Sixty days and counting - Kim Stanley Robinson [106]
Meanwhile, on another front, captured carbon dioxide was being injected into depleted oil wells. Compressed and frozen, the dry ice was put under pressure until it flowed down old oil pipes and filled the pores of rock that had been drained of its oil. They were doing it in Canada, off Norway in the North Sea, and they were now starting to do it in Texas. Putting the carbon dioxide down there both sequestered it nicely, for thousands of years at least, and also put more pressure on the remaining oil deposits, making them easier to pump up. Because even if they stopped burning oil, they still needed it as the feed-stock for plastics and pesticides. They would still be wearing it and eating it; they would just stop burning it.
All these projects were pouring into NSF and Energy and many other federal agencies and being screened by Diane’s committee and placed into the mission architecture that indicated what they needed all up and down the structure of their new technology. There were very few weak points or question marks in this architecture! They could swap out power and transport in less than ten years!
But even if they stabilized carbon emissions immediately, even if they were to stop burning carbon entirely, which was a theoretical possibility only, for the sake of calculation, global temperatures would continue to rise for many years. The continuity effect, as they called it, and a nasty problem to contemplate. It was an open question whether temperatures even in the best case scenario would rise enough to cross the threshhold to further positive feedbacks that would cause it to rise even more. Models were not at all precise on this subject.
So they had to continue to discuss the ocean problems, among many others. In one meeting, Diane asked Frank about the Sample Basin Study that was looking into flooding dry lake basins, and Frank called up an e-mail from the P.I.
Frank said, “China likes the idea. They say they’ve already done similar things, at Three Gorges of course, but also at four more dams like Three Gorges. Those are mostly for hydroelectric and flood control, and they’re seeing climate effects downwind, but they feel they’ve got experience with the process, and say they would be willing to take more. And the biggest basins on Earth are all theirs.”
“But, salt water?”
“Any lake helps cloud formation, so they would be hydrating the deserts downwind by precipitating out.”
“Still, it’s hard to imagine them sacrificing that much land.”
“True. But clearly there’s going to be something like carbon cap credits set up. Some kind of sea water credits, given to countries for taking up sea water. Maybe even combine it with carbon trading, so that taking up sea water earns carbon credits. Or funding for desalination plants on the basin’s new shorelines. Or whatever. Some kind of compensation.”
Diane said, “I suppose we could arrange a treaty with them.”
Later they worked on the Antarctic aspect of the plan. The dry basins of the world didn’t have enough capacity to keep sea level in place anyway, so they needed to push the Antarctic idea too. If that ended up working, then in theory the Eastern Antarctic Ice Sheet would be able to handle all possible excess, and the dry basins up north would only be filled if the net effects of doing so looked good to the host country.
“Sounds good. But it’s a lot of water.”
That night Frank walked out of the security gate on 17th Street, at the south end of the Old Executive Offices, and across the street there was a woman standing as if waiting for the light to change. His heart pounded in his chest like a child trying to escape. He stared—was it really her?
She nodded, jerked her head sideways: follow me. She walked up to G Street and Frank did too, on the other side of the street. His pulse was flying. An amazing physical response—well, but she had been out of touch and now there she was, her face so vivid, so distinctly hers, leaping out of reality into his mind.