Across the Atlantic, a Bill Gates-backed project aims to block the sun and prevent global warming, halting climate change in its tracks.
While this sounds like pure sci-fi, it’s in fact one of hundreds of different plans to ‘geoengineer’ the Earth.
Geoengineering is the large-scale manipulation of environmental processes that affect Earth’s climate, in an attempt to halt global warming.
Globally, geoengineering projects include injecting chemical aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and sucking carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air with giant fans.
There’s also ‘ocean fertilization’ (adding nutrients to the upper ocean to stimulate plant growth) and ‘afforestation’ (planting trees in areas where there was previously no forest).
Although geoengineering projects are largely well-meaning attempts to save the planet, some scientists are concerned that expensive endeavors could backfire, causing destructive weather patterns and actually making climate change worse.
Now, an interactive map reveals where exactly these geoengineering projects are taking place.
So, which ones are happening in your area?
The map, prepared by ETC Group and Heinrich Boell Foundation, sheds light on the ‘alarming expansion’ of geoengineering projects
The map, prepared by ETC Group and Heinrich Boell Foundation, sheds light on the ‘alarming expansion’ of geoengineering projects.
Here MailOnline takes a closer look at some of the British geoengineering projects on the map, which totals more than 70.
Carbon capture – Northwich, Cheshire
Since 2022, a £20 million facility in Northwich operated by Tata Chemicals Europe has been capturing CO2 from the ducts of a methane gas-fired power plant also located at the facility, before being purified, cooled and liquefied.
It uses a patented process to turn the purified CO2 into sodium bicarbonate, a compound used to make baking powder and pharmaceutical tablets.
It’s hoped the UK’s largest carbon capture project will turn 40,000 tonnes of waste carbon dioxide into useful sodium bicarbonate.
This is the equivalent of removing 20,000 cars off the roads, which could help the UK fulfill its commitment to becoming net zero by 2050.
However, climate action groups and scientists have warned that the benefits of carbon capture are ‘unproven’ and may in fact make economies dependent on fossil fuels in the long-term.
In June 2022, a carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) facility was opened in Northwich, Cheshire, said to remove up to 40,000 tonnes of CO2 each year
Liquid carbon dioxide is stored in these units before being turned into sodium bicarbonate, used to make many over-the-counter products
Solar radiation management -Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire
In March last year, it was revealed scientists had conducted two open-air experiments to test solar radiation management (SRM) – reflecting sunlight away from the Earth.
Controversially, they launched a high-altitude weather balloon that released sulfur dioxide in the stratosphere – the second layer of the atmosphere.
Once injected into the stratosphere, sulfur dioxide forms sunlight-reflecting sulfate aerosols, said to have a cooling effect similar to that of a major volcanic eruption.
Andrew Lockley, an independent researcher leading the project, has authored a paper about the trial, although it’s yet to be published.
‘I only hope that this test plays a small part in offering mankind salvation from the hellish inferno of climate change,’ he told MIT Technology Review.
However, creators of the geoengineering map warn that injecting aerosols could cause ozone layer depletion and may disrupt rain and wind patterns across the tropics and subtropics.
‘This could cause droughts in Africa and Asia and affect the monsoons, with serious environmental impacts, and endanger the source of food and water for two billion people,’ they say.
Researchers in the UK launched a high-altitude weather balloon that released a few hundred grams of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere Pictured, file photo of a meteorological balloon
Sizewell C – Sizewell, Suffolk
Sizewell C nuclear power station is expected to become operational in the early 2030s, delivering ‘green’ and reliable nuclear energy for 6 million homes.
Situated by the small hamlet of Sizewell on the Suffolk coast, the site will also host a ‘direct air capture’ (DAC) plant that will work in tandem with its two nuclear reactors.
DAC technologies use chemical reactions to extract CO2 out of air, typically with a stack of metal ‘air scrubbers’ that look like fans.
The CO2 is then stored underground, reducing the amount of the greenhouse gas that reaches the atmosphere, or alternatively ‘recycled’ for conversion into synthetic fuels.
In 2017, the Swiss company Climeworks opened the world’s first DAC facility near Zurich, while the UK’s first one was switched on in Sheffield in December 2023.
Sizewell C developers say the nuclear-powered DAC system will be powered by heat from the site’s nuclear reactors, which should lower costs, while eventually capturing a massive 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 each year.
However, DAC appears to have ‘very heavy energy requirements’ and may have an environmental impact on land, the map creators warn.
Pictured, a concept image for the Sizewell C nuclear power station on the Suffolk coast. The site will host nuclear power generation and ‘direct air capture’ (DAC), a form of geoengineering. Nuclear power is not geoengineering, although it’s not without controversy too
Pictured is a Climeworks carbon sucking plant in Switzerland. DAC grids like this one are made up of individual, stackable filters known as ‘collectors’
What’s more, nuclear itself is a controversial method of energy production, compared with the likes of solar and wind.
While nuclear energy itself is a renewable energy source, the material used in nuclear power plants – uranium – is non-renewable.
Project Speedbird – Middlesbrough Project Speedbird
Announced in 2021, Project Speedbird counts British Airways and LanzaJet among its investors, who collectively pumped £9 million into the project last year.
At a facility in Middlesbrough, Project Speedbird will burn ‘biomass’ – organic matter including wood and crop residue – to make sustainable aviation fuel such as ethanol.
Less controversial than other forms of geoengineering, Project Speedbird is expected to cut carbon emissions, although SAF is more expensive to produce than traditional jet fuel.
Project Speedbird will produce 102 million litres of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) per year, which will reduce CO2 emissions by 230,000 tonnes per year.
That’s the equivalent of approximately 26,000 British Airways domestic flights, claims British Airways.
Project Speedbird – which counts British Airways among its investors – will produce 82,000 tonnes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) per year, according to project leaders. When an aircraft burns traditional jet fuel, it releases CO2 and other pollutants (file photo)
Seafields – offshore
London-based company Seafields is sinking huge bales of seaweed to the bottom of the sea floor off the south coast.
The seaweed, called Sargassum, will naturally capture carbon as it’s farmed and to ‘sequester’ or lock it away for thousands of years, it’s claimed.
However, experts at Geoengineering Monitor have said such claims ‘are not supported by current scientific research’.
Dumping biomass such as wood or seaweed into marine environments as a way to sequester carbon is increasingly seen as a viable climate mitigation strategy, even though many questions about the ecological impacts of it remain unanswered,’ the website adds.
There’s now so many geoengineering projects are being worked on worldwide that the US is now building an early warning system to detect when and where’s it’s happening, reports the New York Times.
There’s concerns may countries will pursue poorly-regulated geoengineering projects in secret – especially sun-blocking which could have ‘unintended consequences’.
These could include regional droughts, crop failures and shifts to the Atlantic jet stream, which could drag hurricanes and tropical diseases north.
A Bill Gates-backed project has already launched balloons over Baja, Mexico releasing sunlight-reflecting aerosols into Earth’s stratosphere.
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