My pet project was Sahara reaforestation; increasing rainfall, and producing lots of biomass which can be distilled for ethanol fuel (the big plus of ethanol as a fuel is that present motors can be adapted to use it, it doesn't require any new tachnology; the big minus is that it still produces carbon dioxide, and burns air to produce various nitrous and nitric acids. And any vegetation can be fermented and distilled to make it, not only edible bits) Some of the engineering works were major (the solar distillation plant would cover as much surface area as the road system of Germany, and that's only one of the subsections) but the real problems are human; political and tribal, the elimination of the traditional goat from the local economy (it's quite possible that the protection of goats from predators was what triggered desertification in the first place), replacement of firewood - all things we know how to do, but, when they are done small-scale now produce hardship amoung the existing population. And very minor results.
The trouble is, that all the worked out schemes did not take into account global climate shift, meaning that, rather than a solid, worked out plan, the organisation would have to be a "thinks on its feet" rapid reaction system, more like a military set-up than a government; and since this would have to be international…Can you see an efficient, streamlined UN operation? Neither can I.
We'll use all renewable energy sources for transport systems, if it'll make the previous posters happy enough to back us; in the total budget it will make almost no difference. I expect corruption to cost easily ten times the transport.
Mega enough? Or do you think I should do one or two more deserts while I'm on the project?
