I need some volunteers for a special climate related project.

I have a need to test something. Unfortunately testing that something requires a lot of careful manual labor at the PC keyboard.

When the work is done, it will give a basis for a comparison that as far as I know, has not been done before.

I don’t want to say what it is, because I’d like the work to proceed without having to deal with commentary until it is done. It’s easy work without need of any special skills other than attention to detail, and can be done at your computer. While it is just detailed and somewhat tedious, I consider it very important.  The scope of work is far larger than one person can do easily, which is why I’m asking for help from my loyal readers. I figure I need at least 20 volunteers to do it. The more volunteers the better, because it will mean that each volunteer will have less work. You can do this from anywhere in the world with any Internet connection on any PC or Mac.

The caveats:

1. You have to be a real person known to me. No phantoms or non de plumes. You can stay under a handle on this forum, but you have to reveal your identity to me privately. No exceptions.

2. Once I get a volunteer count, I’ll divide up the work amongst the total volunteers and make assignments

3. Everyone will get credited in the final result, unless you opt not to.

4. The results will be made public on this forum when the project is complete, eta 15-30 days. Results will be made available for sharing, checking and replication by others.

5. Be prepared for perhaps as much as 8-12 hours of detailed work, possibly more, possibly less, based on how many volunteers we have.

6. Self starters will do best; once I turn you loose with instructions, there won’t be much support I can offer beyond answering questions.

7. There’s a chance the results may show nothing of interest, but the work needs to be done so that a comparison can be made.

If this sounds like something you would like to help with, please indicate your willingness to help with this project in comments below, and I will contact you privately.

UPDATE 7/7/08: I have plenty of volunteers, and the project will go very quickly now with this many. So I’m closing the thread for additional volunteers. Thos that have volunteered, look for an email from project -at- surfacestations dawt org in the next day or so and we’ll work out assignments.

NBC and Partners to buy Weather Channel

NEW YORK (AP) — NBC Universal and two partners said Sunday they have reached a deal to buy The Weather Channel from Landmark Communications Inc., ending a drawn-out process that had attracted interest from several major media companies.

Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity said the purchase price was $3.5 billion in cash. NBC was joined in the deal by the private equity firms The Blackstone Group LP and Bain Capital LLC.

See complete story at CNN Money

In related news, there are unsubtantiated rumors that NBC will rebrand TWC:

Also Going Down: Carbon dioxide burial reaches a milestone

Climate project: Dr Peter Cook holds sandstone from the Otway Basin, where 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide has been stored underground.
Photo: Glen McCurtayne

From Australia’s The Age.

Orietta Guerrera

July 7, 2008

IT IS technology vital to the Government’s hopes of cutting greenhouse emissions from Australia’s huge coal-fired power stations: capturing carbon dioxide from the polluting stations and burying it deep underground.

Australia’s first trial of geosequestration in the Otways reached its first milestone last week — 10,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide was successfully stored two kilometres underground in a depleted natural gas field.

Scientists from the Co-operative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies hope to increase that to 100,000 tonnes next year, while continuing to monitor the local geology.

The centre’s chief executive, Dr Peter Cook, who is overseeing the $40 million project, is confident that the day will come when much of the carbon dioxide produced from large industrial sources can be buried.

See the complete article here in Australia’s The Age.

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Ok here is my question: What about the long term effects of such a thing? One of the biggest complaints about radioactive hazardous waste disposal is that there is no confidence in predictions of long term stability of the burial site.

Take for example water, how do we know that this formation won’t become water saturated, and that the water will dissolve CO2 into the water and carry it elsewhere only to be released into the atmosphere again? Or how do we know that the system won’t vent the CO2 back to the surface gradually due to displacement or other geologic action?

I’ll point out that CO2 is a heck of a lot more reactive and soluble than glass encapsulated nuclear waste, yet nobody seems to think a thing about it.

In my opinion, the premise of CO2 burial seems absurd not only because of the lack of supporting evidence for certain climate change, but also due to it’s lack of foresight as to the effects of the burial scheme.