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albedoenhancement

Solar Radiation Management Videos

I will group the solar management/albedo enhancement videos on this page.

  1. DW Planet A Video

A review of some albedo enhancing methods. Its strange how these methods that can save a lot of lives are disqualified on very vague grounds, while the economy never cares what the effect is of its expansion.. Interesting that no-till farming, can indeed increase farm land Albedo. You can skip the first 6 minutes as they are about aerosol dispersion which is energetically unaffordable (until better methods are found?)

Ocean foams in the pacific gyri will of course reduce evaporation and precipitation. But they don’t need to be detrimental if combined with methods/installations to grow food.

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albedoenhancement

Using PET reflectors to Cool Earth

PET bottles are made by the billions each year, to be precise, 583,3 billion, that is 583.300.000.000 bottles which is an insane number, given the world population is only ~7 Billion people (so maybe wrong?)!

Let’s say its half that, so 300 billion bottles. We can make something else from that PET plastic, namely reflective sheets. If we assume the same thickness we can make the same surface area as those bottles. Taking one bottle as 15 cm diameter, 40 cm high, this is .32 m2 of surface, like a common sidewalk pavement tile. If we multiply this we find we have 96.000 square kilometers of surface.

We can make PET 94% reflective. At the equator the Sun power is 1000 Watt per m2, so this material reflects back 94% of it, which is 940 Watt/m2. For the 96.000 square kilometers this is 9,024 x 10 with 13 zeros, or 90.240.000.000.000 or 90,24 TeraJoule of energy.

The world recieves about 3 400 000 EtaJoule per year, an EtaJoule is 1 with 18 zeros, so 6 more than a TeraJoule. This really is a lot, so the energy send back to space by the reflector may not do much, but it may compensate the loss of sea ice, and it may be used in ways that amplifies its own effect, for instance in mountains, where the colder air then causes snowfall which then cause more white surface to form.

If you reflect 94% of the light back in a region, it will seem like the sun is 94% dimmer there. It will become cold, and rain will fall and probably freeze, I yet have to get a good model to simulate those effects. The wind over the area will also cool down.

If the PET is used on the ocean, preferbly a quiet part of it, then the albedo gain will be quite pronounced. Land Albedo (reflectance) is ~30%, but ocean albedo is near Zero! The water will still be able to radiate heat because the PET will take on the same temperature and will be quite thin. So floating PET on the ocean can help cool it, and the air at the same time.

This kind of idea seems idiotic, but if you consider you can keep oceans alive, seacreatues alive, cool the atmosphere, prevent violent storms (because there will be no evaporation) the advantages start to add up.

Maybe we can stop using PET bottles and cool regions enough so we dont need bottled water anymore!

Categories
albedoenhancement

Increasing Local Albedo

One of my quests at the moment is to get an accurate idea of what local albedo changes will do to temperature. This is to make it clear for people what they can do to lower temperatures, which can be life saving, not only human lifes but of all lives. I’m working with a climate expert to find answers. The scale we work on now is still crude : 9km x 9km.

A random location in Pakistan

The above shows a region in Pakistan, with farmland next to dry uncultivated land. Possibly because of an underground aquifer or river, but also because of temperature differences. The albedo of green land and sand is similar about 30%, just in a different spectral regions. The model shows the temperature distribution under ‘normal’ conditions.

Normal temperatures

This image shows the sandy area is actually cooler than the agricultural area. This can be because the green shrub and black soil absorp more heat. If you increase the albedo of the entire area you get this result..

Enhanced Albedo Temperatures

This is the area with higher albedo 80%. The agricultual land is much cooler, it seems almost 100 degrees Fahrenheit! But we effectively turned the whole area in a polar ice region. I am working on a more detailed model. What would happen if you add alternating rows of white soil (calcium) between vegetation? If you know good models let me know.

A good question is also : If you increase albedo and the temperatures drop, does that mean it will start to rain? To be continued..

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albedoenhancement

Albedo Enhancement

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This post is replaced by the page AlbedoEnhancement.com

Bright White Ceramic Cools Buildings By Reflecting 99.6% of Light

Making Higly Reflective Paint

Spaceflakes to shield Earth

Increasing Local Albedo Part I

Calculating Albedo

Version francais Version Espagnola

More on Calculating Albedo Effect

SurfaceAlbedo
Corrugated Roof0.1-0.15
Trees0.15-0.18
Alsphalt0.1
Concrete0.4
Ocean0.06
Ice0.8
Cirrus cloud0.2
Thunder cloud (cumulonimbus)0.8
Altostratus cloud0.35
Stratus cloud0.4
Snow0.9
Polished aluminium0.99
Desert sand0.4
Soil0.05
white gypsum0.85
Special polymer paint0.98
Special foams0.75
Different materials have different albedo. Some specialized materials have been developed. Silver mirrors are most reflective.

Now that the CO2 concentration is rising, the atmosphere is not letting as much heat radiate out to space as it used to, and this is changing climate. By enhancing Albedo we can help Earth shed the heat it is accumulating. This is very important for life, especially of plants, that we need to capture back the CO2.

If we work around the world to increase Albedo where we are we can regain control over our environment, and cool it down to where it can both produce food and capture CO2. This website is to help you find the best way where you are. There are new materials with 95%+ reflectance, and we hope we can make those widely available or instruct you how to maximize the effectiveness of the materials you use. The important thing is to start looking for opportunities to use white surfaces, because they also save a lot of aircondioning emissions.

“An experiment conducted in western Athens found that brightening of asphalt and concrete pavements reduced ambient temperature by 7.5 degrees and 6.1 degrees Celsius respectively.” (link)

A NASA analysis of the albedo of Earth without clouds. Its 0.3 on average. Oceans have really low albedo, and thus there is massive potential to reduce warming.

“A recent study in Los Angeles County analyzed the energy savings of modestly increasing roof albedo, finding that this could produce savings from reduced energy use of 23% to 40%, making cool roofs a financially attractive option.”

Source The performances show that the bilayer paint design can achieve both color and efficient radiative cooling in a simple, inexpensive, and scalable manner.

How to calculate Albedo

Patent for highly reflective polymer 1

Patent for highly reflective polymer 2

Chapter on Albedo Enhancement Techniques

Categories
albedoenhancement

Covered Streets and Farms

We will need to deal with the heat of summer, we will need to find more room to generate solar energy. The solution is not complicated : We need to cover our streets. Dense cities are excelllent places where we can create close to domed environments. We van eventually, when we are only using EVs or banned internal combustion cars (including hydrogen) from our cities, even condition our ‘outside’ air. The ease to do this will become an attaction of cities.

We are facing a prospect of rising CO2, loss of O2 and increase of gasses like methane and H2S in our atmosphere. The loss of O2 will be caused by the death of our oceans due to acidification and rising temperatures, as well as the forest and brush fires we are now witnessing. We need climate resilient technology to capture back the CO2, but the changes will take place so fast we will also need to build places where we can live in a stabile and safe manner.

To keep it real, if you live in a street with a span of about 30 to 50 meters, you could cover it with metal or other beams and put solar panels (and solar thermal panels) on top of them. Still leaving in enough sunlight (using a dynamic system) you could create a light pleasant environment on the ground, conducive to plants living and animals thriving. At the same time solar light could be reflected back into space, the best thing to do. The solar energy captured at height could be used to cool the air (solar airconditioning) and charge EVs and homa batteries. Maybe even reduce CO2, as our brains are not really adapted for this level of CO2 in our air.

In cities in southern Europe, more and more cities are covering streets to reduce the sun beating down on pedestrians. The big advantages of them is that the heat stays close to the shades, and the cooler air can stay near the ground. This means that in narrow streets airconditioning can actually work.

We did some experiments this summer because of the concept of “radiative cooling” this is an ancient way of cooling against space. The idea is simple : Without our atmosphere and the Sun our planet would be a frozen ice ball. This is because space is very cold, and heat radiates from hot bodies (as you can see in infrared images). Our planet witout atmosphere or sunlight would very rapidly radiate away all its heat cooling down. In day to day life that means that if you are in a shaded place and you can see a blue sky, your heat has the chance to radiate into space, and because you are in the shade no heat from the sun is added. You will be cooling down.

As you see above scientists have looked into this mechanism. You can experience it yourself if you feel the roof of your car as it was parked in the shade on a really warm sunny day. The roof will feel colder than the air.

The nice advantage is that the type of radiation a hot object generates passes more easy through our atmosphere than the heat of the Sun. Real cooling effects can be achieved, so much that one could in create ice in the desert. Of couse as our atmsphere is getting more humid the clear sky deserts cool less.

What the above makes clear is that we can have double advantage of covered streets if we can uncover them at night. We can also cool without cost if we create more shade, and actually cool our planet if we reflect more sunlight back into space. A sunny city could do best with a highly reflective flexible cover for the time being.

We will also have to contemplate the advantage of cooled farms. Soon the peak weather will destroy crops, dry them out and cook them. Trees and plants have a limited capacity to pull water out of the ground to cool themselves, once that limit is reached or the root system is not able to cope, the tree dries out and dies. Plants only need about 12% of the sunlight they get on a normal day. Farmers should work on the cheapest way to cover the largest area with sun reflecting shielding. This will reduce evaporation and humidity in hot areas.

We hope to see the first autonomous domed city to be developed in some desert soon, because this will be a stabile environment to work from. Our unprotected outside existence is sensitive to all kinds of calamities. We will not be able to count on environmental stability for long anymore.