A company at the forefront of solar geoengineering — the notion that blocking radiation from the sun could cool a warming planet — has disclosed details of the materials it wants to sprinkle in the atmosphere.
Stardust Solutions, led by former members of Israel’s nuclear energy program, is publishing research on Thursday that reveals the chemical properties of its particles, how they would affect the atmosphere and how high-flying aircraft would disperse the material.
The privately held company, founded in 2023, is farthest ahead in the contest to take an idea that was once the stuff of science fiction and move it into the mainstream. It has attracted $75 million from investors, has applied for a patent and is submitting its research to scientific journals for peer review.
Its chief executive, Yanai Yedvab, said Stardust Solutions had only tested its materials in its laboratory and had no plans to conduct outdoor tests. Outdoor trials would only be done in collaboration with a government that would set ground rules and guardrails, he said in an interview.
As humans continue to burn fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions reach record levels, Dr. Yedvab and others say that managing solar radiation deserves serious consideration.
“This is a very powerful tool that will be ready for testing very soon, and we want policymakers to start thinking seriously, ‘What will it take in practice?’” he said.
But the idea of manipulating the atmosphere to turn down the temperature of the Earth remains contentious, and more than 600 scientists and academics have called for an international ban.
Prakash Kashwan, a professor of environmental studies at Brandeis University, is among them. He said solar geoengineering could tamper with weather patterns, damaging food production and local economies.
It’s especially worrisome for residents of South Asia and parts of East Africa and Latin America who rely on yearly monsoon rainfall to irrigate crops, Dr. Kashwan said.
“There’s this social risk for at least two billion people that is directly connected to the lack of scientific understanding about how interfering with the global temperature thermostat is going to interfere with the monsoon formation,” he said. “We don’t have a solution for those kinds of risks.”
