Re: If all the ice melted...

From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Mon Jul 02 2001 - 15:03:38 MDT


CurtAdams@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 7/1/01 6:30:19 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
> spike66@attglobal.net writes:
>
> > If GM works out the way I expect, farmland
> > will be cheap indeed. China is going ahead with flooding
> > huge tracts of land for a dam. Seems like Mike's Caspian Sea
> > notion is workable.
>
> Look at a map. The Three Gorges Dam floods only
> a tiny piece of land compared to the Caspian Sea
> flood. It's in a series of gorges (duh) and the
> north side of the Caspian is pretty flat.

Thats right, which is why it permits such a large volume to be
sequestered there. In my research on various below sea levels around the
world, none match that of the Caspian in volume. 20-30 cm of the 1.2
meters in world sea level mitigation I calculated comes from filling the
Caspian to sea level, the rest comes from filling up to the point where
it would start draining back over the surrounding topography. The Death
Valley, the Dead Sea, and the Great Rift Valley are all rather small
volumes compared to that. I have not looked at the depression in the
central Sahara that Robert is speaking of, so I don't know its volume
below sea level.

>
> >> A couple of other countries would have
> >> non-trivial compensation requests too. Your proposal
> >> just points out the huge costs of even small changes
> >> in sea level.
>
> >Agreed. There are a lot of countries which would likely
> >kick in some gold to buy land from the commies for
> >water storage purposes.
>
> I agree it's cheaper than rebuilding every seaport on the
> planet, most seafront properties, and a number of low-
> lying cities.

Making the Caspian larger makes more waterfront property, so you are
increasing value there.

>
> >Seems like a far cheaper solution
> >than reducing CO2 emissions. spike
>
> That I don't agree with. Buying trillions of Caspian Sea
> property seems more expensive to me than nukes and
> fuel cells.

Ah, depends not just on the equipment for the cars, but infrastructure
changes too. Going to a hydrogen fuel economy would cost a minimum of $5
trillion.



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