Stardust has recently raised $60 million in finance from venture capital investors, mostly based in Silicon Valley and Britain. It is the largest ever investment in the field.
The emergence of a well-funded, private sector actor moving aggressively toward planet cooling capability has led to calls for the global community to regulate the field.
Citing POLITICO’s reporting, Labour MP Sarah Coombes asked the government: “Given the potential risks of this technology, could we have a debate on how Britain will work with other countries to regulate experiments with the earth’s atmosphere, and ensure we cooperate with other countries on solutions that actually tackle the root cause of climate change?”
Campbell signaled the government was open to further discussion of the issue by inviting Coombes to raise the point the next time Technology Secretary Liz Kendall took questions in parliament.
Stardust’s CEO Yanai Yedvab told POLITICO the company was also in favor of regulation to ensure the technology was deployed safely and after proper public debate. Some scientists and experts, though, have raised concerns about the level of secrecy under which the company has conducted its research.
Stardust is proposing to use high-flying aircraft to dump millions of tons of a proprietary particle into the stratosphere, around 12 miles above the Earth’s surface. The technology mimics the short term global cooling that occurs when volcanoes blow dust and gas high into the sky, blocking a small amount of the sun’s heat.