Geoengineering and nanotechnology at the University of Calgary

University of Calgary climate scientist David Keith suggests two ways to engineer the climate to avoid dangerous warming. According to the news item on Nanowerk,

“Releasing engineered nano-sized disks, or sulphuric acid in a condensable vapour above the Earth, are two novel approaches. These approaches offer advantages over simply putting sulphur dioxide gas into the atmosphere,” says David Keith, a director in the Institute for Sustainable Energy, Environment and Economy and a Schulich School of Engineering professor.

Keith, a global leader in investigating this topic, says that geoengineering, or engineering the climate on a global scale, is an imperfect science.

“It cannot offset the risks that come from increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. If we don’t halt man-made CO2 emissions, no amount of climate engineering can eliminate the problems – massive emissions reductions are still necessary.”

Nevertheless, Keith believes that research on geoengineering technologies,their effectiveness and environmental impacts needs to be expanded.

“I think the stakes are simply too high at this point to think that ignorance is a good policy.”

… One study was authored by Keith alone, and the other with scientists in Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland.

Keith is talking about engineering the nanoparticles as thin disks whose electric or magnet materials would allow them to be levitated into the atmosphere and oriented to reflect the most solar radiation away from us. For example, if the particles could be engineered to drift towards the Poles (North and South), solar radiation could be reduced.  There’s more detail about this and his other suggestion in the news item.

Keith does note that these suggestions do not mean we should stop our efforts at curtailing greenhouse gas emissions,

Keith stresses that whether geoengineering technology is ever used, it shouldn’t be seen as a reason not to reduce man-made greenhouse gas emissions now accumulating in the atmosphere.

“Seat belts reduce the risk of being injured in accidents. But having a seat belt doesn’t mean you should drive drunk at 100 miles an hour,” he says.

ETA Sept. 13, 2010: Andrew Maynard at 2020 Science has posted about one of David Keith’s geoengineering ideas:

The first [aspect of the paper to catch Andrew’s eye] was that he [Keith] proposes engineering particles as disks a few micrometers wide and around 50 nanometers thick, that are designed to automatically congregate where they are most useful in the atmosphere – in other words, this is a beautiful case of nanotechnology meets geoengineering.

The second aspect of the paper that caught my attention was that I was working with precisely engineered particles not too dissimilar from those that David described back in the 1990′s, which got me wondering whether techniques being used then for fabrication of silicon particles could be used for the more complex particles being proposed here.

If you’re interested in how science develops and the history of ideas (special emphasis on nanotechnology and geoengineering) then, Andrew offers a very engaging view.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *