Experts call for global moratorium on efforts to geoengineer climate
Experts call for global moratorium on efforts to geoengineer climate
www.theguardian.com
Experts call for global moratorium on efforts to geoengineer climate
53 comments
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Look! My solar panels are 23% efficient! š
And what happens to the other 77%? It turns into heat! š„µ
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If your panel was not there, what % would turn into heat?
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Depends: Did you whitewash your roof?
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Don't forget that solar panels also displace other energy sources, such as burning coal.
How much heat does that produce? And then there's co2..
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For the right price, I'd buy them. But they're not the World's panacea - just a medium term fix, not to be over used.
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I donāt have stats on hand but its much less than 77% of photons āturning into heatā.
Those photons do lose some energy which is kinetic and becomes heat but itās not 100% either, as those photons mostly just bounce off after losing a little energy.
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Solar panels appear dark - more so than a 23% reduction can account for. The whole of the other 77% will not immediately turn into heat, but the bulk of it will. Some photons bounce, with a dependence on colour - but what happens to them then? A tiny amount will escape the Earth, with the rest absorbed by objects, atmosphere and eyes - mostly becoming heat. And what happens to visible light when it loses "a little energy"? It becomes infrared - y'know: heat.
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Look I donāt agree with your comment being downvoted but my statement is broadly correct though I donāt have the numbers to back it up.
Youāre also correct that the photons are likely to bounce around and impart more of their remaining energy within our world/atmosphere.
That would happen with most objects (barring perfectly reflective surfaces and even then) such as a roof thoughā¦. So itās not like your solar panel is increasing the total energy imparted to the āsystemā.
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Indeed it doesn't increase the total energy. It converts much of it into energy that our excess CO2 traps - IR. So we must either leave it as visible light, or push technology to convert it into microwave, both of which can escape.
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And use what exactly for energy generation? Covering even 5% of the planet in solar panels would be less disastrous than continuing with fossil fuels.
Your proposal also isnāt mutually exclusive with solar power. You can do bothā¦ absorb light for electricity generation and efficiently reflect light to reduce total absorption.
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Both would kill us, so it doesn't matter which passes the finish line first. This is what the article warns about - massive engineering projects that affect the climate, whether for the purpose of geo-engineering or not.
Nothing wrong with solar IF we can pump the heat out of the atmosphere, or dodge it in some other way. Which we can't, yet, and a solution to this is not waiting around the corner.
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53 comments