Enter Stardust Solutions. The company has been operating under the radar for a few years, but this year it started talking more publicly about its work. In October, it announced a significant funding round led by some of the top names in climate investing. As James says in his new story, “Stardust is serious, and now it’s raised serious money from serious people.”
Some experts are worried about this. Even those who believe we should research geoengineering are concerned about what it means for private companies to do so.
“The integration of commercial interests, profit motives, and wealthy investors into this situation gives further cause for concern, complicating the ability of responsible scientists and engineers to do the work necessary to advance our understanding,” David Keith and Daniel Vizny, two leading figures in geoengineering research, wrote in a recent opinion piece. MIT Technology Review,
Stardust emphasizes that it will not proceed with any geoengineering unless it is ordered to do so by governments and regulations and bodies are in place to control the use of the technology.
But there is no telling how financial pressures may change this in the future. And we are already seeing some of the challenges facing a private company in this area: the need to keep trade secrets.
However, Stardust is not currently sharing information about the particles it plans to release into the sky says he plans to do Once it obtains the patent, which could be next year. The company argues that its proprietary particles will be safer, cheaper to manufacture, and easier to track than sulfur dioxide, which is already abundant. But at this time, there is no way for outside experts to evaluate those claims.
As Keith and Vizny put it: “Research will not be useful unless it is trusted, and trust depends on transparency.”
This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology ReviewWeekly Climate Newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, Sign up here,
