14 DAY TRIAL // An engineer from the UK believes that he can find a way to use titanium dioxide, a chemical compound typically found in sunscreen lotions, to fight back global warming.
His rationale is as follows: since your average sunscreen protects people at the beach by absorbing the UV (ultraviolet) radiation coming from the sun, is it really impossible to apply the same principle in order to UV-proof the entire planet and put global warming behind us?
As greenerideal.com explains, Professor Peter Davidson's plan is to have balloons filled with titanium dioxide flown into the atmosphere. By means of a hypersonic nozzle, the titanium dioxide will then be dispersed throughout the planet.
Apparently, his choice of chemical compound is based on the fact that titanium dioxide has both a considerable resistance to discoloration when exposed to UV light and is quite capable of absorbing UV light.
Therefore, once it reaches our atmosphere, it can easily act as a sun-blocker, bouncing back UV radiation and thus help cool off the earth's surface.
In an interview for the National Geographic, Peter Davidson explained that “about three million tons of titanium dioxide — spread into a layer around a millionth of a millimeter thick — would be enough to offset the warming effects caused by a doubling of today’s atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.”
For the time being, this plan seems to have one very obvious drawback: about $800 million (roughly €637 million) will have to be invested just in designing and manufacturing the said balloons, whilst an additional $2-3 billion (about €1.6 – 2.4 billion) will be spent on the titanium dioxide alone.
Not to mention that these are financial estimates for keeping the project up and running throughout the course of just one year.
However, what most green-heads worry about is the fact that Peter Davidson's plan will basically lead to even more foreign substances being pushed into an already overcrowded chemically-wise atmosphere. As far as they are concerned, this is quite likely to cause more problems than it solves.
From where we stand, given the estimated costs, it might take several years before such balloons actually make their way up towards the sky, and by then Professor Davidson might change his mind on his own accord.