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THE balloon will not go up. A controversial geoengineering field test has been cancelled after the lead scientist learned of a patent on the technology held by several of his collaborators.
The Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project, run by researchers at three UK universities, is investigating cooling the planet by releasing aerosol particles into the stratosphere. The field test would have tested the feasibility of the delivery system – a hose lofted by a balloon – by pumping out water spray at an altitude of 1 kilometre.
At issue was a patent on the technology, filed in 2009 by independent consultant engineer Peter Davidson. Watson only learned of the patent late last year.
Hugh Hunt at the University of Cambridge, who is also named on the patent, says it was not filed to make a profit motive, but to enable the engineers to retain control of their ideas. "We wouldn't want ExxonMobil or Shell to have control," he says.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, which is funding the project, told New Scientist that no result from the SPICE project will be patented: "The SPICE team is committed to putting all the results arising from the SPICE project into the public domain, without delay and according to normal academic practice."
So... profit from climate change isn't their objective... as far as they know... right? Right.
Originally posted by LightSpeedDriver
reply to post by Maxmars
I can't find any details much but one problem (unrelated to patents) I can foresee is water. If they can use seawater then it won't be a problem but if they need large amounts of H2O then it will be a major hurdle. The UK suffers with a drought yearly and hose-pipe bans seem to be the norm. The water network in the UK appears to be unmaintained and leaky.
I think spraying large amounts of seawater vapour into the atmosphere may cause more problems (plant life) than it may address but I am far from being a biologist or geographically educated person.
They won't be able to justify wasting large amounts of drinking water on this when the public is being told to conserve water every year.
The powerful eruption of such an enormous volume of lava and ash injected significant quantities of aerosols and dust into the stratosphere. Sulfur dioxide oxidized in the atmosphere to produce a haze of sulfuric acid droplets, which gradually spread throughout the stratosphere over the year following the eruption. The injection of aerosols into the stratosphere is thought to have been the largest since the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883, with a total mass of SO2 of about 17,000,000 t (19,000,000 short tons) being injected—the largest volume ever recorded by modern instruments (see chart and figure).
This very large stratospheric injection resulted in a reduction in the normal amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface by roughly 10% (see figure). This led to a decrease in northern hemisphere average temperatures of 0.5–0.6 °C (0.9–1.1 °F) and a global fall of about 0.4 °C (0.7 °F).[7][24] At the same time, the temperature in the stratosphere rose to several degrees higher than normal, due to absorption of radiation by the aerosol. The stratospheric cloud from the eruption persisted in the atmosphere for three years after the eruption.
Originally posted by Aloysius the Gaul
Would this be the same canceled test mentioned here??
Perhaps it is different/worthy of attention because it isn't me starting the thread??