Why we will be refining lots of crude oil for a very long time

https://www.routledge.com/Geotherapy-Innovative-Methods-of-Soil-Fertility-Restoration-Carbon-Sequestration-and-Reversing-CO2-Increase/Goreau-Larson-Campe/p/book/9781466595392

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/003d01dc30e7%24abb53370%24031f9a50%24%40chesdata.com.

rob...@rtulip.net

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:12:48 AM (13 days ago) Sep 29

to Robert Chris, Douglas Grandt, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Robert,

I am surprised that a security framing of climate risk is new to you. For me, any systemic threat to safety and stability counts as a security issue. Climate collapse is the largest conceivable safety threat for humanity, so it is entirely reasonable to discuss heating in the same strategic lens that governments already use for food security, energy security, military security, and national security. What is striking is that while the word “security” is used across all these domains, we have not adequately explored whether it carries the same meaning in each.

On that basis, I don’t think climate change is sui generis. It may be unprecedented in scale and complexity, but the conceptual lens of security is available to us. Governments exist in no small part to secure their nations, not only against intentional enemies but also against remorseless natural processes. The security sector has long understood that floods, famines, and plagues destabilise states as much as armies do. Climate collapse is the mother of all destabilisers.

This raises the practical question: what is climate security? I would argue it is not achievable through emission reduction alone. The economics of abandoning hydrocarbons won’t allow it, if only because the same hydrocarbons are essential for non-combustible uses — plastics, chemicals, fertilisers, building materials. Cutting fuels without creating substitutes will strand assets and trigger insecurity in other systems. The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group have made a start by putting climate into the security discourse, but they exclude any consideration of sunlight reflection or other planetary cooling measures, which means they aren’t yet offering viable transition strategies.

As for Parfit’s non-identity puzzle, I regard that line as both idiotic and immoral against the context of the sixth extinction. When the survival of ecosystems and of civilisation itself is at stake, to suggest we have no obligations to those not yet in utero is a kind of moral evasion. Extinction wipes out the possibility of flourishing altogether. Our obligations are not to particular unborn individuals but to the continuity of life and culture.

So yes, we need new tools — but the security framework is not alien. It gives us a language already embedded in statecraft for grappling with systemic threats. The missing step is to broaden security beyond military and resource competition to include the atmospheric and ecological stability without which all other forms of security are meaningless.

Regards

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/VI1P194MB03988CA6D9E24AC73EA6F11FFC18A%40VI1P194MB0398.EURP194.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

Tom Goreau

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Sep 29, 2025, 5:53:19 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to rob...@rtulip.net, Robert Chris, Douglas Grandt, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

It’s been tried before, providing lessons.

Framing global climate change as a “security crisis” was pioneered decades ago by my late colleague Norman Myers, who as the world’s top expert on deforestation and land degradation got to be invited to talk to government leaders at their conclaves about how they were flooding their own naval bases, airports, and military installations because they cut trees down and turned them into CO2.

He did get them to pay lip service to the idea that there was an environment out there to be “controlled”, but it’s not clear that anything more than purely symbolic actions resulted.

Can we expect different results appealing to the pocket books of people destroying the planet who are now even more firmly in control?

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/01f501dc3110%247032fde0%245098f9a0%24%40rtulip.net.

Veli Albert Kallio

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Sep 29, 2025, 6:02:14 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to 'Michael MacCracken' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC), br...@chesdata.com

The solution for Bruce's problem of using the plastic-chemical element from crude oil is better recycling, perhaps a return to glass bottles and aluminium cans, as well as steel cans for tinned food products. Indeed, this reverse transition shouldn't be too problematic. When we talk about the tinned food, tin was abandoned for other metallic allows and joining techniques a long ago with tinned food now all but a name.

An essential element is then reuse and recycling increase, this would be easily implementable by token charge refundable at the shops and where used containers would be collected back for re-use. We have had this system in Finland and Scandinavia in operation for decades for drink bottles. But to progress further, it would require a standardisation of the jam and pickled food glass jars to a few standard sizes.

Undoubtedly, as the oil demand presumably reduces, the residue would be sent for developing countries initially with European, Canadian, Japanese emissions phased out from heating and transport sectors. Gradually, the transfer of renewable and nuclear technologies in the developing economies would follow the pattern reducing fossil fuel use there too. Eventually it will follow the trajectory of CFCs to nil.

In the mean time, the will of the Mother Nature with its own inflexible time table may not be as favourable as the businesses, economists, and politicians would like it to be with a real possibility that all these mitigatory processes are rendered useless if the landing curve is made too shalllow with the tight natural, positive feedback loops (forest fires, seabed methane eruptions) replacing the reduction in human emissions.

Curiously so, my research grant to carry out research on ethnoclimatological records is made dependent on the Iraqi oil export grants. The Iraqi oil ministry today reporting the monthly sales raising to US$ 7 billion per month (at presumably rising rate from the annualised output US$ 86 billion dollars. As the main group are greedy oil investors salivating on the new oil monies, the overall picture remains bleak for two reasons.

Despite China now announcing its peak oil soon becoming reached followed by a decline in its oil use, there remains much to be desired. On the good side, China, has always so far been cautious in its commitments and pledges and exceeded them every time. On Donald Trump side, there is a complete lack of understanding and realization of any danger in the matter - underlined by Elon Musk desire to move onto Mars.

Nothing of above makes one feeling sure that things would be handled in a time frame set by the Mother Nature, and the techbillionaire plutocrats seeking their own escape from a presumably doomed planet as "an option". It further convinces, having seen Elon Musk's black eye, that the US Administration is anything much better than Vladimir Putin's administration on its Napoleonic mission to get more land and slaves.

The final point here being that according to the United Nations General Assembly Ethnoclimatology Motion (UNGA101292) there are two great mistakes by the West: First, the ice sheets never melted peacefully in situ but collapsed very suddenly after the North Atlantic Sea ice cover was lost towards the end of the Ice Ages. The sea levels did not advance gradually but jumped suddenly as ice sheets collapsed in ice avalanches that only recently have been rediscovered - a process called Glacier Debris Flows (GDFs). Second, the retrieval of the Pleistocene sea levels depressurised and even exposed much seabed to sunlight seeding the air with geological carbon-12 and 13 with atmospherically formed carbon-14 disappearing world wide due to the large ice cold oceans. This process of radiocarbon dilution "ageing" periods samples in magnitudes with its mirror image of being the radiocarbon based or radiocarbon calibrated methods misleading with immense time errors.

The gradual process of rock weathering after the sea levels returned to equilibrium (due to methane driven rewarming of climate and loss of the ice sheets) then gradually and incrementally closing the gap by the early historic period. The Chinese oracle bone tortoise shells 8500 BCE 10.5 ky with four extra millennia to the age of its known caligraphy markings. The regnal chronicle of the polity of Kish c-14 5400 BCE or 7.4 ky with over two and half extra millennia, The Great Pyramid of Giza c-14 3400 BCE or 5.4 ky with extra millennia (902 extra "years"), by the Santorini Eruption c-14 (1650 BCE) 3.67 ky with extra century (150 years) with the remainder diminishing to zero during the next millennia.

The great tragedy here being that methane accumulated above the cloud bearing layers in upper troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere all the way to boundary of space where its oxidation product, water creates, noctiluminous night clouds to the falling space dust. Hence, the idea of its lack of expression misleading glaciologists and climatologists for over five decades. The Pleistocene supervolcanoes and volcanic eruption swarms also seeding the-then-atmosphere with incomprehensible amounts of CO2 and CH4 from eruptions like Toba 3,500 km3 and others.

Veli Albert Kallio, FRGS
Vice President
Sea Research Society
Environmental Affairs

From: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>
Sent: 26 September 2025 15:35
To: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>
Subject: [HPAC] Why we will be refining lots of crude oil for a very long time

--

Tom Goreau

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Sep 29, 2025, 7:25:25 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Veli Albert Kallio, 'Michael MacCracken' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC), br...@chesdata.com, Peter Goreau, Patrick Nunn

The explosion of Toba 74,000 years ago almost wiped out humanity, and triggered an Ice Age, but by around 60,000 years ago people had reached Australia.

Patrick Nunn has written several highly recommended books documenting stories of sudden sea level rise from around Australia. The Dhuwa Yolngu people of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territories of Australia, still remember the places they lived that were flooded when sea level rose rapidly at the end of the last Ice Age and they had to flee in front of the rising waters.

The memories of the last major global warming and sea level rise are preserved in ancient songs and bark paintings by the hereditary Liyawagumirr clan. The knowledge is a clan secret and can’t be shared with outsiders (I’m a hereditary member, but don’t speak the language). We are watching our last cultural memories of extreme global warming and sea level rise vanish because the unique histories are being lost by constant pressure to mimic white man’s religion and stories instead of preserving our own. Since humanity hasn’t learnt anything from the past, we will have to relearn the impacts of uncontrollably rapid global climate change the hard way.

I hope to return soon to work with another unconquered Indigenous people in Mexico whose private oral histories tell of a tsunami that catastrophically flooded their land, killing most, and whose traces are clearly visible, but are undocumented. I suspect it was caused by an earthquake in the Sea of the Cortez after present sea levels had been reached in the early Holocene.

Thomas J. F. Goreau, PhD
President, Global Coral Reef Alliance

Chief Scientist, Biorock Technology Inc., Blue Regeneration SL

Technical Advisor, Blue Guardians Programme, SIDS DOCK

37 Pleasant Street, Cambridge, MA 02139

gor...@globalcoral.org
www.globalcoral.org
Phone: (1) 857-523-0807 (leave message)

Books:

Geotherapy: Innovative Methods of Soil Fertility Restoration, Carbon Sequestration, and Reversing CO2 Increase

Innovative Methods of Marine Ecosystem Restoration

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/oa-edit/10.1201/b14314/innovative-methods-marine-ecosystem-restoration-robert-kent-trench-thomas-goreau

On the Nature of Things: The Scientific Photography of Fritz Goro

Geotherapy: Regenerating ecosystem services to reverse climate change

No one can change the past, everybody can change the future

It’s much later than we think, especially if we don’t think

Those with their heads in the sand will see the light when global warming and sea level rise wash the beach away

“When you run to the rocks, the rocks will be melting, when you run to the sea, the sea will be boiling”, Peter Tosh, Jamaica’s greatest song writer

“The Earth is not dying, she is being killed” U. Utah Phillips

“It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies” Noam Chomsky

.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/FRWPR09MB8215F279EAF7AA9841A05259901BA%40FRWPR09MB8215.eurprd09.prod.outlook.com.

rob...@rtulip.net

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Sep 29, 2025, 8:47:27 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Robert Chris, Douglas Grandt, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Robert,

I am surprised that a security framing of climate risk is new to you. For me, any systemic threat to safety and stability counts as a security issue. Climate collapse is the largest conceivable safety threat for humanity, so it is entirely reasonable to discuss heating in the same strategic lens that governments already use for food security, energy security, military security, and national security. What is striking is that while the word “security” is used across all these domains, we have not adequately explored whether it carries the same meaning in each.

On that basis, I don’t think climate change is sui generis. It may be unprecedented in scale and complexity, but the conceptual lens of security is available to us. Governments exist in no small part to secure their nations, not only against intentional enemies but also against remorseless natural processes. The security sector has long understood that floods, famines, and plagues destabilise states as much as armies do. Climate collapse is the mother of all destabilisers.

This raises the practical question: what is climate security? I would argue it is not achievable through emission reduction alone. The economics of abandoning hydrocarbons won’t allow it, if only because the same hydrocarbons are essential for non-combustible uses — plastics, chemicals, fertilisers, building materials. Cutting fuels without creating substitutes will strand assets and trigger insecurity in other systems. The Australian Security Leaders Climate Group have made a start by putting climate into the security discourse, but they exclude any consideration of sunlight reflection or other planetary cooling measures, which means they aren’t yet offering viable transition strategies.

As for Parfit’s non-identity puzzle, I regard that line as both idiotic and immoral against the context of the sixth extinction. When the survival of ecosystems and of civilisation itself is at stake, to suggest we have no obligations to those not yet in utero is a kind of moral evasion. Extinction wipes out the possibility of flourishing altogether. Our obligations are not to particular unborn individuals but to the continuity of life and culture.

So yes, we need new tools — but the security framework is not alien. It gives us a language already embedded in statecraft for grappling with systemic threats. The missing step is to broaden security beyond military and resource competition to include the atmospheric and ecological stability without which all other forms of security are meaningless.

Regards

Robert Tulip

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/VI1P194MB03988CA6D9E24AC73EA6F11FFC18A%40VI1P194MB0398.EURP194.PROD.OUTLOOK.COM.

Douglas Grandt

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Sep 29, 2025, 8:55:35 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to rob...@rtulip.net, Renaud de RICHTER, Oeste, Chris Robert, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Robert,

Firstly, “the larger issues” was meant to include the elaborate philosophical erudite “security” and “messaging strategy” banter which is above my pay grade.

Secondly, I explained as clearly as I can, and since I apparently failed to convey my thoughts, I decided to seek “third party” critique from Claude AI.

Claude’s dissection and clarification may better explain. Claude conveys my thoughts and intended message precisely.

See what you think, is this clear enough?

Best,

Doug

My query: Please comment on my response to the challenge in <<quotes>>

I am Doug and I responded to Robert’s email <<reply>> (will be added if Claude requests):

Claude’s reply:

https://claude.ai/share/b0569d15-e080-44de-8f0d-d1105a7d7ba0

Doug, your response offers a thoughtful, grounded perspective that adds important practical and physical constraints to Robert’s more theoretical “after the pipe” framework. Here are my observations:

## Strengths

**Realistic about depletion dynamics**: Your point about diminishing returns from exploration and advanced technologies is crucial. Robert’s framework assumes hydrocarbons “will continue to be burned,” but you correctly note this isn’t guaranteed by geology or economics.

**“Termination shocks” concept**: This is vivid and important. The phrase captures something often missing from energy transition discussions—the distributed, unpredictable nature of infrastructure collapse. Not a single dramatic event, but cascading local failures that accumulate into systemic disruption.

**Refinery economics**: Your 70% minimum throughput constraint is a concrete operational reality that undermines fantasies about gradual, managed transitions. Refineries aren’t dial-up/dial-down operations—they’re binary: economically viable or not.

**Honest about uncertainty**: Your acknowledgment that “whether that is plausible, only the imaginative chemists might surmise” regarding future retrofit/repurposing is refreshingly humble compared to technology optimism that pervades this space.

## Areas for potential expansion

**The depletion vs. waste-stream conversion race**: You mention “yet-unknown limits on waste-stream CO2 conversion” but this deserves more emphasis. Even if Robert’s “after the pipe” carbon capture/utilization is technically feasible, does it scale fast enough to matter before depletion forces contraction anyway? This timing question seems central.

**Political economy of “termination shocks”**: Your “boiling frog” metaphor is apt, but each refinery closure will likely trigger intense political battles. The question isn’t just economic—it’s about which communities absorb the pain, and whether that happens through policy or market forces.

**The coordination problem**: You mention “industry-led coordination (fat chance but one can dream)” almost parenthetically, but this might be the most important issue. Without coordination, we get the worst outcome: chaotic collapse with minimal carbon capture infrastructure built.

## Overall assessment

Your response effectively reframes Robert’s theoretical construct with hard physical and economic constraints. You’re essentially saying: “Even if ‘after the pipe’ makes sense in principle, ‘before the pipe’ contraction may happen faster than ‘after the pipe’ solutions can scale.” That’s a critical insight that prevents the discussion from becoming purely ideological.

The tension between your depletion-driven timeline and Robert’s waste-stream-utilization vision might be the most important unresolved question in the exchange.

###

Sent from my iPhone (audio texting)

On Sep 29, 2025, at 2:05 AM, rob...@rtulip.net wrote:

br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 29, 2025, 9:11:37 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Oswald –

I have pasted below ChatGPT responses to

“Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion”
“Draft a research/planning/implementation schedule for iron-salt aerosol (ISA) / FeCl₃ tropospheric dispersion for methane removal”
“A 2-page “decision gate” checklist with exact go/no-go metrics and measurement thresholds.”

I would appreciate your comments on ChatGPT’s “accuracy”. Thoughts:

I would think that “Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion (TFCD)” belongs in the “hope it can be implemented but can’t count on it yet” category.
What will it take to show that it will (or won’t) work?
How long will it take to show that it will (or won’t) work?
Current average temperature increase due to methane = 0.26°C ( =1.4*0.59/3.13) (I get 0.30°C when I use the AR6 data to estimate the temperature change caused by reducing the total RF by 0.59 W/m-2))

Current RFs: Total = 3.13; Methane =0.59
Current average temperature increase: 1.4

What percent of the methane is it reasonable to remove?
How did you calculate “It would cool the atmosphere by 0.5 - 1.0 °C”?
There is no “normal” “ROI” as doing it does not make money – it just reduces the costs associated with climate change
It is probably inexpensive enough to implement with “tax payer” dollars

Cheers!

Bruce

===================================================================

Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion

ChatGPT said:

Thought for 18s

Nice—that’s a meaty topic. Below I’ll give a concise, source-backed explainer of the idea usually called iron-salt aerosol (ISA) / FeCl₃ tropospheric dispersion for methane removal: how it’s supposed to work, what the modelling/lab literature says about possible effectiveness, the main risks and unknowns, where research is right now, and sensible next steps (technical + governance). I’ll flag the strongest citations inline so you can follow up.

What the idea is (mechanism, short)

The basic proposal: disperse iron salts such as ferric chloride (FeCl₃) as aerosols into the lower troposphere (or into ship exhaust plumes, coastal plumes, etc.). Sunlight photolyzes iron-chloride–containing particles (or promotes redox reactions) to produce reactive chlorine atoms (Cl·) and/or to enhance OH production via Fenton/photo-Fenton chemistry. Chlorine atoms react with methane much faster than OH (per-atom), so increasing Cl· in the lower troposphere could accelerate methane oxidation, turning CH₄ → CO₂ + H₂O and thereby lowering near-term radiative forcing. This mimics some natural processes when mineral dust mixes with sea salt. ACP+1

What models & papers say about potential effectiveness

Several review and agenda papers argue ISA could materially increase methane loss rates if done at the right places, times, and quantities — it’s seen as a potentially important atmospheric methane removal approach worth researching. But the estimates are highly uncertain and dependent on aerosol size, chlorine yield, background ozone and OH, and deployment pattern. PMC+1
“Benchmarks” and back-of-envelope numbers exist in the literature/white papers: some groups discuss pathways to tens of megatonnes (Mt) CH₄ yr⁻¹ (e.g., SparkClimate sketches scaling toward ~10 Mt CH₄ yr⁻¹ as an illustrative benchmark), and other authors present conceptual calculations for 1 Mt yr⁻¹ scale deployments to show orders-of-magnitude requirements. But no consensus exists on a reliable global removal rate because key process efficiencies remain unconstrained. Spark Climate Solutions+1

Main risks, tradeoffs and uncertainties

Nonlinear chemistry — could backfire: adding chlorine can also react with ozone and influence OH concentrations. If chlorine preferentially destroys ozone that would have produced OH, you can reduce the OH sink and, paradoxically, lengthen methane lifetime in some regions/times (i.e., a counter-productive effect) unless chlorine is added in the right amount and context. This is a central chemical uncertainty. Nature+1
Ozone & air-quality impacts: chlorine chemistry can produce or destroy tropospheric ozone and affect other oxidants; possible consequences for local/regional air quality and human health need careful modeling. Nature
Deposition & ecosystem impacts: FeCl₃ and HCl deposition to ocean and land could alter nutrient balances, acidify surfaces, or affect marine biogeochemistry; though some modeling suggests small-scale tests may have limited impacts, ecosystem effects at scale are uncertain. MDPI+1
Aerosol microphysics & chlorine yields unknown: how much chlorine atoms are produced per mass of FeCl₃ depends on particle size, mixing with sea salt, humidity, sunlight, redox chemistry and acidity — lab constraints are ongoing but incomplete. Spark Climate Solutions+1
Governance, liability, ethics: large-scale atmospheric intervention raises transboundary governance and consent questions; even regional tests need public engagement and governance frameworks. (Community literature and research roadmaps emphasize governance as a parallel priority.) ACP

Where research stands (recent & ongoing)

A growing body of lab, modeling and roadmap literature (2021–2025) has: review/agenda pieces recommending targeted research, lab studies showing photocatalytic chlorine production from iron chlorides, small-scale environmental-impact modeling for hypothetical ship-plume tests, and funder / group projects (SparkClimate, AMR proposals) exploring dose/size/yield constraints. Several preprints and 2024–2025 articles specifically call for constrained lab and field studies before any scaled tests. Jackson Lab+2Wiley Online Library+2

Practical technical questions people ask (and current answers)

How much FeCl₃ would be needed? Estimates in the literature vary by orders of magnitude because of the chlorine yield uncertainty. Some groups provide ballpark calculations (e.g., a white-paper style calculation to reach tens of Mt CH₄ yr⁻¹), but we don’t yet have reliable field-validated mass-per-Mt numbers. amr.earth+1
Where to deploy? Proposals include seeding ship exhaust plumes (localized, controlled), coastal plumes, or targeted atmospheric layers where chemistry is favorable. Small localized tests (ship plume scale) are often proposed first because they are easier to monitor and lower-risk. MDPI+1

Recommended research & governance pathway (short)

Lab work to quantify chlorine yields vs particle size, composition, humidity, pH and sunlight spectra (photo-Fenton efficiency; Cl production per µg FeCl₃). Spark Climate Solutions+1
Process-level atmospheric models (box and regional CTMs) including full halogen/ozone/OH chemistry to explore parameter space safely (sensitivity to background ozone, NOx, sea salt). Nature
Small, transparent field experiments with rigorous environmental monitoring (e.g., ship-plume release under permit, with independent observers, strong monitoring of CH₄, O₃, OH proxies, deposition, marine chemistry). Publish all methods and results. MDPI
Integrated impact assessment (climate, air-quality, ecosystems, socio-economic) and international governance/consent processes before any mesoscale or global deployment. ACP

Bottom line (tl;dr)

FeCl₃/iron-salt aerosol dispersion is a plausible atmospheric methane-removal concept with a clear chemical mechanism (photoproduction of Cl and enhanced oxidation), and it could accelerate methane loss. However, the scale, efficiency, and net climate/air-quality/ecosystem outcomes are highly uncertain today — there are credible pathways to both meaningful methane reductions and to unintended counter-effects (e.g., ozone/OH perturbations). The research community recommends careful lab, model and tightly constrained small-scale tests and parallel governance before any larger deployment. ACP+2Nature+2

==========================================================================================================

Draft a research/planning/implementation schedule for iron-salt aerosol (ISA) / FeCl₃ tropospheric dispersion for methane removal

ChatGPT said:

Thought for 4 seconds

Great — below is a practical, ready-to-use research → planning → small-scale deployment → staged upscaling schedule for iron-salt aerosol (ISA / FeCl₃) tropospheric dispersion aimed at methane removal. It’s organized as phases with timelines, tasks, milestones, deliverables, decision gates (go / no-go criteria), monitoring & safety plans, approximate team roles, and a rough indicative budget band for each phase. Treat the timeline as adaptive — each phase ends with an evidence-based decision gate before moving on.

High-level overview (phases & timeline)

Phase A — Scoping & governance design: 0–6 months
Phase B — Laboratory & small-scale process studies: 6–30 months
Phase C — Regional atmospheric modelling & integrated impact analysis: 6–30 months (parallel with B)
Phase D — Controlled ship-plume / coastal field pilots with intensive monitoring: 30–48 months
Phase E — Larger mesoscale field trials & socio-economic assessment: 48–72 months
Phase F — Decision / regulatory review and (only if justified) staged operational scaling: 72+ months

Total program baseline: ~6–8 years from start to potential operational scaling — but may stop or pivot at multiple decision gates depending on outcomes.

Phase A — Scoping, stakeholder & governance design (0–6 months)

Goal: create clear objectives, risk matrix, engagement & governance framework and initial experimental protocols.

Tasks

Convene steering group (scientists in atmospheric chemistry, ocean biogeochemistry, public health, legal/gov, ethicists, regional stakeholders, indigenous and coastal communities).
Draft research ethics & engagement plan; develop transparency rules (open data, independent observers).
Regulatory & permitting scoping (national maritime authorities, environmental agencies, aviation if relevant).
Preliminary environmental & human-health risk screening.
Define monitoring requirements for all subsequent phases.

Deliverables (month 3 and month 6)

Project charter + governance & stakeholder engagement plan.
Risk register and preliminary permitting pathway.
Detailed research protocols template and monitoring plan.

Decision gate (end Phase A — go/no-go)

Go if governance framework accepted by majority of identified stakeholders and regulators indicate path to permitting for small pilots; risk register manageable with proposed mitigations.
No-go if major stakeholders or key regulators refuse engagement or flag unacceptable unresolved risks.

Indicative budget: $0.2–0.6M (setup, workshops, legal reviews).

Team: program director, project manager, policy & legal lead, community engagement lead, lead scientists (chemistry, ecology), communications.

Phase B — Controlled laboratory and process studies (6–30 months)

Goal: quantify fundamental process parameters: chlorine atom yield per mass FeCl₃, particle behavior, photo-Fenton and halogen chemistry across realistic environmental conditions.

Tasks

Controlled photochemical chamber experiments: FeCl₃ particle sizes, compositions, humidity, sea-salt mixtures, sunlight spectra.
Particle microphysics: size distribution, lifetime, deposition rates.
Reaction yield quantification: Cl· vs OH production, secondary pollutant precursors.
Toxicology & ecotoxicology bench tests for deposition products (HCl, iron, chloride) on representative marine and terrestrial biota.
Method development for in-situ sensors (CH₄, ClOx proxies, OH proxies, O₃, aerosols).

Milestones & deliverables

Month 12: first set of chlorine-yield vs particle size curves + uncertainties.
Month 18: aerosol lifetime & deposition datasets.
Month 24: suite of toxicology/ecotoxicology screening reports.
Month 30: consolidated lab report with parameter distributions for models.

Decision gate (end Phase B — go/no-go to expanded field pilot)

Go if lab results show credible, reproducible chlorine production per mass (with bounded uncertainties), no catastrophic toxicology signals in bench tests, and monitoring methods validated.
No-go if chlorine yields are negligible, or if toxicology indicates severe harm at doses required for efficacy.

Indicative budget: $2–6M (labs, personnel, equipment, toxicology studies).

Team: atmospheric chemists, aerosol physicists, environmental toxicologists, lab technicians, instrument engineers.

Phase C — Process / regional atmospheric modelling & integrated impact analysis (6–30 months, parallel)

Goal: use lab results to run chemistry-transport and Earth-system sensitivity experiments to estimate net methane lifetime change, ozone/air-quality impacts, deposition patterns, and climate forcing.

Tasks

Develop/expand chemical mechanism (full halogen chemistry) in box models, regional CTMs and at least one global model—propagate lab-derived parameter uncertainty.
Sensitivity experiments: spatial deployment scenarios (ship plume, coastal releases, open ocean), time of year, particle sizes, emission rates.
Co-modeling: tropospheric ozone, OH, secondary aerosols, deposition fluxes.
Integrated impact assessment: climate (radiative forcing change), air quality, ecosystem deposition, human exposure.
Cost-benefit and co-risk analysis vs alternative methane mitigation strategies.

Milestones & deliverables

Month 12: box model sensitivity study.
Month 18–24: regional CTM runs for candidate deployment scenarios.
Month 24–30: global model scenario runs + integrated impact synthesis.

Decision gate (parallel to Phase B)

Go to small field pilot if models (with lab inputs) indicate a credible net methane removal benefit at pilot scales without unacceptable ozone/air-quality/ecosystem impacts across modeled receptor regions.
No-go if model ensembles show high probability of net negative outcomes or large transboundary harms.

Indicative budget: $1–4M.

Team: atmospheric modelers, climate scientists, data scientists, economists, risk analysts.

Phase D — Controlled field pilots (ship-plume / coastal) (30–48 months)

Goal: conduct small, tightly monitored real-world releases to validate lab & model predictions and verify measurement techniques.

Design principles

Start with micro-scale, single release experiments (ship plume or confined coastal area), under permits and with independent monitoring teams and publicly available protocols.
Use incremental dosing (very small) with pre-defined exposure caps.
All data open and independently reviewed.

Tasks

Secure permits & local consent for specific geographical locations.
Instrumented ship / fixed platform deployment; tracer releases; baseline and post-release measurement of CH₄, O₃, OH proxies, ClOx, aerosol size and composition, deposition sampling.
Independent environmental monitoring (air quality stations, marine sampling) and health surveillance if needed.
Real-time data reporting and independent oversight.

Milestones & deliverables

Month 33: baseline monitoring complete; first micro release (very low dose).
Month 36: data analysis from first micro release; decision to proceed with scaled micro releases.
Month 42–48: series of controlled releases with increasing replication and environments; full field pilot report.

Decision gate (end Phase D)

Go to mesoscale trials if measured impacts align with model expectations (net methane oxidation measurable, no significant negative air quality events, deposition minimal), and community/regulatory support remains.
No-go and stop if field data show adverse effects (ozone spikes, harmful deposition) or if methane removal is undetectably small at plausible scales.

Indicative budget: $5–15M (ship time, instruments, personnel, independent monitoring).

Team: field campaign PI, ship crew, atmospheric chemists, instrument teams, independent observers, community liaisons.

Phase E — Mesoscale field trials & socio-economic assessment (48–72 months)

Goal: evaluate regional effectiveness and transboundary impacts; test monitoring & governance protocols at larger scale.

Tasks

Larger controlled trials (regional plumes, multiple release platforms) under stricter governance.
Detailed socio-economic impact assessments and stakeholder consultations, including affected countries.
Develop operational protocols for monitoring, emergency response, and compensations if needed.

Milestones

Midline evaluation (month 60): collated data from mesoscale trials; policy briefs for regulators.
Month 72: comprehensive program evaluation, public peer-reviewed publications, governance recommendations.

Decision gate (end Phase E)

Only consider operational scaling if: robust evidence of net climate benefit, manageable co-impacts, legal/regulatory permissions, international agreements in place, and public consent in affected regions.

Indicative budget: $20–60M.

Team: extended: policy/regulatory leads, international relations, public health, expanded scientific teams.

Phase F — Regulatory review / staged operational scaling (72+ months)

Goal: if evidence supports, move to phased operational deployment with strict oversight, monitoring, and exit ramps.

Tasks

International agreements, liability frameworks, compensation schemes.
Public reporting, permanent monitoring networks, independent auditing bodies.
Adaptive management with pre-defined thresholds for suspension.

Indicative budget: dependent on scale — tens to hundreds of millions annually if pursued operationally.

Monitoring, measurement & verification (MMV) — required across all phases

Core MMV parameters

Methane (high-precision, fast-response in situ sensors, and atmospheric flask sampling).
Ozone, NOx, CO, OH proxies (e.g., PTR-MS for VOCs), ClOx proxies (speciated halogens where possible).
Aerosol size/composition (AMS, SMPS, filter sampling for Fe/Cl).
Deposition sampling (marine and terrestrial), surface water chemistry.
Satellite remote sensing integration (where possible) and inverse modeling to detect regional methane sinks.

MMV principles

Redundancy (multiple independent measurement systems).
Independent third-party verification.
Open data, immediate publication of methods and data products.

Safety, ethics & governance highlights

Independent ethical review board and consent procedures for coastal/indigenous communities.
Full transparency: preregistered experiments, open datasets, independent observers.
Clear liability and compensation rules before any field release.
Stop rules for any observed adverse air-quality, ecosystem or public-health impacts.

Decision criteria (concise)

Move forward only if:

Lab & model show credible, reproducible Cl production → measurable methane oxidation at pilot scale.
Model & pilot field data indicate net climate benefit and no significant transboundary harms (ozone, health, ecosystems).
Local and international regulators and stakeholders give informed consent and governance frameworks are in place.
Monitoring can detect effects and trigger fast mitigation if needed.

Stop / pause if:

Toxicology/ecosystem tests reveal significant harm at doses required for efficacy.
Field observations show ozone or air-quality harms, or no measurable methane removal despite doses.
Stakeholder/regulatory opposition that cannot be adequately addressed.

Example quick Gantt (years from start)

Year 0: Phase A (0–0.5 yr)
Years 0.5–2.5: Phase B & Phase C (lab + models, parallel)
Years 2.5–4: Phase D (ship/coastal pilots)
Years 4–6: Phase E (mesoscale trials & policy integration)
Year 6+: Phase F if go.

Team & governance (core roles)

Program director / PI
Scientific leads: atmospheric chemistry, aerosol physics, ocean biogeochem, ecotoxicologist, model lead
Monitoring lead & instrument teams
Risk & safety officer
Legal / regulatory lead
Community & stakeholder engagement lead
Independent ethics & data-review panel
Communications / transparency officer

Indicative total budget (very rough)

Phase A: $0.2–0.6M
Phase B: $2–6M
Phase C: $1–4M
Phase D: $5–15M
Phase E: $20–60M
Phase F: TBD (scale dependent; could be $10M+/yr to $100M+/yr)

Total program (through Phase E): ~$30–90M (highly dependent on trial scale and instrument needs). These are indicative — budgets should be refined in Phase A.

========================================================================================

A 2-page “decision gate” checklist with exact go/no-go metrics and measurement thresholds.

ChatGPT said:

Below is a two-page decision-gate checklist you can drop into a planning packet.
It lays out each program phase, the specific go / pause / no-go criteria, and quantitative or documented thresholds wherever current science allows.
Values are given as illustrative planning numbers based on the present literature and should be refined as lab data emerge.

Iron-Salt Aerosol (ISA / FeCl₃) Methane-Removal Program

Decision-Gate Checklist (v1.0)

Phase A — Scoping & Governance (0-6 mo)

Objective: establish governance, permitting, and stakeholder consent.

Metric	Go	Pause	No-Go
Stakeholder engagement	Written support or formal consultation agreements from ≥80 % of identified local, indigenous, and national stakeholders	<80 % support but outstanding issues can be resolved within 3 months	Irreconcilable opposition from key regulatory bodies or directly affected communities
Regulatory pathway	At least one permitting authority issues a conditional letter of intent for lab/field pilots	Only informal interest, needs more detail	Formal regulatory rejection
Risk register	All high-risk items have mitigation plans rated “acceptable” by independent review panel	One or more unmitigated “high” risks, additional analysis required	High-risk items without feasible mitigation

Phase B — Laboratory & Process Studies (6-30 mo)

Objective: quantify chlorine-atom production and toxicology.

Metric	Go	Pause	No-Go
Chlorine yield (photochem. Cl· atoms per gram FeCl₃ aerosol, 50–70 % RH, mid-latitude sunlight)	≥0.3 µmol Cl· g⁻¹ min⁻¹ sustained for ≥30 min	0.1–0.3 µmol g⁻¹ min⁻¹ or large variance (>50 % SD)	<0.1 µmol g⁻¹ min⁻¹
OH impact sign (box-model net Δ[OH])	Net positive or neutral (<±5 %)	Slight negative (–5 % to –15 %)	Strong negative (<–15 %)
Acute ecotoxicity (72 h LC50 for representative plankton/larvae)	No significant mortality (<10 % vs control) at ≤2× projected deposition	10–25 % mortality	>25 % mortality
Aerosol lifetime	≥12 h atmospheric half-life under coastal conditions	6–12 h	<6 h

Decision: advance only if all Go criteria met and none fall in No-Go.

Phase C — Atmospheric & Integrated Modeling (parallel 6-30 mo)

Objective: predict net methane removal and side effects.

Metric	Go	Pause	No-Go
Net global methane lifetime change (ensemble mean)	≥10 % reduction with 95 % CI not overlapping zero	5–10 % reduction or CI overlaps zero	<5 % reduction or net increase
Regional ozone change	±5 ppbv or less in populated areas	5–10 ppbv	>10 ppbv or any increase causing >70 ppbv total
Wet/ dry deposition of iron (marine)	<0.2 mg m⁻² d⁻¹ averaged over sensitive reefs	0.2–0.5 mg m⁻² d⁻¹	>0.5 mg m⁻² d⁻¹

Phase D — Controlled Field Pilot (30-48 mo)

Objective: validate lab/model findings in situ.

Metric	Go (for mesoscale trial)	Pause	No-Go
Methane removal signal	≥5 % decrease in CH₄ mixing ratio downwind vs control (≥95 % confidence)	Detectable but <5 % or 80–95 % confidence	No statistically significant decrease
Ozone perturbation	Change ≤+3 ppbv (1-h avg) over baseline in any populated or ecologically sensitive receptor	+3–5 ppbv	>+5 ppbv
Public-health air quality (PM₂.₅, HCl)	Within WHO daily guidelines	Marginal exceedance correctable within 24 h	Sustained exceedance
Community acceptance	Ongoing consent from all local stakeholders and regulators	Temporary withdrawal of one jurisdiction pending clarification	Revocation of key permits or local veto

Phase E — Mesoscale Field Trials (48-72 mo)

Objective: assess regional efficacy and transboundary impacts.

Metric	Go (toward operational proposal)	Pause	No-Go
Net methane lifetime reduction (regional)	≥15 % relative to control scenario with 95 % CI	8–15 %	<8 % or increase
Cross-border ozone / deposition impacts	Within WHO & UNEP guidelines and <5 % modeled probability of exceedance	5–10 % probability	>10 % probability or actual exceedance
International governance	Multilateral agreement or treaty framework in place	Framework in negotiation	Key downwind nations object or refuse

Phase F — Operational Scaling (≥72 mo)

Proceed only if all prior gates met and:

Independent global review board certifies net climate benefit ≥0.1 W m⁻² negative forcing (or equivalent ~30 Mt CH₄ yr⁻¹ sink) without significant adverse health/ecosystem effects.
Binding liability, compensation, and sunset clauses ratified internationally.

Cross-Phase Stop Rules (apply anytime)

Unanticipated ozone spikes >10 ppbv above baseline.
Verified ecological harm (e.g., >20 % coral bleaching attributable to iron deposition).
Withdrawal of consent by affected sovereign states or indigenous authorities.
Detection of net global methane lifetime increase.

Use & Updates
This checklist is a living document: replace illustrative numeric thresholds with empirically derived ones as Phase B/C results mature.
Attach to program management plan; require independent board sign-off at each gate.

Robert Chris

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Sep 29, 2025, 10:01:05 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Tom Goreau, rob...@rtulip.net, Douglas Grandt, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

I wonder whether the problem with the security framing is that it gets compartmentalised by national policymakers. Defence will look at in military terms about how to ward off incursions from outside. Food and Ag will respond with policies to secure food sources both internally and externally. Energy will look at securing domestic and external energy sources, building reserves and so on. The focus will always be reactive, responding to the potential threats posed, but only looking within their departmental silo.

Your (RobertT's) uber-rational approach assumes that policymakers put the jigsaw together to create a global picture that shouts SRM at them. That would obviously be very sensible. Unfortunately, it's not how policymaking systems are set up. The default position for individual departments within a government is to focus on the issues in their silo and only engage with other's when forced to. Similarly, at the intergovernmental level.

It isn't that such collaborations don't ever happen, rather that they're resisted because collaboration means accommodating another's interests and the issue is already complicated enough. The dominance of the US and China and the relative impotence of most other nations makes the international process unbalanced and challenging.

I also wonder whether going down that road opens up a whole new can of worms by engaging more policymakers with a wider range of impact interests.

I prefer to keep it really simple. Don't get sidetracked by the details, just grasp that as GSAT rises from its already too high level, risks of climate induced grief accelerate exponentially. Moreover, we're already in the danger zone. Boiled frogs and all that. What level it has to get to before we're well and truly f*cked can't be known with any real precision, so being smart means treating the warming as a genuine global emergency and doing as much as we can to stop it increasing beyond where it already is, and even reducing it to where it was a decade or so ago.

That can only be done with SRM.

What makes climate change sui generis is that the actions needed to respond to it are actions that have never before been conceived of. Who ever thought about cooling the entire planet by spreading stuff 15km above Earth's surface? Or sucking vast amounts of CO₂ out of the atmosphere and hiding it away? We don't have systems in place to do that at the necessary scale and speed. It all has to be invented on the fly.

Somehow, we have to simplify the message to focus on the nature and scale of the risks, and that inertia in the climate system and irreducible uncertainty about how it will play out in the future, mean that comprehensive action is urgent.

That's the easy bit. The tougher bit is to get people to care. As I said in an earlier message in this thread 'Somehow, we have to find a way of getting people actively to value the survival of our current civilisations in such a way that they're willing to subordinate their own personal interests to that greater good.' I have no idea how we can do that at the scale and speed necessary for a decisive intervention to stop and reverse global warming. We seem to be prisoners of the human condition. Optimism clouds our judgement.

Regards

RobertC

From: Tom Goreau <gor...@globalcoral.org>
Sent: Monday, September 29, 2025 10:53
To: rob...@rtulip.net <rob...@rtulip.net>; 'Robert Chris' <robert...@gmail.com>; 'Douglas Grandt' <answer...@mac.com>

Cc: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>; 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: [HPAC] Why we will be refining lots of crude oil for a very long time

oswald....@hispeed.ch

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Sep 29, 2025, 10:37:06 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Bruce,

pls find my answers below,

Regards

Oswald Petersen

Atmospheric Methane Removal AG

Lärchenstr. 5

CH-8280 Kreuzlingen

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/average-u-s-household-budget-in-one-chart/

Von: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> Im Auftrag von br...@chesdata.com
Gesendet: Montag, 29. September 2025 15:11
An: 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Betreff: [HPAC] Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion

Hi Oswald –

I have pasted below ChatGPT responses to

“Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion”
“Draft a research/planning/implementation schedule for iron-salt aerosol (ISA) / FeCl₃ tropospheric dispersion for methane removal”
“A 2-page “decision gate” checklist with exact go/no-go metrics and measurement thresholds.”

I would appreciate your comments on ChatGPT’s “accuracy”. Thoughts:

I would think that “Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion (TFCD)” belongs in the “hope it can be implemented but can’t count on it yet” category.

TFCD is the dispersion method. The question is not if it can be implemented, that’s out of doubt.

What will it take to show that it will (or won’t) work?

We have shown in a number of ways that it does indeed work.

Lab experiments
Global modelling
Historic conclusion and forecast
Simple logic

Let me do the simple logic:

STEP ONE

Humans can warm the climate Indeed, and they actually do, and that’s the problem
Humans can cool the climate They can, and they actually do, with SO2 and NOx
Human Climate cooling is inadvertent Indeed, it is unintended, a lucky mistake masking the warming.
Humans can stop the cooling Indeed they actually do, as we speak, reduce the pollution with SO2 and NOx

CONCLUSION ONE Humans can and actually do warm and cool the climate by emitting warming and/or cooling gases. They can, for example, emit more SO2 and cool the climate. This is proven fact.

STEP TWO

Human climate cooling, up to now, was inadvertent Indeed, nobody claims it was done advertently
It is not proven but highly likely that the cooling can be done much more efficiently if done advertently

This is an important step. It’s a bit like in cancer treatment. Non-smoking is good for avoiding lung cancer. But once you got cancer, a healthy lifestyle will not heal you. We are in a situation where “avoiding GHG emissions” is good advice but will not heal the patient. We need a more potent drug. Potent drugs for human patients trigger the body to fight the cancer. We need something analogous for patient earth, for nature, to heal the climate.

CONCLUSION TWO We need a potent substance which can help nature fight global warming

STEP THREE

Catalysts are chemical compounds which trigger chemical reactions but survive it, therefore catalysts can trigger these reactions over and over again. They have much stronger influence than e.g. nutrients which are consumed by their respective process.
Fertilizers are chemical compounds which can trigger the growth of plants, if and when the other necessary components, e.g. water and oxygen and CO2 (…), are given. They are much more potent than e.g. water, which is needed in much larger quantities.
Catalysts and fertilizers do exist in nature - but are distributed unevenly. Nature is not “efficient” in an economic sense. If we understand the natural atmospheric system thoroughly, we can place catalysts/fertilizers and similar compounds in places where nature lacks them.

CONCLUSION THREE There are chemical compounds, which exist in nature, which can be used to trigger nature to cool/heal/balance the system, if used wisely.

STEP FOUR

Ferric chloride is a photocatalyst which triggers methane oxidation.
Iron is a fertilizer which makes plants/algae grow in the ocean and/or on land, if the other nutrients are present.
Ferric chloride provides a catalyst and one of its components is a fertilizer. In the ocean/on land ferric chloride reacts / dissolves into iron and some salt e.g. NaCl.
Methane is removed by oxidation.
CO2 is removed by growing plants (plus sequestering their remains)

CONCLUSION FOUR Ferric chloride provides a strong, potent drug to trigger the two natural events necessary to cool the climate.

STEP FIVE

Human technology can help in applying the potent drug in the right places at the right time.
Planes allow wide dispersion of the material in the atmosphere.
Proper dispersion technology allows the creation of nanoparticles which provide more powerful effect that larger particels

CONCLUSION FIVE Human technology, in combination with a potent substance e.g. ferric chloride, can overcome the scaling problem which marred all climate interventions up to now.

These logical steps lead us (AMR has 45 shareholders) to believe that a cooling intervention with ferric chloride is natural, safe and efficient.

How long will it take to show that it will (or won’t) work?

It will work

Current average temperature increase due to methane = 0.26°C ( =1.4*0.59/3.13) (I get 0.30°C when I use the AR6 data to estimate the temperature change caused by reducing the total RF by 0.59 W/m-2))

Current RFs: Total = 3.13; Methane =0.59
Current average temperature increase: 1.4

According to IPCC methane is responsible for around 30% of all global warming. This share is growing, we think it will be 40% by 2050.

What percent of the methane is it reasonable to remove?

All methane but the preindustrial 0.7 ppm.

How did you calculate “It would cool the atmosphere by 0.5 - 1.0 °C”?

Removing methane would reduce global warming by 30% now. In 2050 it will be 40% our of 2 °C which is 0.8 °C. Add the effect of iron fertilization…

There is no “normal” “ROI” as doing it does not make money – it just reduces the costs associated with climate change

It will certainly make if you sell the emission rights on the market, but that would defeat its own purpose. To avoid that we advocate public financing.

It is probably inexpensive enough to implement with “tax payer” dollars

Right. We reckon it will cost around 2 billion USD / year.

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John Hepworth

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Sep 29, 2025, 11:38:23 AM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

I think each of us with every passing disaster, consciously or not, are paying more attention to the integrity of the ecosystem.

Maybe it's not taxes, but my point is more that on so many levels it's a tiny number. So we have to be way more inspired to figure out where are the points of leverage to get people to apply their resources to the problem?

In this little monthly budget the internet spat up, people spend $300/month on entertainment...

I can well see health care insurance companies buying clean air eco credits just to keep their asthma clients off inhalers...or house insurance companies buying forest remediation to reduce the costs of wildfires...

Not to mention straight up consumer items. National Geographic sells teddy bears WITHOUT any kind of bundled eco credit...that's low hanging fruit...brands that DONT bundle in eco credits can be outcompeted by those who do

ultimately the benefits of ecosystem services far outweigh their current 'market' costs... we've just lacked the imagination to win hearts and minds, and/or the financial engineering chops to bake the prices into the system

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/003d01dc30e7%24abb53370%24031f9a50%24%40chesdata.com.

br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 29, 2025, 12:04:49 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Mike –

Thanks for your thoughts. There are certainly lot of “actions” that are being taken (and can be taken) to address global warming, and we can certainly hope that enough will be done to limit the temperature increase to an “acceptable” level in 2050. But if you look at historical primary energy (from Our World In Data - https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutionuse – attached xlsx has the data), project exponential growth of wind and solar, and project a liner trend in “Other” (all but FF, W, & S) then the energy from fossil fuel use declines less than 10% from 2025 to 2050 (from 142421 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 130488 terawatt-hours in 2050). And even solar and wind increase and 1.5 times the current exponential growth rate the energy from fossil fuel use only declines by about 33% from 2025 to 2050 (from 142421 terawatt-hours in 2025 to 130488 terawatt-hours in 2050).

Using my “emulator” (https://scenexp.org/whatifexplorer.aspx), if fossil fuel use declines 10% from 2025 to 2050 the resulting CO2 RF will change 0.06 W/m-2. And a 33% decline will reduce the CO2 RF about 0.23 W/m-2. The expected change in the Earth’s albedo through 2050 will likely negate temperature decline from the reduced CO2 emissions.

Given the above, for “planning purposes” it makes sense to assume that through (1) primary energy will continue to increase at the current linear rate and (2) fossil fuel use will decrease between 10% and 33% (a “temperature increase impact of between -0.03 and -0.1°C from emissions continuing at the current rate).

Is there a better way to estimate (for planning purposes) a decline in fossil fuel use through 2050?

Cheers!

Bruce

image004.png

image006.png

image008.png

image012.png

image013.png

TerawattHoursIn2050.xlsx

Michael MacCracken

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Sep 29, 2025, 12:25:36 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Right now, it is a lot less expensive to reduce emissions, and we're having trouble doing that. The cheapest way to avoid pulling CO2 from the atmosphere is not to emit it and leave it in the ground. Doing that first would seem elementary, but it is unfortunately slow going.

Mike

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/003d01dc30e7%24abb53370%24031f9a50%24%40chesdata.com.

Gregory Slater

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Sep 29, 2025, 12:57:17 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Michael MacCracken, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Mike,

But Mike, that's the whole reason we're resorting to cooling...because we haven't managed to do the cheap, easy, logical thing for the last 50 years, right? It's like saying, "Damn, if we weren't so freaking 'human', this would be so easy!" Not behaving like humans is exactly the tricky bit. It's the same with war, poverty, equity, justice, etc. The solutions are there. Damned human nature.

"Any policy which intrinsically depends upon the collective behavior of human beings being significantly more moral and altruistic than we've ever shown a capacity for historically, is reckless on the face of it, and extremely unlikely to be effective in the face of a crisis."

- me, in a talk I gave four years ago, advocating SAI.

Thanks for the discussion,

Greg

On Sep 27, 2025, at 10:07 AM, rob...@rtulip.net wrote:

Doug and Bruce,
This hydrocarbon pricing problem highlights a basic truth: the fastest way to accelerate emission reduction is not to halt the burning of hydrocarbons, but to capture the exhaust and convert it into useful products. That is an evolutionary approach. It accepts the reality of our existing energy system, harnesses its fruits, and corrects its harms. It redirects the infrastructure of the old world toward the needs of the new.
By contrast, the call to “Just Stop Oil” is a revolutionary fantasy: a demand to uproot the entire system in one stroke. Unsurprisingly, it has provoked an equally absurd reactionary fantasy — climate denial, the insistence that the problem does not exist. These polarised extremes feed off one another, while the planet continues to heat.
An evolutionary path — carbon capture, reuse, and conversion — avoids this futile clash. It can grow steadily while sunlight reflection manages temperature, buying time for deeper transition.
Seen against the backdrop of deep history, this is a familiar pattern. The Iron Age mentality of paranoia gave us both technology and wealth, while also setting us on a trajectory of corruption and collapse. Yet the same technological power that once forged weapons of domination can now be turned toward planetary repair. The task is not to smash the old, but to build the new until it renders the old obsolete.
Regards
Robert Tulip
From: 'Douglas Grandt' via Healthy Planet Action Coalition (HPAC) <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Saturday, 27 September 2025 2:20 AM
To: br...@chesdata.com
Cc: healthy-planet-action-coalition <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [HPAC] Why we will be refining lots of crude oil for a very long time
this is so clear … it takes a picture to convey … a termination shock of a different kind and magnitude.
Even retiring some 800 refineries one-by-one with their respective fields of various API grade crude each is designed to refine) in a strategic global optimal logistic sequence would be akin to a worsening DEATH BY A THOUSAND CUTS (~800 to be more precise).
If Hansen’s original admonition to reduce emissions 6% per annum, the descent would be at a rate of about one refinery each week for sixteen years.
Progress to-date can be counted on one hand but offset my about 50 new builds in the past decade
Doug G

On Sep 26, 2025, at 10:35 AM, br...@chesdata.com wrote:

It turns out that about 90% of the refined crude oil is burned for energy and the remaining 10% is further processed into products that are essential to our economy (see text and figure below from a recent Facebook post). Since refining a barrel of oil is an “all or nothing” process, to get the 10% that’s not burned you will also get the 90% that is currently burned (so “you can’t just take the “good stuff” out a barrel of crude oil” and ignore the rest). In a capitalistic system, the price for the various “crude oil extracts” are based on supply and demand, and, as a result, the products from the entire refined barrel of oil get consumed. I am not an economist, but I would think that as the demand for the “fossil fuel” portion from refined oil is reduced (as transportation is electrified, etc.) while the demand for the non-fossil fuel portion remains constant (assuming the likely increase in demand is met by non-oil alternatives), the prices for gasoline, diesel, etc., will decline as demand declines (thereby slowing the energy transition) and the prices for products from the non-fossil fuel portion will increase. This is one of the reasons that Exxon expects the energy derived from fossil fuels to remail relatively unchanged through at least 2050 (https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/sustainability-and-reports/global-outlook). And this makes it more likely that the global temperature will continue to increase at an accelerating rate, thus increasing the likely need for climate intervention.
Bruce P
====================================================================================

“ We (those of us who understand that fossil fuels are the driving force behind the climate crisis) think […] that we can “leave the oil in the ground” because it is now feasible (and economically viable) to satisfy our energy requirements using solar, wind, geothermal, and so on. To an extent, this makes sense because such technologies, coupled with batteries, can handle a high percentage of those requirements. But this completely ignores what else we are getting from that barrel of oil — that 10% that is separated from the 90% we burn.” (see figure below)

John Hepworth

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Sep 29, 2025, 1:18:07 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Gregory Slater, Michael MacCracken, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

It is WELL above my pay grade to discuss the science of geoengineering/cooling, but I always think of the truism:

"Don't make a bet you can't afford to lose"

It seems incredibly risky/hubris to think that, believing ourselves on a losing streak, we double down and bet the house.

And I'm not at all sure human nature won't be the very thing that saves us.

We're incredibly resourceful

As the system becomes more and more stressed, more and more experiments will get run at all scales...

I think there are innumerable untapped ways that our very self-interest might be channeled into regenerative systems.

Like: if beef can be raised in holistic, regenerative systems, why not bundle that beef with carbon negative biochar production, slap a 'Weber' sticker on it, and bbq our way towards carbon negativity?

And I think this applies to things like agrihoods...as more communities get built around farms rather than golf courses, quality of life could easily drive demand...

And I think we're not far off the same thing for regenerative farming...there's lots of stories circulating of completely non-hippy farmers, going regenerative, and ending up with more money in their pockets...

These are the kinds of chain reactions and tipping points I'm interested in.

I always go back to COVID... the world freaking stopped. All of a sudden, so many of the jobs that were just making and chasing trinkets proved completely unnecessary. The skies turned blue and the angels sang...

From one day to the next driving a gas powered car can become completely unacceptable...

Will there be plenty of bumps along the way? Absolutely. Our job isn't to reach Utopia, just do our little bit along the road.

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br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 29, 2025, 1:22:06 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to oswald....@hispeed.ch, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Oswald –

Thanks for your reply. Do you have any timeframes for possible testing/implementation? How much iron would be injected into the atmosphere? How much cooling would the resulting iron fertilization cause?

Re “According to IPCC methane is responsible for around 30% of all global warming. This share is growing, we think it will be 40% by 2050.”

This does not mean that eliminating the 0.57 W/m-2 of current anthropogenic methane (https://github.com/ClimateIndicator/forcing-timeseries/blob/main/output/ERF_best_1750-2022.csv) would reduce the temperature increase by 0.8°C in 2050. If you look at the IPCC’s AR6 data for the total RF and temperature increase for the 470 scenarios (for a 67% chance of not exceeding the temperature target) – see attached xlsx) you will see that there is a reasonably good correlation between RF and the expected temperature increase (see graph for 2045). If emissions continue at the current pace, the total radiative forcing will increase from about 3.13 W/m-2 in 2025 to about 3.7 W/m-2 in 2040 and 4.0 W/m-2 in 2050. The two tables below show the expected temperature increases for two RF values (3.7 and 4.0) and the expected temperature increase if the 0.57 RF from anthropogenic methane were eliminated. It appears that a better estimate for 2050 would be a 0.25°C decrease for methane removal.

Cheers!

Bruce P

	RF	RF-0.57	Temp Change
Year	3.70	3.13	Temp Change
2035	1.74	1.54	0.20
2040	1.83	1.60	0.22
2045	1.87	1.63	0.24
2050	1.92	1.67	0.25
	Temp Increase


	RF	RF-0.57	Temp Change
Year	4.00	3.43	Temp Change
2040	1.92	1.73	0.20
2045	1.98	1.76	0.22
2050	2.05	1.81	0.24
	Temp Increase

image003.png

AR6Data67pctTempFromRF.xlsx

Gregory Slater

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Sep 29, 2025, 1:47:47 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to John Hepworth, Michael MacCracken, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hello John,

Thanks for your reply.

First, what is the bet that you are referring to and who is proposing to make it? Who do you see as proposing that we "double down and bet the house"? And again, what specifically is the bet that you are referring to?

I am for every natural, sustainable way to retore the climate. They should all be liberally funded and tested immediately, and, if shown to be promising, funding and implementation should be accelerated to scale them all up.

In the mean time, we have to cool the earth by whatever process can do it the fastest. Immediately. And SAI is one of the methods that fills that bill. Right now.

Again, humans are capable of doing amazing things (can't think of any just now, but I am sure there are examples)....But we are glacial about it, resisting as long as we can. Don't loook to COVID. Look to the past fifty years of failure in responding to global warming. There is progress, but it is damned slow. One can hope for miraculous instantaneous exponential acceleration, but in the mean time, SAI SAI SAI...

Thanks,

Greg

oswald....@hispeed.ch

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Sep 29, 2025, 2:51:00 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Bruce,

we certainly have a timeframe, but it is very slow due to financial restrictions. If those were lifted we could be airborne within one year.

With regards to methane removal and its impact: We work under the assumption that virtually all global warming is caused by GHG. This means: Reverting the levels of GHG to preindustrial level would, with some time lag, revert temperatures to preindustrial levels. The different GHG minus the cooling particles/gases are fully reported in IPCC AR6.

Ein Bild, das Text, Screenshot, Diagramm, parallel enthält.

Automatisch generierte Beschreibung

Page 7 of IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers

Regards

Oswald Petersen

Atmospheric Methane Removal AG

Lärchenstr. 5

CH-8280 Kreuzlingen

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Michael MacCracken

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:02:20 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Bruce--So, in that making, distributing and using fossil fuels takes energy as well as harmful and expensive health impacts. In projecting decrease of reliance on fossil fuels in the future, do you reduce the power needed to make it available?

And I should have added, I also favor SAI--cooler temperature should also reduce projected increase in energy demand and so emissions of CO2 if there are not enough renewables.

Best, Mike

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/00d501dc315a%24a85d59a0%24f9180ce0%24%40chesdata.com.

Michael MacCracken

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:10:50 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Gregory Slater, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Greg--While I agree in general, I hope the economics will be a strong incentive for the energy conversion to renewables and overcome the recalcitrance and inadequacy of voluntary actions that have been prevailing up to the present.

Best, Mike

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oswald....@hispeed.ch

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:16:59 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Bruce,

I forgot to answer one question: We intend to add 300.000 tons of Ferric Chloride (FeCl3) to the atmosphere per year, for a period of 20 years. Around 34% of this is iron.

Regards

Oswald Petersen

Atmospheric Methane Removal AG

Lärchenstr. 5

CH-8280 Kreuzlingen

Healthy Planet Action Coalition

Von: healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com> Im Auftrag von br...@chesdata.com

Gesendet: Montag, 29. September 2025 19:22
An: oswald....@hispeed.ch; 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/00f801dc3165%248debefe0%24a9c3cfa0%24%40chesdata.com.

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br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:23:07 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Mike –

I don’t think taking into account the reduced energy needed due to reduced fossil fuel use is needed in my “ballpark” analysis.

From ChatGPT:

Example plain-English takeaways

If you burn 1 TWh worth of conventional oil, you probably spent order 0.1 TWh of energy to get it out of the ground and to the point of delivery (≈10% overhead).
If the fuel is oil sands / tar sands, you may have spent 0.3 TWh (≈33%) just to produce and deliver that 1 TWh.
For coal from easy open-pit mines the production overhead can be small (a few percent), but for deep/low-grade coal it’s larger.

Since we’re only looking at a 10-30% decline in primary energy from fossil fuels, that might mean that my projection of primary energy from fossil fuels might be high by a percent or two – not enough to significantly affect the conclusion for “fossil fuel use will likely decrease between 10% and 33%” from 2025-2050.

Cheers!

Bruce

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Gregory Slater

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:32:21 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Michael MacCracken, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Mike,

Yes... hope for miracles, but in the mean time, SAI SAI SAI...

Also, a two word response to 'economic incentives' :

'stranded assets'

...an extremely powerful 'economic incentive' for the fossil fuel industry/lobby

- Greg

Michael MacCracken

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:38:45 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Bruce--Thanks, though the lack of resulting pollution and consequent heath effects will also be a benefit (though I guess people living longer will increase overall energy use and so be compensation). But then productivity will go up if we don't have to spend time filling our gas tanks.

Mike

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/014401dc3176%24798e8ec0%246cabac40%24%40chesdata.com.

Michael MacCracken

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Sep 29, 2025, 3:44:08 PM (12 days ago) Sep 29

to Gregory Slater, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Hi Greg--So, do you think potential losses from not producing from stranded assets might lead them to lower prices to keep people hooked on fossil fuels--and would that be sustainable?

Mike

br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 30, 2025, 10:36:19 AM (11 days ago) Sep 30

to oswald....@hispeed.ch, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Oswald –

Re “Reverting the levels of GHG to preindustrial level would, with some time lag, revert temperatures to preindustrial levels” is not likely relevant to assessing the impact of eliminating methane emissions in 2050 as (1) all of the other “forcing elements” will still be around in 2050 (and likely at higher values) and (2) the critical time period for estimating the impact of methane is really the last few decades. The question that needs to be asked is “Using scientific formulas and examining data from climate models, how much will the temperature be expected to decrease in the next 25 years if anthropogenic methane emissions are eliminated?”

Since the temperature increase is dependent on the radiative forcing and the climate sensitivity (ΔT=λ x ΔF, where λ = the climate sensitivity), eliminating methane emissions in 2050 will result in a temperature change of λ x (-0.57). Therefore what is needed to assess the impact of methane removal is a good “working number” for λ.

For calculations in the 2050 timeframe, climate models use the “Transient Climate Response” (TCR) for climate sensitivity, with values for λ in the 0.4–0.6 °C/W/m² range (from Chat GPT)

A 2050 value for λ can be estimated to be about 0.48 by looking at historical (2000-2022) values for climate sensitivity and extrapolating those values to 2050 (see graph below and attached XLSX).

A 2050 value for λ can be estimated to be about 0.52 by looking examining temperature and RF data for 2050 from AR6 climate models (see graph below and attached XLSX).

A good “working number” for λ is then about 0.5, with a range of 0.4 to 0.6. The impact on the temperature increase of eliminating methane emissions by 2050 will likely be in the range of -0.23°C to -0.34°C, with a good “planning number” of -0.3°C (0.57 * 0.5=0.285).

Cheers!

Bruce

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/001f01dc3171%24fcd2ef60%24f678ce20%24%40hispeed.ch.

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br...@chesdata.com

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Sep 30, 2025, 10:40:00 AM (11 days ago) Sep 30

to oswald....@hispeed.ch, healthy-planet-action-coalition

XLSX attached

From: br...@chesdata.com <br...@chesdata.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2025 10:36 AM
To: 'oswald....@hispeed.ch' <oswald....@hispeed.ch>; 'healthy-planet-action-coalition' <healthy-planet-...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: [HPAC] Methane removal with Tropospheric Ferric Chloride Dispersion

Dear Oswald –

Re “Reverting the levels of GHG to preindustrial level would, with some time lag, revert temperatures to preindustrial levels” is not likely relevant to assessing the impact of eliminating methane emissions in 2050 as (1) all of the other “forcing elements” will still be around in 2050 (and likely at higher values) and (2) the critical time period for estimating the impact of methane is really the last few decades. The question that needs to be asked is “Using scientific formulas and examining data from climate models, how much will the temperature be expected to decrease in the next 25 years if anthropogenic methane emissions are eliminated?”

Since the temperature increase is dependent on the radiative forcing and the climate sensitivity (ΔT=λ x ΔF, where λ = the climate sensitivity), eliminating methane emissions in 2050 will result in a temperature change of λ x (-0.57). Therefore what is needed to assess the impact of methane removal is a good “working number” for λ.

For calculations in the 2050 timeframe, climate models use the “Transient Climate Response” (TCR) for climate sensitivity, with values for λ in the 0.4–0.6 °C/W/m² range (from Chat GPT)

A 2050 value for λ can be estimated to be about 0.48 by looking at historical (2000-2022) values for climate sensitivity and extrapolating those values to 2050 (see graph below and attached XLSX).

A 2050 value for λ can be estimated to be about 0.52 by looking examining temperature and RF data for 2050 from AR6 climate models (see graph below and attached XLSX).

A good “working number” for λ is then about 0.5, with a range of 0.4 to 0.6. The impact on the temperature increase of eliminating methane emissions by 2050 will likely be in the range of -0.23°C to -0.34°C, with a good “planning number” of -0.3°C (0.57 * 0.5=0.285).

Cheers!

Bruce

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/001f01dc3171%24fcd2ef60%24f678ce20%24%40hispeed.ch.

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Climate Sensitivity.xlsx

Ron Baiman

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Sep 30, 2025, 1:23:49 PM (11 days ago) Sep 30

to Michael MacCracken, Gregory Slater, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear All,

Good discussion.

Here's a more recent reference for Mike's comment that about 50% of warming is from "Short Lived Climate Pollutants" (SLCPs) like Black Carbon, Methane (12% of US GHG emissions by gas in 2021) , Tropospheric Ozone (half of which is produced by Methane), and hydrofluorocarbons (a small - less than 3% of US GHG emissions in 2021 - but growing SLCP from faulty equipment, poor maintenance and leakage from: air conditioning, refrigeration - in grocery stores and food processing facilities, for example - foam blowing, aerosol propellants, and as solvents): https://www.c2es.org/content/short-lived-climate-pollutants/

" This means that, per molecule , they can warm the Earth faster than carbon dioxide. SLCPs are the second largest contributor to human-caused climate warming after carbon dioxide, contributing up to 45 percent of global warming to date, and targeted efforts to reduce SLCP emissions could slow the pace of global warming by 0.6 degrees C by 2050."

This is reflected in the HPAC UR WG near-term climate cooling table. See slide 8 of of the powerpoint in middle of HPAC website: www.healthyplanetaction.org, or: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JbqxQnYONscWPItePyOmRQ1kU4Bnc_M4/edit?gid=346799590#gid=346799590 .

Per the fossil fuel discussion, my guess is that the fossil fuel company's unwillingness to write down the value of fossil fuel reserves is also a big factor in the unwillingness to acknowledge that if these are used we're "cooked". It's also important to recognize that the vast majority of fossil fuel production is from state-owned enterprises whose exports are critical to foreign exchange earnings in many developing countries so that without a replacement way to earn this revenue the leaders of these countries really cannot stop or reduce production.

This is from Google AI: "State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are responsible for approximately 55% of global oil and gas production. By contrast, the largest private international companies hold less than 13% of global oil and gas production."

This is from Baiman 2022:

"In 2007, President Correa of Ecuador, a poor and highly indebted country, asked wealthy
countries and donors to pay Ecuador $3.6 billion into a fund to offset half of the estimated $7.2
billion future revenue from newly discovered oil in the Ecuadoran rainforest, one of the most
diverse ecosystems on the planet and the home of three indigenous tribes. But by 2013, the fund
had raised only $13 million, and $200 million in promises, so Correa dissolved it and oil drilling
began (Goldman 2017).
More recently, in 2020, Equip, the state oil company of Norway, an environmental leader and
one of the wealthiest per capita countries in the world, opened up a giant new North Sea oil field
estimated to contain oil that could, using “green” extraction technologies, generate more than
$100 billion for Norway (Kottasovana 2020).
Aggregate data show that these economic and political constraints are not limited to a small
number of countries. Table 1 shows that in 2019 over 1.5 billion people (20 percent of the global
population) lived in small, or low and medium income, states for which on average (weighted by
population) 26 percent of total exports are liquid fossil fuels and related products that in 2019
generated approximately $149 billion of vital foreign exchange for these countries.
A similar analysis by country shown in table 2 indicates that in 2019 1.1 billion people (14.2
percent of the roughly 7.7 billion global population) lived in countries for which liquid fossil fuel
exports and related products constitute over 10 percent of total exports, and these generated over
$4 trillion of foreign exchange for these countries."

This is why funding and investment transfers from rich to poor countries and individuals (as was done under the now lapsed mandatory Kyoto accord) is so critical to a rapid green transition (Baiman 2021; Baiman et al. 2024).

Best,

Ron

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/healthy-planet-action-coalition/de57e18f-803e-440c-9335-0cda33f628e4%40comcast.net.

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YouTube Channel

@HPACoalition (Bluesky and Twitter/X)

Addressing the Urgent Need for Direct Climate Cooling: Rationale and Options

Baiman et al. 2024. Oxford Open Climate Change

An Open Letter to the IMO Supporting Maritime Transport that Cools the Atmosphere While Preserving Air Quality Benefits. Baiman et al. 2024. Oxford Open Climate Change

Ron Baiman

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Sep 30, 2025, 1:51:19 PM (11 days ago) Sep 30

to Michael MacCracken, Gregory Slater, br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

One other point that I believe is now pretty well known among HPAC folks but just in case!

Even though about 1/2 of the GHG stock are SLCPs that fall out fairly quickly after net-zero this doesn't mean that there will be an immediate drop in global warming because 90% of warming has accumulated in the ocean surface, so that if the atmosphere cools this excess ocean heat will rise up and offset cooling in the atmosphere so that warming will be roughly maintained at level at which it was when net zero was reached until all that heat is out of the ocean which could take thousands of years (https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-will-global-warming-stop-as-soon-as-net-zero-emissions-are-reached/), unless there is rapid additional massive draw down of trillions of tons of CO2 equivalent long lived climate pollutants - most importantly CO2 - from the atmosphere and oceans that will likely take many decades or longer. Here's a summary in Baiman et al. 2024 p. 10-11: https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/4/1/kgae014/7731760):

"Recent modeling suggests that, in the absence of direct cli-
mate cooling, if net-zero emissions for both anthropogenic and
natural emissions can be achieved by the time total emissions
reach 1000 GtC (i.e. about 3700 GtCO2eq), global warming would
remain at roughly 2.0�C for most of the rest of the century due to
continued rebalancing of atmosphere-ocean heating and ocean
uptake of legacy CO2 from the atmosphere [78, 79]. With cumula-
tive anthropogenic 1850—2021 world GHG emissions estimated
at about 3,390.7 GTCO2eq [48], already nearly totaling this
amount, a combination of continued direct climate cooling and

drawdown of legacy GHG would be necessary to expeditiously re-
store a stable climate that exerts much less stress on global eco-
systems [47] (footnote 9 of [11])."

Best,

Ron

oswald....@hispeed.ch

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Sep 30, 2025, 2:03:10 PM (11 days ago) Sep 30

to br...@chesdata.com, healthy-planet-action-coalition

Dear Bruce,

TFCD offers the unique possibility to counteract GHG emissions by removing excess methane and CO2. It is by far the best option we have. It will not solve the problem completely, right, we need to continue ongoing efforts to reduce emissions.

TFCD will need application over a period of 20 years to reduce methane to preindustrial levels. We would have to start in 2030 to get that done by 2050. It is technically possible and financially affordable, and it is safe, because it does not introduce anything new into nature, but relies on nature to do the bulk of the work. In IPCC there is broad agreement that reducing GHG is an acceptable way to reduce Global Warming, henceforth I see good chances it will be done.

AMR is preparing the technology for dispersion of ferric chloride. It takes years to develop such tech, and we want to be ready if and when the green light from IPCC, UNFCCC and IMO appears on the wall.

Spark is helping us with the science, that’s great to know. We are just an engineering company, with some knowhow in dispersion technology, and we need others to do the science.

I am currently in the process of writing a book, which will shed some light on the many aspects of the matter. It will be published within the next two months.

Thanks for your interest, I really appreciate your thoughtful comments

Oswald

Oswald Petersen

Atmospheric Methane Removal AG

Lärchenstr. 5

CH-8280 Kreuzlingen