MIRROR REFLECTION
Preface
Mirror reflection is an unproven climate solution. The science is not yet published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, the solution is not fully developed, and the environmental impact assessment process hasn’t even begun.
So why mention it in the same breath as vegan reforestation?
It’s the only other climate solution that might safely stop global warming.
Introduction
Let’s use cooking oatmeal on the stovetop as an analogy for global warming. If you are heating the oatmeal too quickly, you have two options. You can retain less heat by removing the lid or you can turn down the heat.
In climate change terms, we can retain less heat by removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere or turn down the heat by reflecting more sunlight.
Retain Less Heat: Vegan reforestation is the long-term solution because it restores safe carbon dioxide levels and it recharges ecosystems and biological diversity, which sustain what sustains us (oxygen, healthy soil to grow food, and water cycles). But vegan reforestation may not remove atmospheric carbon dioxide fast enough to save humanity.
Turn Down the Heat: On the other hand, mirror reflection is an immediate way to reflect sunlight and thereby bounce radiant energy back out to space.
How the Earth Cooled 0.5 degrees Celsius
For decades, scientific panels have debated a dangerous, irrevocable geoengineering solution. Spray sulfur into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight to cool the Earth.
On the one hand, it will probably work. 20 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide was injected into the stratosphere in a huge 1991 volcanic eruption by Mount Pinatubo. According to a Nature article, the haze cooled the planet by around 0.5 degrees C for about 18 months.
But that same article stated that sulfur dioxide sped up ozone depletion. In addition, the sulfur dioxide is thought to have helped create the 1993 Storm of the Century, it disrupted weather patterns and it formed acid rain.
Mirror Reflection
Harvard scientist Dr. Ye Tao suggests another approach.
He maintains we must use glass mirrors on Earth’s surface to reflect sunlight, and leverage the safety and versatility of the mirrors to catalyze a transition to a carbon-neutral future. A 10 foot by 10 foot mirror in most parts of the world cancels the global warming of 1 ton of CO2. That same mirror costs below $10 at scale.
Glass can be manufactured using sand and solar energy. And using well-established nanoscale technology, we can create ultrathin aluminum film 50-100 nm thick.
Land-based mirrors (such as in deserts) will account for the majority of the mirrors, as they are low-tech and easy to install and maintain. These mirrors require a ceramic support grid, which can be made using rocks and relatively low energy consumption.
We can also use hollow, floating mirrors in reservoirs (freshwater saving) and oceans. Like a weeble, their center of gravity point down to keep the mirrors facing up.
Since global warming is increasing, let’s assume RCP 4.5, which is the IPCC scenario wherein we heat up the Earth at 4.5W per square meter. That is almost twice the present-day heating of the Earth. To stabilize current temperatures in 2021 given the RCP 4.5 scenario, Dr. Tao maintains that we need 200,000 square kilometers per year of mirror installation in the ocean and the deserts for ten years.
That’s about the size of Kansas, every year, for ten years. He believes we could choose 100% implementation solely on land. But he also emphasized we must use these 10 years to transition the world's energy structure to new solar thermal technologies enabled by cheap access to heliostats based on glass mirror arrays.
I asked Dr. Tao about the feasibility of his mirror reflection solution.
[Dr. Tao] I believe it’s totally feasible. This production rate is about 10 times the current global glass production rate, so it’s within the reach of policy-supported scaling. There is enough global glass reserves to sustain cooling to beyond 1,000 ppm CO2.
[Arvin] How much aluminum would be needed?
[Dr. Tao] Less than what Norway recycles within a year is sufficient for the entire project.
[Arvin] Could you please talk about the cost of the project?
[Dr. Tao] It would cost about $50B - $500B per year globally, or at most 3% of the United States GDP.
[Arvin] Assuming a massive worldwide initiative, how long would it take to implement?
[Dr. Tao] I would be surprised if the required infrastructure could not be achieved within a couple years after an initial, intensive R&D [research and development] phase of 3 years. The cost of this initial phase is of order 100 million USD.
February 17, 2021
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Dr. Tao said he’ll be submitting his scientific paper on mirror reflection to stop global warming around June 2021, and that peer-reviewed scientific publication would follow a few months later. By 2022, I believe global leaders in the fight against the climate crisis, members of the youth and social justice movements, and leading research institutes will start to seriously engage in developing Dr. Ye’s program, which he calls Framework MEER:ReflEction.
I love Dr. Tao’s plan to use the humble mirror to solve climate change. If we combine vegan reforestation with mirror reflection, they form a powerful combination to rapidly solve climate change. It’s also worth noting that Dr. Ye’s plan may solve climate change, but it will not single-handedly save the Earth because it will not stop biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.
Or in other works, let’s combine vegan reforestation with mirror reflection to avert game over.
***The article image is an artist rendition purely for illustrative purposes.