I have to agree with you here. Decomposing organics in a landfill produces methane which is worse than CO2 for trapping heat in the atmosphere. Lots of places in Europe use incineration as a method of garbage disposal and pipe the waste heat, left over from making electricity, to neighboring buildings for home heating.

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The nice thing about Buck Rogers is that he never seemed to have to worry about niggling little details...like, "physics". You can't just have a massive structure in space that isn't tied to something...and, physics would be one of the better things to tie it to.

I think a better, and more practical system, would put large solar reflectors into orbit. Being more massive and stiffer structures, there is a way to actually utilize the solar wind. Each reflector would "tumble" such that it would present it's broadside to the sun on orbital ascention and then sweep a swath of concentrated light to the surface as it both orbits and rotates. On the "dark side" of the orbit, the edge-on profile would tend to face the sun.

By this system, no boost engines would be required. The boost would come from the solar wind on each revolution. In fact, no power at all would need to be added. It's power source for all functions (orbital position, tumble rate, focal point shaping, up/down link telemetry, etc. would all be solar powered. In further fact, with the exception of periodic manned maintenance missions, and ground monitoring, no human interface for the space segment would be needed at all.

Unlike the ISS, it would be a very safe structure to work on as there would be no massive gimbals sluing solar panels around. The entire reflector "slues" with each orbit and the only movements within the reflector would be from 10's of thousands of tiny (very simple) motors doing the focus shaping and orbital fine tuning.

It has to be noted that this system doesn't actually add or subtract energy from the earth. It merely concentrates it so the energy can be controlled. Sort of like wind turbines. The wind blows. The question of whether we take advantage of the wind blowing is up to us. Same with waves and tides and geothermal and cows farting, etc., etc.

Of course, that's a fairly embryonic description of the reflector but, you get the idea.

 

Perhaps some of you are familiar with the Shoreline Amphitheater, which was built on landfill. When it was first built, one could ignite the methane gas leaking through the lawn, which was a popular place from which to watch concerts.

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Yep, I used to live in Mountain View. Shorline Park was not an isolated example. Every time the dump was bulldozed under and moved further out, a new industuril park would appear atop the freshly covered dump site. It's probably still happening.

But, aren't thos just some of the greenest lawns and other landscaping features in those parks?

 

@crashsite
A reflector that directs light away from an object shades that object.

If you aim the reflector to reflected light away from earth, it shades the earth.

We are both taking the about the same thing.

And as I said in my original post about this.
That was an up front "get out of jail free card".
I had and have no intention on telling anyone how to make this work.

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Actually, no we're not. you were talking about a way to shade the earth by an umbrella effect. I was talking about reflecting a concentrated beam of light to the earth's surface.

What I can't explain is why the "HTML color tag" isn't working right.....the first right-end bracket doesn't seem to be getting recognized....Ah, the mysteries of the universe.

 

Umbrella effect is your term. It was three lines off the cuff. I was talking about a system of objects in space to modify the weather. I said shade when reflector would have been a better choice. End Of Discussion.

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A reflector in space would only sheild a small part of the earth for a short amount of time per day.

Another option would be to deliberately release reflective dust into the amtmosphere.

The idea of cooling the climate is a silly idea anyway. I don't see how a global increase in temperature would be a total disaster. Granted, there will be areas that are currently productive that will become to dry but there will be winners as well, large areas of the earth where it's too cold to grow things will become productive.

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Mikebits - have a look at the links below. No matter how you want to react to the content, there is a stong argument against the published norm.

And it's definitly not sound

However I would like to stress again.... Scientific evidence is not as simple as one (or more) Scientist(s) saying so. It always boils down to interpretation, and more especially how individuals would want it interpreted. Some have very specific blocks that will automatically discount evidence from certain sources. (As we will no doubt see)

Al Gore’s inconvenient errors

The ‘Great Global Warming Swindle’ debate

Any carefull Google search will be able to bring up an abundance of information on other sites that will allow you to make up your own mind.

regards

Aloefundi

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The notion of putting "stuff" into the atmosphere is not new or novel. Whatever happened to the "cloud seeding" thing to promote rain? Didn't the US Air Force shoot up a rocket that dispersed iodine or some such into the upper atmosphere a couple of years ago as some sort of experiment?

It seems like the geniuses at MIT could come up with some sort of way to bind some sort of element or molecule to fossil fuels such that the CO2 emmissions would be more photo-reflective. Yeah, I know that all that, "sorta" talk reeks of hilly billy ignernce but, dang-it...I is ignernt of such stuff but, caint a boy sit out behind the barn and dream?

 

You mean like scorching the sky like in the Matrix? Or a "mild nuclear winter?"

 

It is more then an experiment.

Cloud seeding on a commercial scale has been used successfully to neutralize crop destroying hail storms. It is a wild ride for the pilots who fly through the storm system to seed the clouds.

I do not know of any commercial use of it to make rain.

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Uhmmmmmm...probably not. Although, if one were to have a "nuclear winter", we'd all likely be better off with a mild one (for lots of reasons besides NOT getting our sunburns from the sun)!

 

Thanks for the info. To be honest, I haven't really been keeping up on this since there was a big flurry about, cloud seeding and, at that time it was a new idea.

 

Since when did we start allowing lawyers to determine the validity of scientific claims? Perhaps we should allow litigators to also settle the dispute over evolution as well, since that subject has been beaten into extinction.

Many of the stated errors were trivial at best and do not detract from the overall big picture. Other claimed errors could be argued as in:

I will have to give my geology professor a call, as he discussed this very issue and felt it was possible.

BBC - Science & Nature - Horizon - Big Chill

What was my Zoology teacher thinking when she told us this was true.
The Effects of Global Warming on the Great Barrier Reef

I am sure for every argument against, an argument for the other side could be produced and since I have other things I would rather do than research a rebuttal for every argument. I think I will now choose to sustain and let this poor horse lay.