Mongolia Making Homemade Glaciers to Fight…Global Warming
- Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:08pm by
Liz Klimas
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In yet another effort to use geothermal engineering techniques to reverse the effects of global warming, an engineering company in Mongolia’s capitol is set to make its own glaciers to “help to cool and water the city as it slowly melts during the summer,” according to The Guardian.
The glacier experiment will take place on the Tuul River in Ulan Bator. (Photo: Mongolia Travel Guide)
The Guardian reports that the engineering firm ECOS & EMI will drill holes in forming ice in the Tuul river this winter and create “layers of ice rinks” from water that springs up to the surface as a result and freezes. The firm will do this several times this winter in the hopes that they will be able to “store” freezing winter temperatures in Ulan Bator for warmer summer months.
(Image: The Guardian)
The Guardian has more on the technique that the firm hopes will decrease reliance on air conditioners and provide more supply for drinking and irrigation water:
The project aims to artificially create “naleds” – ultra-thick slabs of ice that occur naturally in far northern climes when rivers or springs push through cracks in the surface to seep outwards during the day and then add an extra layer of ice during the night. Unlike regular ice formation on lakes — which only gets to a metre in thickness before it insulates the water below – naleds continue expanding for as long as there is enough water pressure to penetrate the surface. Many are more than seven metres thick, which means they melt much later than regular ice.
[...]
The qualities of naleds (also known as Aufeis, German for “ice on top”)have been known for hundreds of years. The North Korean military used them to build river crossings for tanks during the winter and Russia has used them as drilling platforms. But engineers usually see them in negative terms as a threat to railways and bridges.
The Anglo-Mongolian company believe their proposed use in Ulan Bator could set a positive example that allows northern cities around the world to save on summer air conditioning costs, regulate drinking supplies, and create cool microclimates.
The $750,000 “ice shield” project, if proven to actually work, could be adopted in areas with sufficiently code winters and hot, dry summers.
Two more stories on geothermal engineering reverse the effects are assuage the effects of global warming include carbon fixing and simulating volcanic ash using a giant, soccer field-size balloon.
[H/T Gizmodo]
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Comments (63)
undercover
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:38pmLooks like a good recipe for spring and summer flooding to me!
Report Post »smokeysmoke
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 7:49pmyou know those images in CHINA, of those BIG POOLS that look like a SEWAGE TRATEMENT PLANT….. FOLLOW THE CANALS NORTH….. IS THAT WHAT THESE CANALS DO… WHY EVERY 40 MILES DOES IT LOOK LIKE WATER IS BEING PUMPED INTO THE CANAL…. ARE THEY MELTING ICE OR PUMPING OUT GROUNDWANTER and stroing it…. man these are some weirdos over there
Report Post »AOL_REFUGEE
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 8:01pmWould that be Inner or Outer Mongolia?
Report Post »celestialfire
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 11:23pmJust read over this link and Smoky, your pumping out groundwater theory may be right.
The Inner Mongolian city of Ordos is literally a goldmine. It sits atop one-sixth of China’s coal reserves, a third of China’s natural gas reserves and produces one-sixth of the country’s cashmere products.
And if that’s not enough, it holds the most rare earth reserves in the world.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/eastasia/view/1149825/1/.html
Report Post »treyeangledlockdown
Posted on November 19, 2011 at 4:29pmThis is a great idea. The bad idea is still believing in global warming. Its dumb ass ideas like these that just test to see how many dumb asses agree.
Report Post »MBA
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:29pmWow, at least they are actually “doing something” instead of whining and making tax payer throw money at algore and fake green businesses. Everyone has that enterprenerial thing down exept the US liberal whiners.
Report Post »Stoopy Afeist
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 11:46pmNot to mention that it’s pretty awesome looking.
Report Post »ThankBabyJesus
Posted on November 17, 2011 at 4:19amWell said. Whiny liberals in power can’t comprehend the entrepreneurial spirit and how easy it is to realize that they themselves are the ones preventing, with regulatory capture, the great breakthroughs this great country was once known for.
Report Post »OniKaze
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:05pmCreative…. It won’t work, but its creative… Ice will melt too quickly for this to buy them more time than maybe a week… If that is worth nearly 1 million to them, then I guess go for it…
Report Post »Welcome Black Carter
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 11:48pmfor sure. When I want to cool my swimming pool I simply throw in an ice cube. Makes perfect sense to me.
Report Post »ROMANS 10-9
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:03pmNuclear Winter would be more productive!
Report Post »ROMANS 10-9
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:03pmLets just send then a Nuclear Winter!
Report Post »Chuck Stein
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:20pmWhat do you have against the Mongols? Not as if it’s the 13th Century. For the past 100 years, they have been kicked around by Russia and China. I wish them all the best.
Report Post »flyfshr33
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:44pmChuck,
Romans just an idiot don’t give him the satisfaction. As someone that has been to Mongolia and seen first hand that this country is set to become on the the largest economies in the world per capita. Double digit growth rates in 2011 and projections that GDP will grow at double digits for the next 10 years. A currency the continues to grow against the dollar every year and actually pays an outstanding 13% interest. Mongolia seems to be doing just fine. Yet Romans sits here and talks about Nuclear winter. I think the Mongols have it figured out.
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 7:34pmI’ll 2nd what Chuck Stein said.
Report Post »Locked
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:02pmInteresting. It’s not to help “global warming,” or at least nothing in the article says that; it’s an effort to reduce summer temperatures in a local area to see if the costs incurred by the city come down. If it works that sounds pretty neat. Urban areas always have more extreme temperatures due to the heat island effect; I’ll be curious to see if this counteracts it well enough to justify the cost.
Report Post »ares338
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:45pmMaybe we could send them a few thousand polar bears to like…uh …you know..eat them!!!!!!!! The bears would love the really groovy frozen glacier and it’s the socially responsible thing to do.
Report Post »gmoneytx
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:45pmWell what can I say, I guess it’s creative…
Report Post »grayling646
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:41pmGolly gee, this will create soooo many jobs….
…paid for by the taxpayers of Mongolia
Report Post »grayling646
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:42pmHmmmm, does Mongolia have taxpayers? lol
Report Post »82dAirborne
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:49pmI just checked we give Mongolia a fair chunk of change in aid. So that’s our money too! Don’t you just feel all warm and fuzzy knowing that????????
Report Post »Walkabout
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 9:41pm82dAirborne
But the other uses were useful to know for combat engineers
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:40pmI always knew Mongoloids were stupid enviromentalists…
Report Post »tugdiver
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:39pmfunny thing s that the main function of a tree is to put moisture back up in the air. Cut down trees and you have desert, plant a bunch of trees and you have a rain forest. Lower temperatures and getting water up and freezing it will create a thermal pool. These people are right. Could the observation about global warming be caused by deforestation and not carbon??
I ask this because when you condense CO2 to a solid it is colorless. Sulphur dioxide and nitrous all have a tint and heat up but those gasses are already down significantly. Maybe our concern should be deforestation as opposed to combustion. But hey on a hot summer day I would rather be in a forest than a paved parking lot. lol
Report Post »siguy62
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:37pmThis will certainly help cool the area near the naled, but will contribute not lessen global warming. The creation of a naled, requires the pumping of vast amounts of earth bound H2O up to the surface,where it freezes. When air temps rise, the ice melts, a great deal of this evaporates before reentering the earth. The problem, on a global basis is that H2O is the single largest contributor to the Greenhouse effect. Much larger a player than CO2. Overall effect. Greater global climate heating, in exchange for cooling a small area.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:42pmWho gave them the Money… and designed the Project? Is this more of the UN?
Report Post »AvengerK
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:45pmOh the weather outside is frightful,
Report Post »But the irony is so delightful,
That everywhere Algore goes,
It just snows and it snows and it snows.
watashbuddyfriend
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:36pmI have said, and posted, saying that we need a project to funnel salt water from the seas, desalt it, then flood the deserts with the water, thereby creating vegetation, which would feed the starving nations, not to mention helping the environment. Let me mention that there is no new water coming to earth. All we have is water recirculated via storms, etc.
Report Post »82dAirborne
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:35pmThey are going to need a hell of a lot of tea!!!
Report Post »someonewhocares
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:37pmWhat a complete waste of time.
http://politicalbowl.com – Political Videos
Report Post »TRILO
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:32pmIn the grand scheme of the world climate I see no possible way that this will have any impact except that it will be a waste of $$. I am so sick of hearing about global warming.
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:26pmAl Gore,, Calling Al Gore,
Ive just found the thing for your new man-made global warming scam. Ice credits
Report Post »jb.kibs
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:25pmThey forgot to add “And mess with Nature and see what happens as an equal and opposite reaction”
Report Post »ZAP
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:25pmThe $750,000 “ice shield” project, if proven to actually work, could be adopted in areas with sufficiently code winters and hot, dry summers***** I hate code winters
Report Post »jb.kibs
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:31pmo man, not code winters!
Report Post »shirelover
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:29pmI‘m glad to see that I’m not the only one who noticed “code” for cold! :-)
Report Post »quicker
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 6:48pmIt`s just code.
Report Post »John 1776
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:24pmActually, not a bad idea if it can be done on the cheap! I live in the north-east and often though about how much money I could save if I could store “cold” from the winter and “warm” from the summer! (Yea, I know, no such thing as “cold” as it is the lack of heat.)
Anyway, up in Jim Thorpe PA, there is a house from the 1800′s that had AC! (Asa Packer Mansion) They would store tons of ice from the winter in an ice house and circulate the air (by convection) through the main house in the summer to cool it. Those crazy capitalists!
Report Post »ozchambers
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:27pmThis makes more sense than sticking corn in my gas tank.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:22pmOh, yea… this will work… in NYC or Egypt! They just want cheap Ice to go with their cheap Vodka!
Report Post »TX_45_ACP
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:39pmWell, at least Mongolian bar-b-q is good.
Report Post »thegreatcarnac
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:21pmThis just in…..Snow cone stands flood Mongolia.
Report Post »Sergei
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:19pmMy Mongolian women are geniuses
Report Post »The10thAmendment
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:29pmWe know that it is doomed to fail. Planet earth regulates itself. Upset that balance and the results will be catastrophic.
Carbon (man made) isn’t doing anything to the earth climate. We‘re experiencing cooling because that’s what the earth does in its natural cycles. We have already gone past the high temp mark and the needle is headed down in its normal 300 year cooling period.
Report Post »Tom
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:18pmI see a great investment for our Tax dollars I hope the DOE is all over this. They have an awesome track record.
Report Post »commonsenseguy
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:17pmthey can’t hardly fed their own people,and most don’t even have access to running water or air conditioning, so why waste the money,
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 4:16pm.
Report Post »There is Stupid, and then there is THEM………..
flyfshr33
Posted on November 16, 2011 at 5:35pmYou know whats stupid? A name like Spankdamonkey.
American’s sure are arrogant and ignorant. If you took the time to do some research you would find that Mongolia is set to become one of the largest economies in the world per capita. 1st Quarter 2011 saw an incredible 9.7% GDP growth with anticipated double digit growth throughout the next 10 years. There currency is rapidly appreciating against the dollar and there banks pay out a whopping 13% interest. Last time I checked that beats the US. This may be a misguided attempt to fix something that doesn’t exist. But stupid comments from people like you are worse.
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