Picture this: to solve the catastrophic problem of global warming, scientists have been researching the idea of shooting diamond dust into the stratosphere to cool the earth. No, this isn’t a plot point strangely similar to “Twisters.” It’s a real proposition, and it may cost $200 trillion through the next 75-80 years, but could actually be a future climate change solution.
In the October issue of “Geophysical Research Letters,” scientists reported that shooting five million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere each year could cool the planet by 1.6 degrees Celsius. This strategy follows the geoengineering concept known as stratospheric aerosol injection. It’s inspired by volcanism and the natural release of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, where the cooling effect of these gasses reflects sunlight back into space.
In 1991, the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, one of the largest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, released massive amounts of the gas into the air, which combined with water vapor to form sulfate particles that reflected sunlight back into space. It subsequently had a cooling effect on the Earth, lowering the planet’s temperature by 0.5 degrees Celsius that year.
The new process currently being researched involves producing synthetic diamond dust particles and scattering or injecting them into the atmosphere in large amounts. The particles can reflect light and heat back into space, typically hang there long enough not to clump into acid rain like sulfur, and are chemically inert — meaning they will not react with other substances in the atmosphere. So, shooting about five million tons of diamond dust into the stratosphere each year could cool the planet by up to 1.6 degrees Celsius. Overall, they seem like the most environmentally friendly choice, and the most promising.
But, the aforementioned price is hefty. Experts have estimated that costs for this project could be far more expensive than any plans involving sulfur particles. At roughly $500,000 per ton, synthetic diamond dust would be 2,400 times more expensive than sulfur and cost $175-200 trillion if deployed from 2035 to 2100, one study estimates. According to Douglas MacMartin, a Cornell University climate engineer, sulfur is widely available because it naturally occurs in such large quantities. Because of its abundance, it becomes so cheap that the material costs would be close to nothing.
And that’s not the only benefit of sulfur over diamonds. Solid particles such as diamond would need to be gradually delivered over many flights as opposed to a few short ones for sulfur, as its gaseous form makes it easier to pump in higher amounts. Additionally, sulfur can be tested in large outdoor settings and are the only aerosols scientists can study in large, outdoor settings without much pushback, MacMartin says, because volcanic eruptions already test the process for us.
Research on this topic is still fairly scarce, and geoengineering is a highly-contested field due to its limited large-scale implementations. But if diamond dust truly could be a proactive and effective solution, and money became less of an object in the face of exponentially rising temperatures, it might just be the future of impacting our planet’s climate.
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