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| A 100 cubic meter Baby Trump balloon filled with sulfur dioxide could earn three million dollars in Make Sunsets credits |
By James Temple December 24, 2022
A startup claims it has launched weather balloons that may have released reflective sulfur particles in the stratosphere, potentially crossing a controversial barrier in the field of solar geoengineering.
That refers to deliberate efforts to manipulate the climate by reflecting more sunlight back into space, mimicking a natural process that occurs in the aftermath of large volcanic eruptions. In theory, spraying sulfur and similar particles in sufficient quantities could potentially ease global warming… Some researchers who have long studied the technology are deeply troubled that the company, Make Sunsets is already attempting to sell “cooling credits” for future balloon flights that could carry larger payloads...
Luke Iseman, the co-founder and CEO of Make Sunsets, acknowledges the effort is part entrepreneurial and part provocation, an act of geoengineering activism...
“We joke slash not joke that this is partly
a company and partly a cult,” he says.
Iseman, previously a director of hardware at Y Combinator, says he expects to be pilloried by both geoengineering critics and researchers in the field for taking such a step...
Balloon launches
By Iseman’s own description, the first two balloon launches were very rudimentary. He says they occurred in April somewhere in the Baja peninsula, months before Make Sunsets was incorporated in October. Iseman says he pumped a few grams of sulfur dioxide into weather balloons and added what he estimated would be the right amount of helium to carry them into the stratosphere...
The company is already attempting to earn revenue from the cooling effects of future flights. It is offering to sell $10 “cooling credits” on its site, for releasing one gram of particles in the stratosphere — enough, it asserts, to offset the warming effect of one ton of carbon for one year.
: MIT Technology Review
