This uncertainty encompasses the ground infrastructure necessary to launch planes deploying SO2. This includes location acquisition, runway construction, access to the supply chain for sulfur (either through sea or rail), a facility to convert sulfur to SO2, storage facilities, and other related activities. All this infrastructure must be permitted and undergo safety analysis. Additionally, these airfields need to be away from population centers given that SO2 is a toxic material. At the start of deployment, there would need to be at least one of these facilities each in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Metric
Time to develop ground infrastructure necessary to deliver ~1Mt/yr payload is over 5 years from first large-scale funding.
Uncertainty
While none of these steps in and of themselves appear overly difficult, the time required to perform all of them, including permitting steps, may be substantial. This is due in large part to the combination of the need for remoteness of sites, specific latitudinal requirements, and the need to be able to transport sulfur there.
Decision relevance
If the timeline were longer than that dictated in the metric, this would materially impact deployment timeline by ≤5 years, and therefore we classify the decision relevance as medium.
References
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