THE BENEFITS, RISKS, AND COSTS OF STRATOSPHERIC GEOENGINEERING
Alan Robock, Allison Marquardt, Ben Kravitz, and Georgiy Stenchikov Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey
Submitted for publication in
Geophysical Research Letters
May, 2009
http://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/GRLreview2.pdf
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Cost Analysis of Stratospheric Albedo Modification Delivery Systems
September 11, 2012
Table # 1
[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/3/034019/article[/FONT]
http://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/...spheric-albedo-modification-delivery-systems/
Large cargo (Boeing 747-400
Maintenance hours per flight hour.
. 4
FY10 acquisition cost ($M) FY10, modification cost ($M),
Number of aircraft required . . . 14
Fleet acquisition cost ($B)
Yearly operations cost ($B)
Total yearly cost with depreciation and interest
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Cost Analysis Final Report
Prepared Under Contract to The University Of Calgary
Contract Number: __UC01-001______
Aurora Report Number: ____AR10-182__ October 30, 2010
http://agriculturedefensecoalition....Aurora_Flight_Sciences_Final_Report_Keith.pdf
2 Geoengineering Concept of Operations
This study focuses on airplane and airship operations to the stratosphere to release a geoengineering payload with the goal of reducing incoming solar flux. Airships are also considered for this mission. To provide a comparison to conventional aircraft opera- tions, more exotic concepts such as rockets, guns, and suspended pipes are also ex- amined.
For maximum cooling impact, the particulate payloads are best placed near the equator. This study assumes that the payload is released within latitudes 30°N and 30°S, though North-South basing location had minimal effect on cost. Transit operations, flying East- West between equally spaced bases around the equator, were examined as a method to ensure adequate dispersal of the payload around the equator. Global winds aid in East-West dispersal so a smaller number of bases and shorter range systems (referred to as Regional operations) can be employed with minimal impact on dispersal. Region- al operations allow the dispersal leg length to be dictated by the desired release rate of 0.03kg/m flown. This means the airplanes fly no further than they have to, on the order of 300-800 km, and fuel costs are minimized. Transit operations are not economical as the leg length is dictated by the distance between bases (for 8-base operations, legs are approximately 5,000 km) causing release rates to be low and fuel costs to be high.
A comparison of regional and transit operations utilizing Boeing 747s (at its service ceiling of 45,000 feet) is as follows:
x Regional: 747s operating regionally from multiple bases
o 14 airplanes, payload dispersed over 1,500 km cruise leg at a rate of
0.036 kg/m flown
o $0.8B for acquisition and $1B for one year of operations o 0.66M tonnes fuel burned per year
x Transit: 747s transiting from 8 bases
o 24 airplanes, payload dispersed over 5,000 km cruise leg at a rate of
0.012 kg/m flown
o $1.4 B for acquisition and $2.8B for one year of operations o 1.6M tonnes fuel burned per year
x Transit: 747s transiting from 4 bases
o 48 airplanes, payload dispersed over 11,000 km cruise leg at a rate of
0.005 kg/m flown
o $2.8B for acquisition and $4.5B for one year of operations o 3.24M tonnes fuel burned per year
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Can a Million Tons of Sulfur Dioxide Combat Climate Change?By Chris Mooney
[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-07/ff_geoengineering?currentPage=all[/FONT]
[FONT=.HelveticaNeueUI]http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/16-07/ff_geoengineering?currentPage=all[/FONT]
The next question, of course, is how to get the particles up there. Various proposals have suggested using artillery, balloons, suspended hoses, military jets, or even converted 747s. Then there is the question of where to deposit the sulfur. There are different elevations to consider, as well as planetary location. A number of scientists, most recently Wood and Caldeira in a yet-unpublished paper, propose dispensing the gas over the Arctic
— after all, that's where global warming is felt most powerfully and where cooler temperatures would help restore sea ice and stabilize Greenland.