Geoengineering Research Parsed

The U.S. government spent nearly $1.9 million for research on geoengineering during fiscal-years 2009 and 2010, according to an analysis from the Government Accountability Office (GAO-10-903). Most of this money—$1.1 million—went to NSF, according to GAO, the investigative arm of Congress. NSF’s funds went to three projects: an investigation of the impacts of fertilizing the ocean with iron to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a study of the ethical challenges associated with efforts to reflect sunlight into space to abate anthropogenic global warming, and modeling the effects of methods to reflect sunlight. The Energy Department received about $700,000 to investigate the direct capture of CO₂ from air, to model sunlight-reflecting technologies, and to study the unintended consequences of responses to climate change, including geoengineering. Finally, the Commerce Department spent $70,000 to examine unintended consequences of managing sunlight, including impacts on the generation of solar electricity. GAO recommended that the Executive Office of the President establish a strategy for federal geoengineering research.