The only way that works is if all the oil execs are in ground zero.
At this rate, why not.
Submitted 2 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/aa894930-7b3a-47a6-a582-8a6367f992c0.jpeg
Comments
homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 months ago
whotookkarl@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I have a similar modest proposal to solving the wealth inequality hoarding problem of billionaires
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Someone needs to work out the inheritance fallout. With our luck it will still fall within the same families.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 2 months ago
I think y’all are missing the point here.
It’s really to justify the production and testing of an insanely large planet altering weapon that would create a really cool firework.
i_love_FFT@jlai.lu 2 months ago
The only way to convince conservatives to fight climate change is if we do it with guns and bombs
Liz@midwest.social 2 months ago
If it gets the job done, I’m willing to make that compromise.
JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Actually, one of their feasibility assumptions is that the device is too large to be used militarily.
peoplebeproblems@midwest.social 2 months ago
Ah. I suppose building an 81 gigaton nuclear weapon wouldn’t be small.
Let’s fire up the antimatter then!
Adalast@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I think they underestimate a military’s desire to use all of the things that go boom.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I mean… if we’re being honest, the long-term effects of global thermonuclear war would be (very eventual) carbon sequestration in tens to hundreds of millions of years, and then we’ll renew our oil reserves! We of course won’t be around to use them, seeing as we’ll have been sequestered into the oil.
Eheran@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Can we get new oil actually? I thought we now have organisms that can break down every organic matter and thus it can not really accumulate anymore?
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Oil actually comes from aquatic life (mostly plankton) that sinks to the sea floor and gets buried, squeezed and heated. Oil still forms today, but it’s a process of millions of years.
Coal is formed from plants, and that does indeed require something doesn’t eat it first. Swamps, for example, help a lot, letting the fallen trees sink down where most stuff can’t eat it. Peat can also form into coal. Coal forms even slower than oil though, and it’s much rarer, but it also doesn’t require an ocean, so it’s often more accessible for us land-living humans
frezik@midwest.social 2 months ago
There’s an abiotic pathway that creates new oil geologically. It’s a very small amount.
The theory is popular in Russia, where it’s claimed to be the main way oil is produced. That’s complete bullshit. It turned out there is some, but not enough to matter.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you squeeze a baby hard enough
mlfh@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Being sequestered into the oil sounds pretty nice at this point.
UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Another cycle, another life. Same shithole planet.
pennomi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Seems half-baked. Well unbaked really. They make a shit ton of assumptions that I’m not sure are true.
For example, why do they assume 90% pulverization efficiency of the basalt? Or is that a number they just pulled out of their ass?
And does ERW work if the pulverized rock is in a big pile on the sea floor? Or would we have to dig the highly radioactive area up and spread it around the surface?
And does the radioactive water truly stay at the site of the explosion? Or will it be spread through the entire ocean via currents?
Cool concept but, like, maybe we should check the assumptions a little harder?
kozy138@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Some people would literally rather nuke the planet than take a train to work…
TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee 2 months ago
And does ERW work if the pulverized rock is in a big pile on the sea floor? Or would we have to dig the highly radioactive area up and spread it around the surface?
Yeah… Doesn’t the carbon sequestering happen from rain absorbing carbon in the atmosphere and then attaching to the rock to mineralize it? Something tells me 6-7 km of ocean might impede that process.
And does the radioactive water truly stay at the site of the explosion? Or will it be spread through the entire ocean via currents?
Dilution is the solution…ocean big?
riodoro1@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Dilution was supposed to be the solution to the whole greenhouse gasses emissions, turns out atmosphere not … that big.
Eheran@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The ocean dissolves a large amount of CO2, which then, just like in the rain example, can react with minerals. It can react faster if there is more surface area of said minerals.
Venator@lemmy.nz 2 months ago
Also would it kill all the sea life leading to a large amount of greenhouse gas emissions from all the decomposing fish corpses? Does undersea decomposition release greenhouse gases?
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
And doesn’t plankton already sequester CO2 on the ocean floor when it dies?
smeg@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Every proposal to save the world ultimately comes back to the plot of The Core
shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
smeg@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Yes, by plot I of course mean those things that happened
Hikermick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Just spitballing here. These grand ideas good/bad practical/or not are the beginning of mankind learning how to geo engineer planets or moons. I’ll be long dead before I get proven right or wrong so it’s easy to spitball
SpaceRanger13@lemm.ee 2 months ago
Uh oh. What an apropos American way to go.
hypeerror@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Gotta nuke somethin’.
SparrowHawk@feddit.it 2 months ago
That would just make the molepeople mad and double our problems
Ack@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
They already hate us surface dwellers!
shittydwarf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
The last time I checked, we don’t have a whole lot of climate solutions that feature the bomb. And I’d be doing myself a disservice… and every member of this species, if I didn’t nuke the HELL out of this!
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
I’m pulling for artificial diamonds. It’s the funniest solution: dumping truckloads of precious gemstones back down empty wells. Or burying them in the desert. Or I guess just handing them out for industrial uses, since even grinding them to dust isn’t the same problem as CO2. Have a free bucket of aquarium gravel, made out of worthless tacky gold.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Hey, if you can make diamond that easily, we can exchange a LOT of substances for it. Not just windows and glasses, but pretty much every ceramic object, insulators, but also just toilets (slap some paint on it and done).
mindbleach@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
Drop a plate, floor breaks.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 months ago
This is by far the most practical “geoengineering” solution I’ve seen, far better than aerosols over the arctic, space shades or whatever. The ecological damage is comparatively miniscules.
And even then… quite a engineering feat. Nukes are actually quite “cheap” to scale up, but burying that much volume “3-5 km into the basalt-rich seafloor” is not something anyone is set-up to do.
But by far the hardest part is… information. Much of the world doesn’t even believe in climate change anymore, and by the time they do, it will be too late.
isolatedscotch@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 months ago
Dare to dream.
FoolishObserver@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I feel like the podcast Behind The Bastards talked about this in the episode released today.
jonne@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Did they talk about nuking the great lakes again?
FoolishObserver@lemmy.world 2 months ago
No: this was about how the US Government considered underground nuking Alaska for the coal, killing cattle to check for cancer, and having people believe it was aliens. I was at work, so I may have missed a few points, but there was a discussion on power via turbine powered by nuclear weapon melted salt.
nesc@lemmy.cafe 2 months ago
I love fusion explosions, I love fission explosions.
stelelor@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
rbos@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
The point is that it’s a passive process, not an active one. No need for pumping.
Water is so much denser than air that you do get more exposure time per unit time.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 months ago
I’ve got my fingers crossed for a Snowpiercer set up.
fckreddit@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Carbon sequestration is not going to solve global warming. CO2 is less than 2% of atmosphere. Even if you pass a shitton of air through the strata the difference will be negligible.
rbos@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Water absorbs a lot of co2 and removing it from the water via weathering is a valid idea.
fckreddit@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
I don’t know. What do you think is the concentration of CO2 in the sea water? I am just not convinced.
HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit
It’s the only way to be sure
stelelor@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
No more climate change if no more climate!
SabinStargem@lemmings.world 2 months ago
I guess Trump could add a new canal to the Red Sea, as per an old proposal involving nukes to dig it. Considering this administration, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.
MrPoopyButthole@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Drivel…
marcos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well, I’m sure controlled slow-paced mining is more energy efficient and will emit less carbon to create…
But I’m not stopping that guy. Go on. I’ll just watch from a safe distance.
anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Going of same value in the paper and wikipedia it would take the energy used by all of humanity in two months.
marcos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You either spend a truckload of resources during decades to make a bomb that explodes releasing the same energy humanity spends in two months, or you spend a truckload of resources doing the end task at a slower pace for decades.
The later is guaranteed to require a smaller truckload.
Obelix@feddit.org 2 months ago
Paper is here: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.06623
juliebean@lemm.ee 2 months ago
wow, and the bomb only needs a yield of 1620 times the largest nuclear bomb ever deployed.
marcos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“Nuclear explosions are inherently unsafe”
Well, he warns about it.
Soup@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Would 1,620 of those bombs work instead?
sober_monk@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Thanks for the link, interesting read! I know that a good paper is succint, but honestly, I thought that making the case for a gigaton-yield nuclear explosion to combat climate change would take more than four pages…
TeamAssimilation@infosec.pub 2 months ago
Study conclusion: YOLO
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It’s quite light on details.