SPICE project to pump water 1 km up a hydraulic hose

ERJ staff report (DS)

Cambridge, UK -- Researchers are using a 1 km vertical rubber hose to in a bid to counteract global warming. The project is a pilot for a 25km-high hose which could inject micro particles into the high atmosphere to create global cooling along the lines of the Mount Pinatubo volcanic eruption in 1991.

A spokesman said the hose will be a standard hydraulic hose. The initial experiemt require it to withstand some 100 bar, whereas the full-scale experiment will need upwards of 2000 bar.

The initial technology test, led by Dr Hugh Hunt from the University of Cambridge in the UK,

involves pumping water to a height of 1km through a suspended hose, held

aloft by a helium-filled balloon. This will allow the engineers to study how the

hose and balloon behave over time in a variety of weather conditions and so

assess the feasibility of using this approach to potentially inject particles into

the stratosphere at an altitude of 20km.

The controversial geo-engineering project is part of the SPICE project (Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate

Engineering), a collaboration between researchers at the Universities of

Bristol, Cambridge, Edinburgh and Oxford, together with Marshall

Aerospace.

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Press release from SPICE