THE HAVERLY PROPOSAL IS TO SET OFF A SERIOUSLY HUGE NUKE UNDER THE OCEAN TO SAVE THE OCEAN
At first, I saw the basic outlines of this idea and then instantly rejected the entire premise. Then I thought about it some more, and realized it was more reasoned than I initially assumed. And then I considered how this could actually work, like for reals. But then my own natural prejudice involving the words “nuke” and “ocean” together made me antsy all over again. What do you think? A researcher at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Department of Computer Engineering has an audacious, terrifying idea, which is to set off a nuke under the ocean in order to not only save the ocean, but really offset decades of global warming. It’s the Haverly Proposal.
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THE HUUUUGE NUKE WOULD THEN PULVERIZE BILLIONS OF TONS OF ROCK BASALT TO ABSORB LOTS OF CARBON
That’s the researcher’s name, Andrew Haverly. And it says a lot that his proposal makes any sense at all. Because the idea is truly terrifying in that it makes enough sense to actually consider. It involves detonating the largest ever, as in ever, nuke deep beneath the ocean’s surface. But where and why are what makes this a tantalizing yet still scary idea. The Haverly Proposal is that we explode a 81-gigaton nuke under the Kerguelen Plateau, which is in the Southern Ocean. But a nuke of that size and at that location would instantly release billions of tons of basalt rock from the ocean floor. And that’s the key to the whole idea.
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BUT THIS HUUUGE NUKE WOULD BE 1,600 TIMES BIGGER THAN ANY NUKE EVER IN HISTORY
But all that pulverized basalt rock would then, theoretically but with sound reasoning, absorb and lock away 3 decades of global carbon emissions. How? By absorbing all that carbon in the wild that people the world over have released. But a 81-gigaton nuclear explosion is huge, as in 1,600 stronger than any other nuke ever tested. That’s. Just. Nuts. We don’t really know if that kind of blast could have other repercussions, like cracking the Earth’s mantle, or who knows what else. But the idea makes some sense, in that theoretically the blast would be stable in the remote location, with no tsunamis (hopefully) caused due to the blast’s depth.
But the fact that this idea makes any sense at all is scary all on its own. There’s also a video explaining more here.
