting the trees 35 feet apart, 16,000 trees can be planted in a square mile (link) so your solution would require planting 3 million square miles of forest. The U.S. has 3.5 million square miles of land area.

So does the Sahara Desert. So turning it into the Sahara Forest would solve several problems.

EI should enter the contest!

[foborg]

How much rain forest have been burned up and disappeared the latest decade?

[Christopher]

According to a 2002 article I found, about 1% of the Earth's rainforest is lost per year, or about 10% per decade. Except that doesn't quite work out mathematically, because if the total amount is decreasing each year, then that 1% would be a smaller amount every year as well. And indications are that the rate has actually been accelerating.

[D.Rabbit]

At least they stopped clear cutting in Canada, almost.

My son's father still has to clear cut x amount of forest to keep his considerably large property, which is up for sale. Anyone wanting to own some of the great white north and save the environment, once the property changes hands the clear cutting will have to stop. Right now he is cutting under the Grandfather clause, new owners will have to conform to the new laws.

You can find a link to the B & B he runs on my links page.

EI could enter the contest and we could donate the prise to fund more research.

[Chakoteya]

Christopher, on Feb 13 2007, 08:08 PM, said:

Solar Wind, on Feb 13 2007, 01:44 PM, said:

Planting the trees 35 feet apart, 16,000 trees can be planted in a square mile (link) so your solution would require planting 3 million square miles of forest. The U.S. has 3.5 million square miles of land area.

So does the Sahara Desert. So turning it into the Sahara Forest would solve several problems.

Does this assume that the world population remains stagnant in the meantime?
And where will you get the water from to sustain such a forest?
And what about the unique desert habitat you will be destroying in the meantime?
And is it really in the planet's best interest to have millions of acres of the same species of vegetation? Surely you need eco-diversity.

Ain't I a little stirrer?

[D.Rabbit]

I think we should voluntarily reduce our numbers, but that take education. Statistic show, the more educated one is, the less children they have.

The Sahara use to be totally different than it is today, they have found cave drawing of fish and people swimming there. So irrigating and planting really isn't a great big deal of sustaining a vast waste land. It's a matter of survival. There is probably water under most deserts, it's just a matter of bringing it to the surface, called a well. Lots of camels to run the pump and make fertilizer too.

Bio diversity is a must, however, fast growing trees in groves isn't going to trash an already sterile environment.

Keep stirring.

[Christopher]

Chakoteya, on Feb 15 2007, 07:42 AM, said:

Christopher, on Feb 13 2007, 08:08 PM, said:

So does the Sahara Desert. So turning it into the Sahara Forest would solve several problems.

Well, I was being partly facetious, and was not seriously proposing replacing the whole Sahara. But to respond more seriously:

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Does this assume that the world population remains stagnant in the meantime?

I don't see why the population would have to remain stagnant.

Quote

And where will you get the water from to sustain such a forest?

The Earth has quite an abundance of water; it's simply a question of directing it to the right place. Indeed, with the ice caps melting, we'll soon have more water than we know what to do with. And reforestation in and of itself helps a region maintain its water supply, because the roots hold more water in the ground and the shading and windbreak provided by trees reduces evaporation. So it's a process that needs irrigation to get started, sure, but a reforested region gains an improved ability to retain a water reserve naturally.

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And what about the unique desert habitat you will be destroying in the meantime?

Although the Sahara was initially created by a shift in climate patterns, it has been greatly increased in size over the past millennium due to overgrazing by domesticated herd animals, erosion-promoting cultivation practices, and bad water management. Desertification of this sort is happening in arid and semiarid regions around the world and is one of the major environmental crises facing our world today.
http://www.ciesin.co...93/002-193.html

In many places around the world, there are ongoing projects to halt or reverse desertification, and the planting of new forests is a powerful tool for fighting it. And these desertified regions probably don't have much in the way of ecosystems of their own, being human-created wastelands of fairly recent vintage. True, some existing desert life may have adapted to them already, but the existing ecosystems that were there before have already been destroyed by human activity. Reforestation would be reversing that damage.

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And is it really in the planet's best interest to have millions of acres of the same species of vegetation? Surely you need eco-diversity.

When did I say anything about there being only one species of vegetation?? A forest, by definition, is a whole ecology consisting of multiple interdependent species of plant and animal.

This post has been edited by Christopher: 15 February 2007 - 11:40 AM

[D.Rabbit]

Here's an idea that was keeping me awake last night.

Electrical generating smoke stack turbines with charcoal filter blades.

The idea came from all that spent energy that goes up through the smoke stacks with out taking advantage of the flow. It's a total waste of good energy that could be converted to help off set not just the cost of fitting the turbines, but eventually some of the electrical operating expenses of the plant.

There is maintenance involved in changing the blades that can be emptied and used as fuel. Sensors that measure the amount of pollutants that are escaping are also needed to report when it is time to change them.
There is no reason why the blades can not maintain themselves automatically, they dump their charcoal into the furnace and refill. Using computers it's a no brainer. Which is a good idea considering humans have too many flaws to keep up the maintenance on their own.

Of course there is an expensive start up with this idea, the smoke stacks will have to be altered, the turbines custom fit, etc. The idea has it's merits because it's a quick fix and should not cause the economy to falter, more likely it will open up a whole new field of employment.

Now that idea only kept me awake for a few minutes, what continued to peculate was taking the idea to the automotive industry.
It might be very profitable to legislate this type of cleaning system into the exhaust systems. You change your turbine filters every time you change your oil.
The turbines also make energy to run the vehicle? When the vehicle is at cruising velocity, the turbines will take over? It's not going to help much for city driving but on the highway it can rule.

Out of the vehicles and into the house. I don't think your average chimney can produce more than enough electricity using the turbines to keep more than your motion sensor light going, but it's still doing the job of cutting back on green house gases.

[D.Rabbit]

Here's another idea my son came up with that might spark some interest.
With his permission.

Quote

I recommend we use genetically engineered bacteria grown in vats to process the CO2 into something more useful. like... by bonding it with some hydrogen atoms or something to create more fossil fuels. of course the technology for processing chemicals via the chemical pathways in bacteria is still in it's infancy I doubt it's going to happen. usually they just use the technology to make drugs.