Has Geo-engineering Moved On?

Last year I wrote a series on this blog about the environment entitled ‘Can We Improve the Health of the Planet?’ Read all of the posts and report on the series here through the Bassetti Foundation website. The posts received a lot of comments, and one of the most commented was a post about geo engineering called ‘Engineering a Solution to Global Warming’.

To summarize the argument we are talking about ways of cooling the planet using technological intervention.

One of the modes put forward and that I addressed in the post is to remove carbon from the atmosphere in an attempt to minimize the problem of global warming due to heat retention.

This week in Nature magazine a short article appeared that described an experiment that according to the researchers that conducted it seems to be the first time large amounts of carbon have been removed from the atmosphere and stored.

In the case in question scientists have used iron sulphate and the ocean. The iron is dropped into the water which causes a chain if events that pulls the carbon from the atmosphere, hopefully for good.

Ocean Fertilization Technique

The iron in powder form stimulates the growth of algae that lives for about 3 to 4 weeks. Their growth relies on carbon from the air, drawn through photosynthesis. When the algae dies or is eaten and excreted it sinks to the bottom taking all of the carbon with it.

One of the scientists involved in the experiments states that a single atom of iron draws 13000 atoms of carbon from the air, a large proportion of which finds its way to the ocean floor.

Many scientists are skeptical however. The amount of carbon removed is quite literally a drop in the ocean compared to that produced, and critics argue that this insignificant result could open the gates for other geo-engineering experiments, some of which (as my previous post outlined) seem rather unwise.

The world’s most powerful radio telescope is now functioning!

One of the best places to put a telescope is in the Atacama Desert, which is on the boarder of Chile and Peru – currently there are around 20 telescopes (both radio and optical) functioning in the area.

The Alma telescope

In the last few days, the world’s largest radio telescope, the Alma telescope, has began to function. Currently the telescope is made up of around 20 massive antenna dishes, which work in harmony to produce amazingly detailed pictures of outer space.

The project has input from all around the world, with Europe, North America, East Asia and the Republic of Chile forming a partnership, all doing their bit to add more antenna dishes and improve the telescope.

The ALMA Telescope

The antenna dishes that currently make up the telescope ALMA Telescope

When the project is completed, (hopefully within the next 20 years if all goes to plan) the telescope will have a whopping 66 dishes at its disposal, all of which it can use to gaze at the stars in fantastic detail!

Why the Atacama Desert?

You are probably wondering why the Atacama Desert is such a hotspot for telescope activity. Well there are a number of reasons, but the main ones are that it has clear skies almost all the time, in addition to very dry air – meaning that its hard for humans to breath there due to low oxygen levels, but for the telescopes, that means very little interference from anything in the space above.

Furthermore, the desert has many high flat areas, meaning that telescopes can be closer to the atmosphere, meaning even less interference. In addition to this, because the Atacama is a desert, it has virtually no light pollution. Basically it is an astronomer’s dream location!

Is it working?

The project has only been live for less than a week now, but already some stunning high detailed pictures of space area already beginning to emerge. Below is one of these great pictures:

ALMA Telescope deep space picture

A picture of deep space made possible by the ALMA Telescope

Because the light we can see here on earth is often millions, if not billions of years old, we are able to see into the past when looking up at the sky, using super powerful telescopes like the Alma one.

Scientists believe that we will be able to see events that happened just 400 million years after the big bang, due to the light delay, hence enabling us to understand better than ever before the formation of the early universe.

The Alma telescope is just one small cog in our planets fascinating scientific road of discovery, however one thing’s for sure: this ‘small cog’ should be able to help us understand a lot more about the universe than ever before!

The importance of comments

For 99% of blogs, comments are vital. They are the power behind blogging. People voicing their opinions on things that matter to them.

Not getting me? The comments are the fire of blogging, leading me perfectly onto my analogy of what comments are.

The analogy!

When creating fire you need three things:

  1. The right atmosphere (oxygen rich)
  2. Fuel
  3. Heat

These create fire.

Comments works in a very similar way. Comments also need three things:

  1. The blogosphere – when and where everyone meets and interacts (like the atmosphere)
  2. Articles – the substance to debate argue and discuss (like the fuel of the blogosphere, what it runs off)
  3. Opinions – these are people’s views on things which then cause them to write (like heat)

These three powerful elements create comments. The environment is set, the content is there, people’s opinions are brimming, bring on the comments!

Without comments I doubt that blogging would still be going now. Yes blogging is said to have died multiple times in the last decade, but it still lives on strong, and people like us are leading the community, pushing the boundaries to find new frontiers!

Thank you

As comments are so valuable, I though it would be a great idea to thank the commenters of this blog, as a way of saying ‘welcome to the community’!

Thank YouBelow is a list of the names of all the authors and commenters that have helped Technology Bloggers through the first 18 days of it’s life.

Over 100 comments from 26 authors (including me) – Wow! Well done everyone 😀

Authors

Commenters

  1. Wayne John from Southern California Web Development (8)
  2. Maria Pavel (5)
  3. SEO Gurgaon (4)
  4. Anna (3)
  5. Jakk from Technology News (3)
  6. Lillie Ammann (3)
  7. Marc (3)
  8. Nasif (3)
  9. Samantha Dermot (3)
  10. DiNaRa (2)
  11. jason from car Insurance Tips (2)
  12. Jimmy from wordpress themes (2)
  13. Jordan (BHATTMAN) (2)
  14. Chadrack from Making Money Blogging (1)
  15. Dana (1)
  16. Enfotainer (1)
  17. James (1)
  18. Justin Germino (1)
  19. Matt (1)
  20. online jewelry (1)
  21. Radithya from cirrusdance (1)
  22. Rojish (1)
  23. Tammi Kibler (1)
  24. Tony from Technology News (1)
  25. Travis from TradeTechSports (1)

Thank you all 🙂

Good bye April 2011, hello Technology Bloggers future!