Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion [USD]
World GDP: $105.4 trillion USD
![Scientists say sprinkling diamond dust into the sky could offset almost all of climate change so far — but it'll cost $175 trillion [USD]](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/9506dcbc-f730-4800-b8b3-1e71b59fe5c9.jpeg)
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/scientists-say-sprinkling-diamond-dust-into-the-sky-could-offset-almost-all-of-climate-change-so-far-but-itll-cost-usd175-trillionOpen linkView original on lemmy.world108
Comments69
Does it have to be diamonds? Could we maybe use the ashes of billionaires instead?
Human ashes are mostly carbon, so yes, of course. We'll run out of billionaires pretty quickly, though.
Sounds like a win-win tbh
Let's give it a trial run with a few thousand then we can measure the impact and reevaluate.
That’s a problem that solves it self
We’ll just have to try and find out.
Isn't diamond manufactured in labs in 15 minutes now? I think the price is assuming natural diamonds value
Of all the aerosols they could think about!
No chance at all of a basically indestructible material not being destructed if absorbed by lungs (or gills) and leading to some disease. You don't need to check. There's no way this could go wrong.
Or, rather... I believe lead is cheaper... Given how much people like to use it, maybe it's a better option.
I was thinking asbestos...
Whatever you do, don’t look up silicosis. Not a problem at all. Not relevant.
Yeah, like asbestos... if asbestos bio-accumulated forever.
Instead, the world has a few mechanisms that will make asbestos harmless after a few generations. Not so much for diamonds.
We're carbon based lifeforms and diamonds, yep, made of carbon. What could possibly go wrong!? /s
Diamond Lung.
Sounds posh.
They got a headline. Mission achieved.
Yes, let's just have everyone on Earth breathe in diamond dust all day every day. There's no way that could be bad for our health.
There's never been a case of something having different behavior or health effects just because of a tiny chemical difference (trans fat) or size difference (micro plastics), what's the worst that could happen?
There have never been lung issues caused by inhaling very small dust particles, right?
just wear masks for a few decades, potentially respirators, and probably add whole house air filtration if you want to take it off at night.
Amazing. Instead of just.. fighting climate change by not polluting the planet let's just fill our entire atmosphere with diamond dust, because that's the logical decision of course.
It's not really any different than usual dust, other than it is even more likely to scratch your phone (oh no!). The surprising thing is the bullshit price number, I'm sure it's some brain-dead economist looking at the point-price for diamond and with great effort making a single multiplication.
Edit: The study does note industrial diamond manufacturing, but doesn't go into detail on why it's so expensive for diamond powder, other than saying "it would require much more industrial diamond than is currently produced".... Which is just.... Empty? Considering industry would change to account for such a drastic rise in demand.
Am I the only one worried about it scratching my eyes???
That amount sounds like total bullshit. Diamonds can be manufactured and once that is done at scale, it won't be all that expensive. Even at $10000 a ton, five million tonnes would cost just 50 billion.
These are not good ideas. Remember that global warming is just an overarching effect of pollution which we will still have. What diamond dust pollution effects will be, no one knows, but I doubt we want to find out.
The fossil fuel oligarchy would prefer to give all mammals on Earth emphysema than stop burning fossils, and do it for 10x the price.
That number is for doing it anually for 65 years. It lists roughly 18 billion per year for the cost.
But besides that, I think you are greatly underestimating the cost of the diamonds. Synthetic ones are way cheaper than natural ones, yes, but there's a lot of room between "natural diamond expensive" and "actually cheap". Going by these prices https://www.diamondtech.com/products/categories/diamond_powder_price_list.html
It's $2.5 million per tonne. I assume you could get a cheaper price per weight if you're buying five million tonnes of anything, but it's still two orders of magnitude more expensive than you are guessing
Firstly, it’s 5 million tonnes per year. For 65 years. Secondly, the cost is for a 65 year SAI program, including developing the tech and running the missions. Thirdly, this is all explained in TFA or the links therein.
$10000/ton is $5/lb from a quick google search they are about $250/lb for industrial diamonds. So 50* 50 or 2500 billion or 2.5 trillion with no idea if they can use run of the mill industrial diamonds or if there will be additional processing to get them into the aerosolized form also how are you going to launch them, and for how many years would we need to do it
The artificially-inflated price of the diamonds should be irrelevant in this calculation.
So what would it cost to replace all fossil fuel energy with renewable?
You are missing the point, because we need to do that anyway.
The idea is to prevent things from getting worse in the meantime.
Replacing fossil fuels take time no matter how much we invest.
ok but you just know corporations are going to use this as an excuse to keep using fossil fuels. like to them this is basically carte blanche to keep the status quo and block green energy from happening even harder. "oh hurdur har har we found a solution to climate change and it's dumping diamonds in the atmosphere, no need to pay for green energy anymore haha" type shit
Corporations follow the law, the only way to solove this is to have the laws required.
Good one
Oh please, of course they don't always, but the ones that don't are generally forced to by oversight.
Yes I kn ow they generally get off easy, but then oversight is increased and if it continues, the penalties increase, until ultimately it will be forced to shut down if illegal activities continue.
So yes generally cooperations do follow the law.
You might find this 10-month-old Vlogbrothers video interesting.
Thanks, hadn't seen that before. I wonder how things like "eat less beef" fit into that chart, or of that's part of the $0 premium.
How effective would it be to sprinkle CEO dust into the sky?
I'm not saying we should try it and find out, but I've heard worse ideas.
Not at all. Much cheaper to sprinkle them in the hog trough
Sweet! Four more years of Trump presidency, and Elon Musk can just pay for it out of pocket.
Elon musk's kids should be made an example of when reclamation comes around.
They're being brought up thinking they can live like gods. How unfortunate would it be if they actually had to live like the rest of us...
Nice try, DeBeers.
Isn't this kind of thing the premise for all those "snowball Earth" sci Fi stories where global cooling went too far
No don't worry about that!
It's not cost effective to save humanity. Stock prices would crash.
Break into the diamond company vaults and just take it. Bam, free diamonds.
The silicosis will run rampant
Just force debeers to open their vault. The cost would drop.
Let's throw more carbon to the air, what could go wrong. Is not like it will get to our lungs and destroy everything from the inside.
Does this feel like swallowing a spider to catch a fly to anyone else?
Perhaps we'll die.
This is garbage.
Can we use zirconium for $1 trillion?
How much if we use rhinestones?
I'm still set on "we're fucked" until I see some more hopeful news.
When we are fucked and who is first fucked, and making sure I'm not that guy is what I'm trying to determine.
@FlyingSquid
"Scientists say..."
All of them, are you sure?
Geoengineering schemes are not agreed upon by many scientists. There are several types of geoengineering "solutions" and no agreement on any, just suggestions.
I can't help what the article is titled. 🤷♂️
What the diamond version of silicosis?
I don't know, but I hear De Beers is already planning to corner the lung transplant market.
I don't get it, why wouldn't sapphire dust work? Isn't that dirt cheap to make? And it's carbon free!
Seems illogical to add carbon in the form of diamond, to a problem that is mostly caused by carbon?
The carbon isn't the problem, it's the CO2 molecule. I would be really curious if solid carbon in diamond form is able to react with ozone in the atmosphere to make CO2, or if it would be inert, or if it would do something else.
No reactions, just reflections. The premise is "bounce the heat before it can be trapped."
The main reason they looked at diamond this time is because it's very clump resistant, which is a positive for heat deflection.
It's also Methane and CO, gasses that also contain carbon. I know diamond is pretty stable, but it does burn, and then it creates the gasses we try to avoid.
CO is not a significant greenhouse gas. (And N20 is..)
Are diamond particulates likely to burn if they're dispersed in the atmosphere?
Actually yes, if they enter the engine of a plane they will burn.
True. That would be a minescule fraction of what's there though..
Not quite minuscule, for every ton of jet fuel burned, 2 tons of oxygen is needed, to take that in, about 3-4 ton of atmospheric air goes through the combustion, the volume of that air is quite a lot, and is only sustained because oxygen is constantly renewed. The diamonds will not have self sustained renewal and will be burned up pretty quickly.
Also being an aerosol increases surface and potential chemical reactions by a magnitude of maybe a billion per unit, so although we consider diamonds to be very stable in their normal form, a diamond aerosol is obviously much less so, and UV light refracted could accelerate break down of the diamond aerosol, into free carbon, which will create carbon gasses. I bet researchers have considered this, but I see no numbers for it?
I just wonder why not use sapphire dust instead. Doesn't it reflect sunlight almost identically?
Isn't this very similar to the annuki and the Sumerian history. Where these aliens came to earth to mine gold to take it back to their planet and use it to save their atmosphere.