Stardust Solutions believes that it can solve climate change—for a price.
The Israel-based geoengineering startup has said it expects nations will soon pay it more than a billion dollars a year to launch specially equipped aircraft into the stratosphere. Once they’ve reached the necessary altitude, those planes will disperse particles engineered to reflect away enough sunlight to cool down the planet, purportedly without causing environmental side effects.
The proprietary (and still secret) particles could counteract all the greenhouse gases the world has emitted over the last 150 years, the company stated in a 2023 pitch deck it presented to venture capital firms. In fact, it’s the “only technologically feasible solution” to climate change, the company said.
Stardust is, in a sense, the embodiment of Silicon Valley’s simmering frustration with the pace of academic research on the technology. It’s a multimillion-dollar bet that a startup mindset can advance research and development that has crept along amid scientific caution and public queasiness.
But numerous researchers focused on solar geoengineering are deeply skeptical that Stardust will line up the government customers it would need to carry out a global deployment as early as 2035, the plan described in its earlier investor materials—and aghast at the suggestion that it ever expected to move that fast. They’re also highly critical of the idea that a company would take on the high-stakes task of setting the global temperature, rather than leaving it to publicly funded research programs.
peternn2412 on
The specially equipped aircraft should go to the stratosphere and disperse there the idiots who concocted this lunacy.
The expectations that someone equally crazy will pay them billions of dollars are ridiculous. This could have worked 7-8 years ago in the peak of the climate hysteria, but today that’s absurd.
seimalau on
That’s just how matrix happened. Humans darkened the skies so robots had to farm humans for energy.
Guitarman0512 on
So, if they manage to pull this off, do we get a say in it? Meddling with the planet’s atmosphere hasn’t exactly benefited us over the years, so it seems like a terrible idea.
mak05 on
Do they want Snowpiercer to happen? Cause this is how Snowpiercer happens.
Denbt_Nationale on
Watch as redditors fear-monger our only real shot at actually reversing climate change because “atmospheric chemistry is scary” or “it’s just like a movie I saw once” or “but greenhouse gasses are ontologically evil and releasing them is bad even if the consequences are completely mitigated”. It’s crazy how dogmatically attached people are to net zero climate strategies even though it’s absurdly expensive, almost impossible to actually enact globally and possibly completely ineffective if climate tipping points have already been passed.
NorskKiwi on
This is potentially a terrible idea. Imagine we hit a natutal cooling period whilst these climate alterers have implemented a solution that makes us colder… and then the plant falls into a premature ice age.
Arc_Nexus on
This poses a very interesting question. How many Palestinian children would you kill to solve global warming?
talex365 on
What’s the worst that could happen from spreading particulates in the atmosphere in sufficient quantities to reflect sunlight to space? I don’t see any way this could backfire, like people getting asthma or cancer.
Sleepdprived on
Can we do this in a way that wont effect the light used by the bottom of our food chain? I am concerned that lower levels of light will cause less plankton growth and less o2 production as well as a food chain crisis
MarcSpector1701 on
The countries of the world are not going to be able to get their shit together on clean energy in time to stop the worst effects of global warming from coming to pass because the economic incentive still isn’t there. Geo-engineering is eventually going to happen. Once the climate gets really, really uncomfortable for either the US, China, or the EU, geo-engineering will happen.
poo_poo_platter83 on
I dont think they realize how quickly this can initiate wars
NuclearFoodie on
Everything about this is absolutely insane and this company needs to be shutdown before they can do anything. They have a fundamentally incorrect view of how climate works, of how heating and cooling cycles in the year work, of how global warming works. Their plan won’t cool the planet, it will heat it much more. It reflects light at the wrong time and places.
dorkyitguy on
So we’re just not going to worry about the acidifying oceans? Warming is only one problem with our CO2 emissions. When the bottom of the food chain dies off it will be more than just an issue for rich people that live on the beach.
14 Comments
Stardust Solutions believes that it can solve climate change—for a price.
The Israel-based geoengineering startup has said it expects nations will soon pay it more than a billion dollars a year to launch specially equipped aircraft into the stratosphere. Once they’ve reached the necessary altitude, those planes will disperse particles engineered to reflect away enough sunlight to cool down the planet, purportedly without causing environmental side effects.
The proprietary (and still secret) particles could counteract all the greenhouse gases the world has emitted over the last 150 years, the company stated in a 2023 pitch deck it presented to venture capital firms. In fact, it’s the “only technologically feasible solution” to climate change, the company said.
Stardust is, in a sense, the embodiment of Silicon Valley’s simmering frustration with the pace of academic research on the technology. It’s a multimillion-dollar bet that a startup mindset can advance research and development that has crept along amid scientific caution and public queasiness.
But numerous researchers focused on solar geoengineering are deeply skeptical that Stardust will line up the government customers it would need to carry out a global deployment as early as 2035, the plan described in its earlier investor materials—and aghast at the suggestion that it ever expected to move that fast. They’re also highly critical of the idea that a company would take on the high-stakes task of setting the global temperature, rather than leaving it to publicly funded research programs.
The specially equipped aircraft should go to the stratosphere and disperse there the idiots who concocted this lunacy.
The expectations that someone equally crazy will pay them billions of dollars are ridiculous. This could have worked 7-8 years ago in the peak of the climate hysteria, but today that’s absurd.
That’s just how matrix happened. Humans darkened the skies so robots had to farm humans for energy.
So, if they manage to pull this off, do we get a say in it? Meddling with the planet’s atmosphere hasn’t exactly benefited us over the years, so it seems like a terrible idea.
Do they want Snowpiercer to happen? Cause this is how Snowpiercer happens.
Watch as redditors fear-monger our only real shot at actually reversing climate change because “atmospheric chemistry is scary” or “it’s just like a movie I saw once” or “but greenhouse gasses are ontologically evil and releasing them is bad even if the consequences are completely mitigated”. It’s crazy how dogmatically attached people are to net zero climate strategies even though it’s absurdly expensive, almost impossible to actually enact globally and possibly completely ineffective if climate tipping points have already been passed.
This is potentially a terrible idea. Imagine we hit a natutal cooling period whilst these climate alterers have implemented a solution that makes us colder… and then the plant falls into a premature ice age.
This poses a very interesting question. How many Palestinian children would you kill to solve global warming?
What’s the worst that could happen from spreading particulates in the atmosphere in sufficient quantities to reflect sunlight to space? I don’t see any way this could backfire, like people getting asthma or cancer.
Can we do this in a way that wont effect the light used by the bottom of our food chain? I am concerned that lower levels of light will cause less plankton growth and less o2 production as well as a food chain crisis
The countries of the world are not going to be able to get their shit together on clean energy in time to stop the worst effects of global warming from coming to pass because the economic incentive still isn’t there. Geo-engineering is eventually going to happen. Once the climate gets really, really uncomfortable for either the US, China, or the EU, geo-engineering will happen.
I dont think they realize how quickly this can initiate wars
Everything about this is absolutely insane and this company needs to be shutdown before they can do anything. They have a fundamentally incorrect view of how climate works, of how heating and cooling cycles in the year work, of how global warming works. Their plan won’t cool the planet, it will heat it much more. It reflects light at the wrong time and places.
So we’re just not going to worry about the acidifying oceans? Warming is only one problem with our CO2 emissions. When the bottom of the food chain dies off it will be more than just an issue for rich people that live on the beach.