One more scientist on the need for urgency

Another guy with his hair on fire

Posted by JMG (Guest Contributor) at 11:31 AM on 23 Aug 2007

Read more about: climate | climate change mitigation | climate science

Another good Scientific blogging interview is "Urgency and Global Warming: An Interview with Martin I. Hoffert." I'm tempted to quote the whole thing, but instead you should just go read it. He's much more of a techno-optimist than I think is warranted, but if we all shared his sense of urgency, it would probably be more realistic.

(Apparently he hasn't read The Black Swan either.)

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Hoffert says,

The atmosphere is transparent to laser and microwave beams -- why we see the stars with our eyes and astronomers see them radiotelescopes. But laser wavelengths are 100,000 time shorter, and the smaller components associated with the much less diffractive lasers make them in my opinion a much better place to start.

This is an ill-considered point of view, I think. It is the long wavelength of microwaves that makes multi-gigawatt microwave beams from geosynchronous orbit impossible to focus any more sharply than a few km width; which is to say, impossible to weaponize.

Also, antennae to convert microwaves back to electricity have been demonstrated, repeatedly I think, but I'm unaware of any such
history for micron or shorter waves.

I seem to recall having the lasers-from-space-to-your-car-hood sickness for a short while, but I got over it.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
How shall the car gain solar cachet?

by GRLCowan at 12:14 PM on 23 Aug 2007

Why is wind/solar/geothermal...

...not considered a possible solution by Hoffert, and even Hansen, and from what I can tell other well-meaning scientists, who seem to be somewhat stuck in the "coal carbon capture" ideas of a few years ago? For instance, the Stanford engineering professor Jacobson has been pushing the idea that wind power could replace fossil fuels, and you might disagree with him, but there is at least some academic respectability to what he is doing.

Otherwise, and except for the SSP business, Hoffert is very good on the problems, if not the best on the solutions.

by Jon Rynn at 1:17 PM on 23 Aug 2007

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