Sea-going hardware for the cloud albedo method of reversing global warming

Following the review by Latham et al . (Latham et al . 2008 Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A 366 ) of a strategy to reduce insolation by exploiting the Twomey effect, the present paper describes in outline the rationale and underlying engineering hardware that may bring the strategy from concept to operation. Wind-driven spray vessels will sail back and forth perpendicular to the local prevailing wind and release micron-sized drops of seawater into the turbulent boundary layer beneath marine stratocumulus clouds. The combination of wind and vessel movements will treat a large area of sky. When residues left after drop evaporation reach cloud level they will provide many new cloud condensation nuclei giving more but smaller drops and so will increase the cloud albedo to reflect solar energy back out to space. If the possible power increase of 3.7 W m −2 from double pre-industrial CO 2 is divided by the 24-hour solar input of 340 W m −2 , a global albedo increase of only 1.1 per cent will produce a sufficient offset. The method is not intended to make new clouds. It will just make existing clouds whiter. This paper describes the design of 300 tonne ships powered by Flettner rotors rather than conventional sails. The vessels will drag turbines resembling oversized propellers through the water to provide the means for generating electrical energy. Some will be used for rotor spin, but most will be used to create spray by pumping 30 kg s −1 of carefully filtered water through banks of filters and then to micro-nozzles with piezoelectric excitation to vary drop diameter. The rotors offer a convenient housing for spray nozzles with fan assistance to help initial dispersion. The ratio of solar energy reflected by a drop at the top of a cloud to the energy needed to make the surface area of the nucleus on which it has grown is many orders of magnitude and so the spray quantities needed to achieve sufficient global cooling are technically feasible.

Three-Group Albedo Method Applied to the Diffusion Phenomenon with Up-Scattering of Neutrons

The main objective of this research is to develop a three-group neutron Albedo algorithm considering the up-scattering of neutrons in order to analyze the diffusion phenomenon in nonmultiplying media. The neutron Albedo method is an analytical method that does not try to solve explicit describing equations for the neutron fluxes [1,2]. Thus the neutron Albedo methodology is very different from the conventional methodology, as the neutron diffusion theory model. Graphite is analyzed as a model case. One major application is in the determination of the nonleakage probabilities with more understandable results in physical terms than conventional radiation transport method calculations.