For the last century, ships burned fuel that included sulfur and the sulfur in ship exhaust caused clouds to form which reflected solar energy to space and cooled the planet via “marine cloud brightening”.  In 2020, the sulfur was removed because it causes air pollution that is harmful to health, and this removal caused global warming to accelerate.  If we can put into ship exhaust some benign material that causes clouds to form, we can reduce global warming.  

In September 2024, Jeff Haley invented an economical way to make large quantities of nano sized droplets of salt water which can be evaporated to form nano sized salt particles that cause bright clouds to form.  The essence of the method is to mix saltwater with a water-repelling oil and homogenize the mixture to form a water in oil emulsion where the water droplets are small enough.  The homogenizing can be done with ahigh-shear mixer wherein the mixture passes through high shear many times.  On each pass, the larger drops of water are cut in two more than the smaller drops of water are cut in two.  With enough passes, the water droplets are small enough and none of them are too large.

The emulsion can simply be burned as fuel in each oceangoing ship.  We call this fuel Could Fuel.  It is common to add water to ship fuel to obtain environmental benefits, particularly reduction of nitrogen oxides, and this is commonly done by forming an emulsion of water droplets in the fuel oil.  To put right size salt particles into ship exhaust, all that is required is to add salt to the water and adjust the homogenization to ensure the water droplets are the right size.  

Reflective Earth is directing research and setting standards or enhancing ship fuel with benign salt particles so the exhaust makes and brightens marine clouds and effectiveness at reducing global warming can be measured and compensated.

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