mirrors for earth’s energy rebalacing (meer:reflection
TRANSCRIPT
Mirrors for Earth’s Energy Rebalacing (MEER:ReflEction):Resource-driven engineering leveraging Earth’s chemistries to immediately offer remediationYe Tao (PhD, principal investigator)Rowland Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, USA
Immediately ending carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions will not be enough to solve the climate crisis; we also need to stabilize the Earth's temperature by compensating the loss of albedo from short-lived anthropogenic aerosols. Effectively addressing the complex issue requires simultaneously solving three individually challenging problems: (1) planetary overheating, (2) energy production, and (3) ocean acidification. MEER:ReflEction is a grand, versatile, and feasible approach to addressing the imminent urgency of climate change due to temperature increase and oceanacidification while reshaping our energy production and consumption to renewable energy. MEER:ReflEction applies aluminum-coated glass mirror arrays for (1) solar radiation management for albedo control, (2) renewable energy production, and (3) carbon dioxide drawdown through ocean liming using solar thermally produced calcium oxide(CaO). We find full deployment on land and at sea within 10 years both necessary and affordable.
Atmospheric [CO2 ] (ppm)
Tem
pera
ture
abo
ve 1
752
base
line
(°C
)
DAC: direct air capture
DAC (increase to 6% 2019 GDP)
Climate change in 2030 by geoengineering using 3% GDP/yr
mirror-STOL: mirrors solar thermal ocean liming
yr 2019
mirror-SRM: mirrors solar radiation management
DAC
100% mirror-SRM
100% mirror-STOL
80/20
60/40
40/6
0
20/80
400 450 500 550Atmospheric [CO2] (ppm)
1
1.5
2
3
4
5
6
78
10
Tem
pera
ture
abo
ve 1
752
base
line
(°C
) 210020502025
-20 -15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15 20Infrastructure emissions (GtCO2/yr)
-0.06
-0.04
-0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
100%
rene
wab
le
T (° C
/yr)
fore
st w
ood
yr 2019
yr 2100
yr 2100
yr 2100
yr 2100
wind
solar thermal
Basis vectors of annual displacement
yr 2020
albe
do h
eatin
g
yr 2020 friction dissipation/layer mixingphotovoltaic
thickness linearly encodes yr
all land on earth
100 101 102 103 104 105Atmospheric [CO2] (ppm)
1
2
3
Tem
pera
ture
abo
ve 1
752
base
line
(°C
)
Ecosystem thermal tolerance
Pla
nts
star
ve b
elow
this
[CO
2]
Toxicity to animals above this [C
O2 ]
yr 2019
T([CO2]) given currentstructure of the Earth
~yr 2050
yr 1970
Climate change is on course to annihilate complex life on Earth
Acknowledgement: Chris Stokes, Lisa Bjerke, Steve Cranford, and Guy McPherson for helpful discussions
Funding: Rowland Institute at Harvard
Bibliography: Extensive lists of references available upon request at: [email protected]
Floating mirror arrays for solar radiation management (Conceptual illustration) Operating configuration
Storm-protection configuration
MEER:ReflEction effectively manages the albedo effect,contributes to renewable energy production, reduces CO2, while also being:
(1) Locally testable(2) Scalable (3) Durable(4) Cost effective(5) Dynamicaly tunable(6) Net-zero emission and toxicity-free(7) Conducive to ecosystem restoration
Key realization:
No individual or combinations of existing renewable energy technologies canreturn the Earth system to a habitable region in the temperature-[CO2] diagram.This is because a ‘basis vector’ providing system mobility in the -[CO2] and -T directions is currently lacking. Herein, we propose a new geoengineering methodology to save the global ecosystem.
Climate change from 100% renewable energy by Jan 1st, 2020
375 400 425 450
0
1
2