This just in, (h/t to Sonicfrog) the swamp cooler is being re-invented as a global warming solution. No mention of what the increased global humidity will do for the planet’s radiative balance. No mention of what the increased humidity would do for night-time low temperatures.
SUNSTOP writes to tell us that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water to be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth’s existing air conditioning system.
Ron Ace, a 69-year-old, has been researching the earth’s climate for years and has found what he calls the most “practical, nontoxic, affordable, rapidly achievable” and beneficial way to curb global warming and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.
Ace proposes to spray gigatons of sea-water into the air and in effect, build a “a colossal refrigeration system with a 100,000-fold performance multiplier.” He contends a number of positive effects would be in action at the same time to help stave off warming.
“The Earth has a giant air-conditioning problem,” he said. “I’m proposing to put a thermostat on the planet.”
First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation.
Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said.
But it appears that maybe they just haven’t thought this through carefully:
“Some complications related to releasing huge amounts of water into the air are not well understood, however.”
In the Slashdot comments there is this that caught my eye:
by cthulu_mt (1124113) on Friday December 19, @04:42PM (#26177863)
I think this gem earns a “whatcouldpossiblygoright“.
Dear Mr. Ace:
Please, PLEASE turn up the thermostat. Some dummy left it on A/C.
— Freezing in Calgary
(sarc on) I imagine that the pump companies could get behind this. Let’s try this right after putting up one of those proposed 100 sq mile solar reflectors in space! (sarc off)
This would have been used a couple of million years ago.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3867382/Neanderthals-could-have-died-out-because-their-bodies-overheated.html
The levels of stupid attained by the imbeciles that believe they can influence the world climate continue to amaze.
How much energy will it take to atomize gigatons of water? And how is that “practical, non toxic, and affordable”?
Does this guy even understand that evaporative cooling is NOT refrigeration?
Sprayed droplets don’t necessarily “transform to water vapor.” Boreal Ridge sprayed water droplets last week and got snow, but that’s not what Mr. Ace had in mind. He wants water vapor, not knowing apparently that water vapor is the dominant GHG in the atmosphere. If he were able to convert sea water into water vapor at the flip of a switch, he would trap warmth, not create cooling.
We need to bring back the fine art of ridicule . . . and fast!
I have more fear of these yahoos doing more harm to the planet trying to fix the non-existent problem.
Save the planet!
Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet.
Another computer simulation. Yup.
And that would be a “wetlands” cooler, BTW.
So how will these swamp coolers be powered?
There is a much easier way to create a lot more cooling without pumping a lot of stuff into the atmosphere. If everyone on the planet simply painted their roof white, it would be the equivalent of millions of acres of low-latitude ice. It would reflect a good deal of solar radiation back into space before it had a chance to generate heat. Might trigger an ice age, though …
If people did that, always parked their car out of the sun, and cities included “cool pavements” (usually lighter concrete rather than black asphalt), we could probably reduce temperatures in most urban areas by a degree or two in summer. That would, in turn, greatly reduce energy consumption. As the sun is lower in the sky in the winter months, the impact wouldn’t be as great. Maximum impact would be during maximum insolation during the Summer months.
Re Neil Jones
That must be the silliest theory of neanderthal extinction ever. The neanderthal died out near the Glacial Maximum when temperatures were about ten degrees lower than now, they disappeared from north to south (the last ones lived in southern Spain) and they survived the last interglacial, when temperatures were warmer than now.
The idiocy is reaching a new, unprecendent climax.
This guy is ruining the image of the scientists even more.
…. so, when I’m using a sprinkler to water my lawn…. I’m actually cooling the Planet!….. I’ll have to remember that, if the city council catches me using one during water restrictions….. My defence from now on…. I’m cooling the planet and making more clouds. hehe.
This proposal seems to have the same basis as one I previously read in the New Scientist (UK), which would have had a large fleet of ships spraying a fine mist of sea water into the air (IIRC powered by the sun).
While most of the proposed technological quick-fixes to global warming are barmy, and potentially very harmful, this proposal has one major plus side: If there are problems, then we can turn it off immediately.
I live in an exceedingly humid part of the South African, alongside the coastline. Right now it is a stinking summer, and we are dripping away. This morning you couldn’t see a kilometre, it was so murky. The absolute last thing I want to think about is some nut case squirting sea water into the atmosphere. Apart from the sweltering aspect, what about the tons of salt this wild idea would add to atmospheric pollution? Here we know a good deal about atmospheric corrosion–but if this guy has his way there will be yet more lessons for us.
Actually we had seen here a much better cooling proposal, supposing we need cooling, in those ships which would be solar powered and vaporising sea water so as to seed with salt the cloud layer and increase albedo.
I hope this winter’s ice will stop all such speculations.
If my choice is supporting carbon credits or supporting one swamp cooler….I think I’d take the swamp cooler.
The idiocy is reaching a new, unprecendent climax.
Indeed, I don’t know what’s more disturbing: a Scientist with a ridiculous idea (lets face it, Human Progress is based on Scientists with ridiculous ideas) or a media with Science editors who are willing to entertain these ideas and publish them.
Silly Roy. You’ll be taxed to support BOTH.
This is the age of political and social Uri Geller like spoon bending and disinformation.
People looking for their inner self run around with magnets because it promotes a good karma, engage in paranormal sessions, virtual religions and ceremonies.
Reality and common sense are gone.
This is the age of semi science, semi religion, semi Government working on semi solutions for semi problems, in short: A most effective but dangerous way to waste resources, time and money.
The swamp cooler is a waste of money.
I think that we have a major problem in the field of education.
But it (still) is a free country and people can patent whatever they want.
And I can assure you that patents have been filed for inventions that are even more “waco” than this one.
P Folken,
Since he doesn’t understand that spraying water into the air isn’t ‘evaporative’ in the first place and won’t cause anything but limited local cooling (in the path of the droplets as they settle back to earth) unless you can somehow spray it 3000 feet into the air (even then that most likely is useless) and without suitable amounts of cloud condensation nuclei you’re not going to get clouds no matter how much you spray into the air, I suspect he doesn’t understand.
When I was a kid I read SciFi about ‘terraforming’ Venus. This is right up there with that.
What we need are these huge fusion plants to process the atmosphere, we can call them ‘shake and bake’ .. (from the movie ‘Aliens’)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t water vapor a much more effective greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide? So with all this extra water vapor wouldn’t there be more heat retained…either way it’s a moronic solution to a non-existent problem.
This idea is not new. It is the subject of an actual peer reviewed paper by at least one scientist from NCAR at Boulder, Colorado.
http://www.primidi.com/2008/09/07.html
http://journals.royalsociety.org/content/921mt954r2m2750k/fulltext.pdf
As mankind has been pumping CO2 into the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution with little or no effect how does this fellow honestly expect that if we now start pumping water into the atmosphere that we can affect the climate.
Merry Christmas to all from the Jungles of South Sumatra.
They certainly can’t have it both ways.
Either:
Water vapour has a positive feedback on global warming, in which case the idea’s stupid,
or water vapour has a negative feedback, in which case uncontrolled global warming cannot occur as the seas warm, the alarmists are wrong, and the idea’s stupid and unnecessary.
Clue: The idea’s stupid, unknown Maryland scientist.
From what source will the many, many, many killowatts of electricity be produced to move all these gigatons of water???
Is this the same idea as having everyone piss in the wind?
Hmmm…let me get this straight, this knucklehead wants to create a device[s] that’ll generate huge quantities of the No. 1 GHG and inject into the atmosphere?
Okaaay…
That’ll turn out well…sorta like giving a gaggle of five-year olds a box of detonators to play with.
This gives new meaning to the classic phrase …’what could possibly go wrong?’…
Yikes!!!
Any bets that he will get grant funding for a small scale proof of concept project? However, he needs to think bigger. How much money can you get for pointing a water hose in the air? Maybe he should enhance his project with a tilting bird shredder (wind turbine). This way he can produce energy to run the system from the horizontal oriented axis shredders, and enhance the convection with the vertical ones. It would work like those misting fans you can buy at the ballpark. If placed correctly the vertical shredder would pull air from the surrounding area causing air flow to power the horizontal axis power generators. You could model it on a computer and show it works, and that should be enough for the fruit loops at many of these grant agencies or carbon credit exchanges.
If done properly think of the carbon credits that could be generated out of thin air and thicker water! And since the laws of physics do not apply to computer models, carbon credit trading exchanges, or the global warming religion everything should be great. At least the money would not go into vapor ware carbon credits, but into actual equipment that could cool the next “Live Earth Concert”. Oops, I forgot you didn’t need to cool them down since they are in the real world and the Gore Effect is in full force.
Since hurricanes and typhoons (and the storms that routinely rumble through “Tornado Alley“) feed off of warm, moist air, wouldn’t these additional gigatons of fairy dust-powered* warm, moist air, oh, I don’t know, feed more and stronger hurricanes and typhoons (and storms rumbling through “Tornado Alley“)?
Inquiring minds want to know.
*Note: How does he propose to power the tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of gigantic pumps that would be needed to pump gigatons of water into the atmosphere for decades? Also, how would he possibly get past Green Peas and their army of lawyers, when word got out that they’d be sucking up billions of tons of sea life and adding to the noise pollution that is driving the whales insane?)
Why doesn’t this yahoo patent Cold Fusion instead. His perpertual motion generator could then power all the devices we need to freeze the Earth harder than it’s freezing right now.
So, turning all of our window air conditioners around so they cool the outside won’t work either?
Darnit.
With the group of science advisers recently appointed in Washington, you can look forward to a stream of stuff, much like this, coming from the new administration.
Let’s see. AGW theory says that CO2 will cause catastrophic warming by increasing water vapor in the atmosphere. To combat the extra heat from the water vapor, let’s add more water vapor.
As long as this genius doesn’t fire boneless chickens at the sun with a cannon, I will refrain from filing a patent challenge.
I’ll be laughing at the very first lawsuit this sea water mist injection would produce.
Could you imagine the claimants asking for money because a hurricane may have increased in strength because of increased humidity? Someone gets flooded out of their village and it’ll be inevitable that someone claims some of that rain was first injected into the atmosphere on purpose?
Silly stuff, really.
Will these crackpots never be still? Where does this
tin-foil hat nutcase think the terawatts of energy to pump all
this water is going to come from? What’s that? “The sun”? So
just how is creating more clouds going to help with
solar energy? Cleverness. The downfall of the clever. D’oh
Even the IPCC says that the climate models don’t understand clouds. So when these unfortunate fellows turned to a popular climate model, they ended up using what is known to be the wrong tool for proving the effect of more water vapor.
They also think the same effect could be caused by thousands of smaller sprinklers. I’m certain just the U.S. golf courses have thousands of sprinklers, and there are quite a number of farms using large sprinklers. I saw mention a few years ago of the possible increase in local warming due to water vapor from the many sprinklers and ponds which have appeared across the U.S. (I can’t find the paper).
“and a resulting catastrophic ocean rise.”
The oceans are currently not rising and up until recently had only been rising 1-2mm per year.
Sound the alarm.
Build a few nuclear power plants in the regions where evaporative cooling would be most helpful at managing the earth’s weather. Remember: nuclear plants add nothing to global warming — no CO2, no chemical polutants, no radiation, nothing bad. During daytime hours use that electrical power to run great banks of seawater pumps and sprays to increase evaporation, cloud cover and rainfall. Whamo, you have compensated for increased CO2 in our atmosphere. That’s a lot more reasonable than extracting CO2 from the atmospere and storing it underground or deep in the oceans.
By the way, don’t we need more rainfall in many places around the globe?
The problem with Ron Ace’s patent application is that it is “not invented here”. By that I mean it is not the result of government funded work of scientists in the global warming “community”.
A side note: “If Global Warming is the Problem, Nuclear Power is the Answer.”
You know, they used to tar and feather snake oil salesmen…
I think I found the problem.
‘Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace’s invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet.’
‘computer simulation’ The frogs are flying!
Let me see if I got this right.
We’re going to spend Trillions to stop ourselves from putting one minor greenhouse gas into the atmosphere while we build Giant Patio Evaporative Coolers all over the planet to increase the level of the dominant greenhouse gas? And then the pesky climate will stop changing?
Yeah, that ought to do the trick.
…. so, when I’m using a sprinkler to water my lawn…. I’m actually cooling the Planet!….. I’ll have to remember that, if the city council catches me using one during water restrictions….. My defence from now on…. I’m cooling the planet and making more clouds. hehe.
Sounds like you live in Kalyfornya!
Roof-mounted home/business unit?
Let us hope he remembers that all this water won’t be available during a drought (as in the SE and FL and CA lately.
Plus all that nice humidty. Grows LOTS of fungi, insects, mold, slime, mildew and funky-green-living things ALL OVER the nearest 15-25 feet of EVERY available surface.
(Hope no roofs collapse because of the extra weight up topside.)
(And how people will die from falls cleaning, installing, maintaining these ugly boxes on millions of rooftops? (On the ground? )
I thought the sun already did the heavy lifting in putting water back into the atmosphere. But not being a climate scientist I’ll not defend that idea.
Crosspatch mentions the white cities idea. And I think there may be something in it for reducing UHI effects.
Gradually we could build and manufacture with whiter materials and paint with white. I suppose the vehicles of the Earth, which must total over half a billion, could move to lighter colors also. Roads seem more problematic, the best cost/durability choices may be what we already use.
Living in Arizona I inquired about the new paints that promise less absorption even for darker colors; a property that rattles my inadequate knowledge of physics a little.
Apparently the paints do exist but cost significantly more – requiring on-site mixing of some titanium compound just before application.
Wow, if this thing starts really working what will happen to this map:
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=mintemp
Correction on the title – Ace’s patent was issued in 2004.
United States Patent 6,688,129
Ace February 10, 2004
Geothermal space conditioning
Scientists doubt inventor’s global cooling idea — but what if it works?
(with video of Ace describing his invention.)
Water in the atmosphere and precipitation is actually little understood. see: Global Warming and Nature’s Thermostat by Roy W. Spencer, Ph.D.
It will be very interesting to see how Ace’s swamp cooler fits with Miskolczi’s planetary greenhouse theory – e.g. where Miskolczi predicts that energy conservation and energy minimization will maintain about constant optical depth.
Greenhouse effect in semitransparent planetary atmospheres, Ference M. Miskolczi, Quarterly Journal of the Hungarian Meteorological Service, Vol. 111, No. 1 Jan-Mar 2007, pp 1-40
Miskowlczi observes:
Ferenc Miskolczi – Physics of the Planetary Greenhouse Effect
Miklos Zagoni, Dr. – Paleoclimatic Consequences of Dr. Miskolczi’s Greenhouse Theory
See also:
http://hps.elte.hu/zagoni/Miskolczi/hartcode_v01.pdf
http://www.met.hu/idojaras/IDOJARAS_vol108_No4_01.pdf;
Umm, saltwater tends to be very bad for plant life on land. Wouldn’t flinging all that saltwater up in the air be bad for the plants the salt or saltwater landed on? They wouldn’t be able to convert CO2 into O for us. They cannot get anything growing in Galveston. Everything is crusted in salt.
Comparing this idea to the intelligence of a sack of rocks insults the intelligence of the sack of rocks.
My bet is that it is powered by enviro-friendly perpetual motion.
The fallacy of this, yet its being supported by any sort of climate scientist, has already been pointed out: If water vapor is indeed a negative climate forcing, then the claims of Hansen &co. are wrong.
Need someone who knows what he is talking about (not me) but If I remember correctly burning one gallon of gasoline produces more that one gallon of H2O. So if we want to increase the water vapor we should drive around in an SUV.
Next we will discuss how a propane refrigerator works, and then boil up some ice cubes.
Years ago Popular Science had a article about a much more detailed plan. The proposal was to build a large hollow 1km high tower in the desert and pump sea water spray into the top. This would create a cool falling column of air in the tower that would in turn power a turbine at the bottom to create electricity. The whole idea was to create electricity in excess of that needed to power the sea water pumps. Excess water would would wash the salt back to the ocean. The cooled moist air could be used to grow plants or air condition a small town.
All you need is that 1km hollow tower that doesn’t blow away in the first windstorm.
Sure, Ace, let’s spend who-knows-how-many billions building and running your contraptions (for which you will be paid handsomely, no doubt), to try to “fix” a non-problem, with god-knows -what environmental, let alone climatic consequences.
The earth already has it’s own, extremely powerful thermostat – the oceans. Combined with the varying sun, no “thermostat” man could possibly devise can compete with what nature already does, nor is it necessary, nor is it at all wise.
Mr. Ace, as a scientist and a human being, you are a disgrace.
Cannonball!!!
All unemployed people in the USA and Canada would be paid to do 250 cannonballs into lakes and rivers and pools each day (weather permitting) . The resulting splashes would cool North America!!!!!!
Can I have my grant money now?
May I suggest my own patent pending idea. I am developing a clear varnish that is completely transparent to longwave infrared radiation. The varnish to be impregnated with pure CO2 gas in the form of minute bubbles less than half millimeter in size. The varnish can be applied to the ceilings of rooms that need more warmth. About two layers should provide a complete layer of trapped CO2 about one millimeter thick, far in excess of IPCC requirements, and will reliably reflect warmth from any radiating body in the room, like wife at ironing board. Guaranteed to last the life time of the building.
Shares will be offered on the open market in due course.
In addition to increasing the amount of water vapor in the atmospheres, there are two other scenarios which should be considered if seawater is used for cooling:
1. As the seawater evaporates, salt crystals (NaCl) will be come airborne and these crystals may accelerate precipitation through cloud seeding.
2. In extremely arid regions of the world, such as the Persian Gulf, Red Sea or Eastern Mediterranean these sprays could significantly increase downwind precipitation
There have already been proposals to flood below sea level depressions in Israel (Dead Sea) and Egypt (Qattara Depression) with seawater. In such a situation the energy from the falling seawater could be used to power the sprays. If a closed seawater delivery system were used the water pressure could power the sprays directly.
In the United States the Salton Sea and Death Valley would be possible candidates for such a project. The Salton Sea sprays could be powered by the falling seawater from the Gulf of California. Given the distance, Death Valley would require energy intensive pumping. As in Israel and Egypt, there have already been proposals advanced to re-flood the Salton Sea. Unfortunately in the United States such climate modification projects would be quickly killed by the Greenies. The Death Valley Devil’s Hole pupfish (Cyprinodon diabolis) was the endangered species which was used to upheld the Endangered Species Act before the Supreme Count. The chance of doing anything which would modify the climate in Death Valley is ZERO!
Ron Ace’s proposal to cool the Earth is ridiculous and the Sun may already be doing the job for free. As an idea for terraforming inhospitable sections of the Earth the concept may have merit and should be studied. There are several countries in the Persian Gulf with the financial resources to fund a project which promised to increase precipitation. For sea level sprays, all those proposed floating wind-turbines could be put to good use if the concept works. I should also point out that Ron Ace’s idea is not original and he may not be able to defend a patent as this 2002 paper demonstrates.
Spray Turbines to Increase Rain by Enhanced Evaporation From the Sea
http://www.mech.ed.ac.uk/research/wavepower/rain%20making/shs%20rain%20paper%20Feb.pdf
For additional information see the following and note the positions of the environmentalist:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_seeding
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_sea
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terraforming
Exponential (06:18:07) :
“Is this the same idea as having everyone piss in the wind?”
Certainly not in the oceans, with the rising sea level and all.
By the way, where is the zero reference point for sea level?
Typical Engine Combustion:
“Fuel + Air => Hydrocarbons + Nitrogen Oxides + Carbon Dioxide + Carbon Monoxide + water ”
Consider the amount of combustion occurring world wide, at this very moment, using a carbon based fuel, and then consider the amount of water vapor being created and emitted into the atmosphere.
High preasure mist systems are used in the desert to cool out door patios. I know. I had one installed 10 years ago. They work great under optimal conditions. Such as: very light wind from the correct direction, and a fine enough filter to strain minerals from the water. By the time I sold that house 3 years later I realized there was no value in the idea for home use.
So we suck up gigatons of water run them through enough filters then we could send a super fine mist into the air. We could actually cool a region of the desert. O sorry it is a desert because there is no water.
We donot need people sending seawater into the air as we have already put that eco-system in danger with our KINDNESS! Thanks Eco-warriors for all !
I think its a great idea and we should begin immediately to implement this water vapor/negative feedback concept though a massive infusion of federal dollars.
The large number of jobs this would create – in high tech sector at that – would put an immediate end to to the economic woes now gripping the nation. In addition the cooling of the planet will fullfill one of the core promises of the incoming administration.
The only problems I can imagine are that (1) the high priests of AGW would have to admit that water vapor is a negative feedback, and (2) the resulting mini ice age would kill millions of people in the third and developing world.
VIN SUPRYNOWICZ: Cooling is ‘not evidence that global warming is slowing’
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/36525244.html
How stupid does this make politicians such as Barack Obama and the other suckers who have fallen for the “global warming” hoax as they race to say, “Never mind”?
Actually, they haven’t missed a beat. These guys are so “scientific” that the evidence of their own eyes and overcoats has become irrelevant. They now contend global cooling is just further proof of global warming. Honest.
The Obama gang mean for us to learn to survive at 55 degrees in the winter; and to hope the tourists will still come to Vegas when our air conditioning only lowers the temperature to 87 in the summer (assuming we can afford even that.) They plan to unionize and thus close down most of our remaining factories — the Chinese will make us everything we need, you see; we’ll pay for it with the endless bales of green coupons printed by Ben Bernanke and the Elves in the Big Hollow Tree.
To see Mr. Obama admit “Under my plan, electricity costs will necessarily skyrocket” visit http://www.climatechangefraud.com/.
In a Zogby exit poll, 88.4 percent of Obama voters expressed ignorance of the fact Obama said on the campaign trail that his policies would likely bankrupt the coal industry and make energy rates skyrocket. See the sample interviews at http://howobamagotelected.com/.
Why did voters not know this? Because the mainstream press covered Wasilla, Alaska, like a glove, trying to dig up something on Sarah Palin’s overdue library books. Meantime, when it turns out Barack Obama’s Senate seat is for sale for a million bucks in Chicago, the press corps slaps their foreheads and exclaims in amazement: “More corruption in Chicago than there was in Wasilla?! Who would have thought to look there?! By the way, where is Obama from, anyway?”
For more enlightenment, read the entire article.
The interesting part, to me anyway, is the contradiction of “mainstream” GHG opinion related to the effect of more water vapor:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008544401_warm21.html
“Caldeira’s computer results could surprise many scientists because water vapor is a greenhouse gas widely recognized to be more powerful than carbon dioxide. The simulation suggests, however, that water vapor’s cooling effects overwhelm its heat-trapping properties.”
I wonder what the computer simulation folks think about this. Is there a positive feedback from water vapor that increases the warming effect of CO2, or is there a negative feedback that hinders or prevents warming?
It appears that Mr. Ace may have tested his device in Northeastern Indiana on Thursday night. As a wintery mix of snow/sleet began to fall, the temperature rose from around 21 to about 29, whereupon the snow sleet mix turned into a freezing rain/mist. By the time it was over, everything was covered with between a half inch and an inch of ice (on top of the 3″ of snow already on the ground). Before any of it had a chance to melt, the temperature fell back into the low 20’s on Friday. A whole bag of ice-melter had zero effect on my driveway, the surface of which I may not see again until spring. Last night, as the temperature plummeted to zero, the wind picked up to 25-30 mph (-25 wind-chill), and the trees (the ones still standing) began to rain shards of ice.
Well, done, Mr. Ace — I think your device has considerable merit. Perhaps you could hire Algore’s carbon trading investment company to act as a marketing consultant. They seem to have a way of selling the un-sellable. And just remember — there’s a sucker born every minute. (Sarc. off)
IPBiz comments on: Patent efforts of Ron Ace in geo-engineering
on reflection, Ace’s “patent petition” may be a provisional patent that has not yet published.
Micajah
“I wonder what the computer simulation folks think about this. Is there a positive feedback from water vapor that increases the warming effect of CO2, or is there a negative feedback that hinders or prevents warming?”
In the world of Finagle, Bougerre and Diddle programming, the feedback depends upon the desired outcome.
I got that coal mining comment out just before the election. I read it on icecap.us . I drove over to my local Republican headquarters and said, “You have got to listen to this.” Within two hours, it was on Fox News, unfortunately it was the Sunday before the election. If I had known about it earlier, I would have been on it earlier.
I am not a scientist, but I have a mouth and I know how to use it.
“Some effects are not well understood” which, of course, means this is the best plan that we have and it should go forward complete with government funding from all over the world and the backing of the entire AGW movement, Greenpeace and WWF included.
To paraphrase, it seems that some consequences are not well understood.
Well, no s— Sherlock!
Another idea on a par with the idea from the 70’s of spreading soot on the Arctic to prevent a new Ice Age.
jarhead (09:42:56) :
They’re actually quite interesting and accept any form of heat. I don’t think they’re anywhere near as efficient as Freon/carnot based refrigerators, but they’re good if you have a source of waste heat or don’t have electricity. My wife bought a used one for a yurt, but we haven’t hooked it up yet.
I lived in a house in Pittsburgh for a year with a gas refrigerator. Never heard a peep, never figured out how it worked, it was always cold.
It turns out they use a mix of hydrogen, ammonia, and water in a loop at constant pressure but rely on ammonia dissolving in water and being forced back out to make it flow through the system.
See http://www.gasrefrigerators.com/howitworks.htm
I’m sure that he’ll be able to find buckets of venture capital in the current financial climate for his fine idea.
I’ve been wondering since hydrogen-powered cars have been proposed about what ill effects could be generated by massive amounts of water vapor being released into the atmosphere. While I only expressed my concern sarcastically, the issue is a legitimate one.
“Ace proposes to spray gigatons of sea-water into the air”. I’m betting he’s not removing the salt from the water before hand. I’m hopeing salty rain is good for buildings and crops.
Well to be patentable, an invention has to be non obvious to one of oredinary skill in the art; which implies two things; it doesn’t matter if it is not obvious to someone who is not skilled in the art, and it doesn’t matter if it is obvious to some one who is a crackajack practitioner of the art (so why didn’t he patent it)
And in this case it is obvious to anybody, because the entir planet is just a giant swamp cooler so it has been around for billions of years. so it wouldn’t get by me if I was the patent examiner.
Mother nature’s version of this gus “invention” is exactly why we couldn’t change the temperature of this planet either up or down, even if we wanted to.
But as to whether spraying water droplets around is “evaporative” cooling, it most certainly is; because the aim of sprayig the water around in small droplets is to vastly increase the surface area to volume (mass) ratio which enhances evaporation.
By the way; I have one and it works like a champ,,and since my well water is 68 deg F all the time, year inand year out, it cools extremely well when the air temperature is 108 in the California central valley.
So if some genius comes up with a way to change the earth’s temperature; who is going to have control of the temperature knob ?
Just asking.
OT again but more (new) CO2 info.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=27242
I have an even more intelligent idea: if all the AGW desciples would just stop spewing hot air by continuing to voice their discredited theories…
REPLY: All matters of opinion, even if wrong, are protected free speech. Our job is to sort wheat from chaff. – Anthony
Don’t foolishly put your eco-dollars into swamp coolers! My “community based” coal-fired refrigeration units (patent pending) is the only solution which provides true granular regional temperature control.
Why change the climate of the entire planet (very expensive) when you can just cool your local neighborhood? Does it really matter how hot the deserts get when no one lives there? Of course not.
As an added benefit these units can be operated in “heat pump” mode. In the case of a global warming induced “freeze”, there’s no need to bring your potted plants inside!
Christmas in July, sun bathing in December… Uncle Larry makes it all possible.
If you would like to invest in this consensus proven technology, simply leave 10% of your country’s GDP in a brown paper bag on my doorstep. Future generations will thank you!
-Uncle Larry
As a fellow Maryland cleantech scientist / inventor at the University of Maryland I thank Mr. Ace for his work on and dedication to this important problem. Keep up the good work!. I urge all critics to take up the effort and get involved.
John M. Pisciotta