NASA Meeting Document
Alvia Gaskill
option, since Tom Wigley was having trouble with both message
attachments and file uploading. It appears his browser, Mozilla does
not show the upload button and he said he would consult with the NCAR
oracle of IT to resolve this crisis.
In the mean time, you are welcome to read this document. Some of the
information is dated and you can see me struggling with how to get the
planes high enough, not fully comprehending at the time the concept of
the Overworld stratosphere or the Brewer Dobson circulation, but it
does address pretty well the issue of increasing the sulfur content of
jet fuel.
My fascination with the KC-135R Stratotanker led me to buy a model of
one and when the BBC was planning on interviewing me for the Four or
was it Five Ways to Save the World program last year about this time,
a visit to Seymour Johnson AFB in Goldsboro, NC was scheduled to have
me crawl around inside a KC-135R. The BBC canceled their trip and
president Bush took the KC-135R with him to Hawaii, so all I have to
show for my trouble is a model of the plane.
I eventually returned to the fighter jets, so just because something
doesn't seem to work the first time around, doesn't mean it won't
eventually work (in theory). A friend in the Navy Reserves pointed me
back to the fighters, although the ones he recommended turned out to
no longer be in service. That led me to the F15s, 16s and the MIGs.
Since then, I learned that the Kuwaitis have been selling the USAF in
Iraq jet fuel with upwards of 1500ppm sulfur. The typical levels
found globally are around 300-400ppm, so this stuff is really crap by
comparison and I would be somewhat concerned about the effect it is
having on our equipment.
For those who don't understand how these levels get so high, when
distillate fuels are made at a refinery, due to environmental
regulations a low sulfur stream is produced for gasoline and diesel
with levels well below 50ppm. The remaining material is usually
refined into jet fuel, since there are no environmental limits for
sulfur in it, only the 3000ppm performance specification. I have no
idea what the environmental limits are in Kuwait and in a war zone,
you generally have to use what is available.
Roy Ward, who is referenced in the document, reappeared a few days
ago, posting on Andrew Revkin's blog, still talking about building a
fleet of Concordes to burn sulfur at 66,000 ft. I think Boeing and
AirBus are a little busy right now.
Oliver Wingenter
I was wondering how much fuel all those planes would burn? What would
that be in equivalent number of U.S. cars running say 15,000 miles/
year?
Oliver
Alvia Gaskill
preparation since that has now replaced the estimates made in the
report I submitted to the NASA workshop.
Assume that the goal is 6MT of H2S per year, a level that might not
have to be reached until 2050 or later. That's 16,500 tons/day. Each
plane carries 6 tons per flight and makes 5 flights per day for a
total of 30 tons per plane per day, requiring 550 planes.
550 planes x 5 flights/day x 365 days = 1 million plane loads of fuel
per year
The assumption is that the fuel in the internal fuel tank, 2000 gals
is consumed on each flight.
1 million loads of fuel x 2000 gals = 2 billion gallons of jet fuel
per year,
Compare this with around 150 billion gallons of gasoline in passenger
vehicles used in the U.S. alone in 2007. 2/150 = around 1%. There
are around 200 million passenger vehicles in the U.S. at present,
thus, the planes would produce the equivalent emissions of around 2.5
million cars.
So the amount of additional carbon dioxide released from the flights
would be relatively small. The International Aerosol Air Force as I
am now calling it, would not add greatly to global CO2 emissions,
probably no more than 0.5% of today's emissions and much less in the
coming decades under BAU.
On Nov 13, 12:46 am, Oliver Wingenter <oliver.wingen...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> > AirBus are a little busy right now.- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Bruce Stram
non-systematic environmental controls. If the sulfur is not recovered
from oil and sequestered somehow, but rather finds its way into another
element of the fuel supply stream, then it is simply emitted elsewhere.
So then the question becomes whether ground level particulates or jet
emitted particulates cause more harm and have we really done any good.
Of course a disproportionate share of the sulfur should become
"sequestered" in asphalt, so that's a clear gain.
Alvia Gaskill
gasoline and diesel was some kind of shell game where the sulfur still
winds up in jet fuel. A considerable fraction of the sulfur is
removed from these fuel streams in the form of H2S. In fact, that is
where I propose obtaining the H2S, from petroleum refineries.
Alvia Gaskill
I note this article about one of the IPCC members, who defends their
overly cautious forecasts and offers new conclusions about the effect
of jet contrails on warming, an issue relevant to any program that
would increase aircraft emissions like that of the IAAF. He says that
the contrails only warm the atmosphere during nights and actually
result in a net reduction in forcing in the daytime due to reflection
or scattering off the cloud tops.
If true, then the IAAF planes, which would only fly in the daytime
would not result in additional warming, assuming the contrails
dissipate before dark. Also, at the high altitudes that the planes
would spend most of their time, there is little water vapor and thus,
fewer contrails should be generated vs. flights at 30,000-40,000 ft
where most commercial traffic flies. Since the fighters can get to
50,000 ft in a couple of minutes, they would not spend much time in
the upper troposphere anyway.
He also seems unhappy that Al Gore received the Nobel Prize along with
the IPCC. It should be noted that the IPCC members did not receive
the Nobel Prize, the organization did. I don't want to get into
another dispute about who or who is not a Nobel Laureate, but that's
the way I read the award. So Dr. Forster is at best the winner of
0.025% of a Nobel (based on 2000 members and Gore gets half). Better
than nothing, but it's still a pretty exclusive club for individuals
and the award was for Peace, not Physics or Chemistry.
Tom Wigley
Thanks for alerting us to this piece.
Re Al Gore etc. I think the actual award puts IPCC first.
Nevertheless, it is goreling that a single person should
get equal credit with IPCC.
You are right that it is the institution that won the prize,
not the contributors to the various IPCC reports. Still,
I think the contibutors can rightly take some credit. The
number, however, is much larger than 2000. One would
have to add up all contributors to all IPCC publications,
not just AR4. For assigning individual credit (fractions of
a half-Nobel), one would have to weight according to the
level of contribution and the number of times each person
has contributed -- a daunting (and worthless) task.
Finally, Piers says that Gore said Greenland would melt
by 2030. I think this is wrong. True, Gore overstated
the case -- but he did use a lot of 'if's.
Tom.
++++++++++++++++++++++++=====
Mike MacCracken
went to the Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder and, after the briefing he
received, the comment about 2030 applied to when summer sea ice was likely
to completely disappear--not when Greenland would disappear (of course, with
Arctic summer sea ice gone--so polar warmth lasting well into the fall, the
future path for Greenland will surely be affected).
On the Nobel Peace Prize, I would just comment that the IPCC, with many of
us contributing, had done 3 impressive assessments since 1990 plus a lot of
other reports, and that, while we were getting some limited attention and
action (including even an international Protocol--though without the US and
Australia, etc.), it was pretty clear we were having a hard time really
capturing public interest (and the dullness of the new IPCC Synthesis report
will surely not get the climate change message across--there needs to be
someone making the case at the cutting edge of what science is finding and
not be as far behind as IPCC because of its consensus process). The
increasingly dramatic changes in climate, additional assessments like the
Arctic assessment, and surely Gore's prominent pushing on the issue (which
dates back to the 1970s--recall his first book and all the science outreach
he did for that) have now put the issue front and center around the world
(you do realize he is visiting a lot of countries and generating a lot of
interest, and actions, on the issue). He is also training a lot of speakers
to further spread the word to groups large and small across the country,
etc.
And, of course, this is the Peace Prize, not the Physics Prize, so I think,
for what my views are worth, the dual choice was just right.
Best, Mike MacCracken