Hi All
This does not make sense on at least five grounds.
1. A patent allows you to stop other people making a profit from your
ideas but does not stop them doing reseach.
2. The patent mentions 'dispersing solid particles into the Earth's
atmosphere by balloon.' The SPICE project was going to use a liquid.
3. The team would have learned lots of good things about balloons and
hoses by pumping water up to the balloon but not letting it come out of
the nozzle at the end of the hose.
4. The holder of a patent would be delighted to have somebody test it
and would give a free licence for this purpose, maybe even chip in some
of the cost.
5. Lowell Wood was talking about this many years ago so the basic idea
is already in the public domain.
On Tuesday Peter Davidson did webinar for our Institute of Chemical
Engineers. He is keen on Titanium dioxide rather than SO2. You can get
a set of slides, an article and a replay from www.tcetoday.com/webinars
Stephen
On 16/05/2012 13:10, O Morton wrote:
http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.de/2012/05/testbed-news.html
SPICE personal statement.
It is with some regret that today the SPICE team has announced we’ve
decided to call off the outdoor ‘1km testbed’ experiment that was
scheduled for later this year. The reasons for this are complex and I
will try to explain the decision here. It should be noted that these
views are my own and do not necessarily imply consensus within SPICE.
Where a range of opinions exist I will try to make that clear.
Importantly however, the decision to call of the experiment was made
by all the project partners in agreement.
Firstly, there are issues of *governance*. Despite receiving
considerable attention no international agreements exist. Whilst it is
hard to imagine a more environmentally benign experiment, which sought
to only pump 150 litres (2 bath loads) of pure water into the
atmosphere to a height of one kilometre over a deserted field, in
terms of SRMGI nomenclature, it represented a transition from stage 2
to stage 3 research. Most experts agree that governance architecture
is needed and, to me personally, a technology demonstrator, even a
benign 1/20 scale model, feels somewhat premature, though many in
SPICE would disagree. Counter to my personal feelings is the argument
that technologies that could inject SO_2 into the stratosphere,
particularly aircraft, already exist and that process could, but
obviously should not, begin tomorrow. It is therefore wrong to
consider the tested experiment as an enabling technology and that
various delivery mechanisms should be tested given there is minimal,
well managed proximal (e.g. health and safety) risk and no impacts on
climate or biodiversity.
Secondly, there are issues of *intellectual property*. SPICE, as a
team, is committed to researching climate engineering carefully with
the profound belief that all such research should be done, as per the
Oxford Principles, for the greater good. We have all agreed, through a
partner-wide collaboration agreement to (a) put all results into the
public domain in a timely manner and (b) not to exploit (i.e. profit
from or patent) results from the SPICE project. However, a patent
application exists that was filed prior to the SPICE project being
proposed, describing the delivery technology, presenting a potentially
significant conflict of interest. The details of this application were
only reported to the project team a year into the project and caused
many members, including me, significant discomfort. Information
regarding the patent application was immediately reported to the
research councils, who have initiated an external investigation.
Efforts are underway to make the patent application’s intentions
unambiguous: to protect intellectual property and not for commercial
purposes.
Thirdly, it will take time to explore these issues through
*deliberation* and *stakeholder engagement*. This means that any
postponement of the 1km tested would be a /de facto/cancellation as
the experiment’s value, to elucidate balloon and tether dynamics to
inform computer models, diminishes over the project lifetime. The
SPICE team sincerely hopes that this decision will facilitate
rational, unrushed discussion on issues that include both governance
and intellectual property but span broader issues surrounding SRM.
Posted by matt watson
<http://www.blogger.com/profile/14583012320357403299>at 00:43
<http://thereluctantgeoengineer.blogspot.de/2012/05/testbed-news.html>
On Wednesday, 16 May 2012 03:13:47 UTC+1, Sam Carana wrote:
Nature News - 15 May 2012 - by Daniel Cressey
Geoengineering experiment cancelled amid patent row.
Balloon-based ‘testbed’ for climate-change mitigation abandoned.
http://www.nature.com/news/geoengineering-experiment-cancelled-amid-patent-row-1.10645
<http://www.nature.com/news/geoengineering-experiment-cancelled-amid-patent-row-1.10645>
Let me also repeat my April 2012 contribution to this discussion,
which one of the moderators of this group didn't want groupmembers to
read:
David Keith, a Harvard University professor and an adviser on energy
to Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he and his colleagues are
researching whether the federal government could ban patents in the
field of solar radiation, according to a report in Scientific
American.
Some of his colleagues last week traveled to Washington, D.C., where
they discussed whether the U.S. Patent Office could ban patents on
the
technology, Keith said.
"We think it's very dangerous for these solar radiation technologies,
it's dangerous to have it be privatized," Keith said. "The core
technologies need to be public domain."
As suggested by Sam Carana, a declaration of emergency, as called for
by the Arctic Methane Emergency Group (AMEG), could be another way to
deal with this issue.
A declaration of Emergency could give governments the power to
overrule patents, where they stand in the way of fast-tracking geo-
engineering projects proposed under emergency rules.Thus, patents
don't need to be banned, prohibited or taken away; instead, patent
will continue to apply in all situations other than the emergency
situation, while new patents could also continue to be lodged during
the emergency period.
Even where patent are directly applicable to proposed projects,
patent
law would still continue to apply, the emergency rules would merely
allow governments to proceed in specific situations, avoiding that
projects are being held up by legal action, exorbitant prices or
withholding of crucial information.
A declaration of emergency could also speed up projects by removing
the need to comply with all kinds of time-consuming bureaucratic
procedures, such as the need to get formal approvals and permits from
various departments, etc. This brings us to the need to comply with
international protocols and agreements. If declared
internationally, a
declaration of emergency could overrule parts of such agreements
where
they pose unacceptable delays and cannot be resolved through
diplomacy.
Cheers,
Sam Carana
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