Venting Our (Carbon Dioxide) Problems into Space
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles on 06. 3.07
This week's issue of The Economist reports on an interesting scheme proposed by Alfred Y. Wong, professor of physics and director of the Plasma Physics Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, to rid the Earth of carbon dioxide emissions. Wong posits that a conveyor built in the Arctic could take advantage of the Earth's magnetic field to expel emissions into outer space.
The Antarctic and the Arctic are the only two sites on the planet above which the sky opens up to space. There, particles from the sun that get through and cross the atmosphere could be harnessed for their gigawatts of power to lower the concentration of greenhouse gases by expelling them.
While seemingly far-fetched, Wong's idea is grounded in two central facts: for one thing, a certain number of carbon dioxide molecules invariably form negatively charged ions when they pair up with loose electrons in the atmosphere and, secondly, a constant vertical electrical field that makes negatively charged ions drift upward exists all over the planet. This process, though initially slow, picks up after a few days when the ions reach an altitude of about 125 km. At this level, the air is so rarefied (in other words, diffusion primarily dictates the movement of particles) that ions are able to freely move about and eventually sail along the Earth's magnetic field into outer space.
With that as his basis, Wong believes it should be possible to artificially coax carbon dioxide molecules into leaving the planet's atmosphere in larger numbers. He proposes doing this by first ionizing more carbon dioxide molecules (one idea is to zap dust in the sky with lasers to release more electrons) and then guiding the resultant carbon dioxide ions to the appropriate altitude from which they could then drift into space through a series of natural processes.
Though still in its infancy, Wong has already determined that the energy needs of his project, even if met by fossil-fuel powered electricity, would result in less carbon dioxide being put into the atmosphere than shipped out.
Via ::A stairway to heaven?, :: Laboratory Modeling of Space experiments on Expulsion of CO2 ions. Application to Global Warming.
See also: ::Umbrella Inside Out: Pressure/Magnetic Power, ::EMF Output Of Wireless Handhelds: Measuring The Data Love Experience, ::The World's First "Magnetic Levitation" Wind Turbines Unveiled in China,
Does this seem like a bad idea to anyone else? The earth and its atmosphere seems like a pretty closed system to me (energy only enters the system via the sun or gravity) and if we were to expel carbon from our atmosphere, there would be no chance of reclaiming it. The CO2 was formed by burning carbon; it took the earth millions of years to reduce that carbon to a useful form (CO2 capture by plants, death of carbonaceous material, pressure, heat... leads to oil). It just doesn't seem smart to expel mass from a closed system when we have no way of adding it back.
I'm curious, if this became a longterm solution,would gravity and the rotation of the earth be impacted by the loss of mass?
Fantastic article
I agree with Neil, what we need are not machines to pump CO2 out of the planet, what we need are more trees to bring it down from the atmorphere.
Support for this kind of power generation has always been poorly supported.... lets wait until after 2012 to see if the polls reverse. :)
is it really possible to only ionize the carbon dioxide and not the other gases we need to keep our planet alive. what if oxygen or nitrogen or other greatly needed gases follow the carbon dioxide into space? plus this won't really help smog levels or air quality.
Neil
Not one bodie in space is isolated or closed everything is electrically active and in a constant ionic exchange with it's environment in order to reach voltage equilibrium. Look more into sprites and elves, which are plasma jets leaving the planet from the tops of thunderstorms.
Or better yet, why not get people to just be more sensible and use less resources!
dont be such pessimists. the guy is very intelligent and has obviously thought about this for a very long time. the atmosphere is not such a closed system due to the existence of holes in it ( in part due to CFC's). so at least give the guy a chance before you non-professor/non-scientists criticize him.
Neil -- I hate to disappoint you, but you are just plain flat-dead wrong when it comes to the CO2 content of the atmosphere. Every time a volcano erupts, the CO2 content of the atmosphere is contributed to, as a positive-sum amount.
The content of CO2 in mantle-level magma is extremely high, and has been there since the formation of the planet. Take this as an example: "The summit CO2 emission rate is nearly constant at 8,500 +/-300 metric tons/day (t/d)"
(Taken from: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2002AGUSM.V52A..07G ).
Pre-assuming a viable mechanism to reliably select for CO2, which is actually quite easy given current sequestration technology & standard CO2 "scrubbers" -- this sort of technique would be useful, assuming that the science is correct on the matter of carbon dioxide-based forcing of global mean temperature. Then again, if it isn't, this wouldn't hurt us to carry out anyhow.
What is being ignored is what humans and other animals breath - oxygen. If you get rid of CO2, eventually you will have gotten rid of the oxygen that sustains animal life. It rather defeats the purpose of removing the greenhouse gases. If we are to turn the planet over to the plants, then the way we are going will be far better for them than this half-baked idea.
It is sad what it is required for someone to get a PhD. It seems to rob people of their common sense.
Venting CO2 is definitely a bad idea because we would be throwing away potentially useful chemicals into open space. Also this cannot be a long term solution because if you bypass the carbon cycle and spew your excess into space were will all the carbon dioxide we need later be other than spreading out across the vacuum of space. It would be better to store your excess CO2 somewhere recoverable like carbon capture systems are suppose to do or just use the natural systems already on earth like plants and algae bioreactors.
What about the carbon cycle? we dont exactly have an infinite supply of carbon. This is not a solution.
I can't believe this concept has actually garnered any serious attention... we can't just expel the very building blocks of life into SPACE simply because we're too stupid to control their release! How about pouring our collective intellect into helping establish a cycle where the environment sequesters more CO2 than it yields?
If you need a detox, you don't slash your wrists. Much the same.... venting carbon and oxygen into space has got to be THE DUMBEST scientific idea EVER.
Hello all,
I'm glad to see this post has generated such heated discussion! I didn't quite expect it to make such a splash when I started writing about a few days ago though I was hoping it would interest some of you.
I agree with the majority sentiment expressed here that more background research into the feasibility and possible side-effects of the project should be done before building this conveyor. It certainly would also be better to have people focus more on conventional means to curb greenhouse gases (i.e. reduce dependence on fossil fuels, drive less, conserve energy, etc) instead of coming up with such highly elaborate schemes.
Jeremy
Our lovely scientest seemes to forgeten that plants need carbon dioxide to survive, and much of our oxygen comes from plants who have, through photosynthesis, emited oxygen into the air. WE NEED CO2 TO SURVIVE!!! even if there were to be enough oxygen without plants, without the food chain would completly die out. This is one of the worst proposals to correct global warming i've heard including storing all the CO2 in old undergound mines (imagine it escaping and creating a huge CO2 bubble). You can't trust someone just because they have a PHD
Nothing new to add to whatever all has been said. But my common sense also sees problem with this mechanism.
with one atom of Carbon we are loosing two of Oxygen, and both form basic building blocks of all types of life on earth.
The only way, I think, to go about is: using more of natural energy/catalysts (Solar, wind, extra trees etc...) to bring down CO2 levels. In fact I am of the opinion that there will come a stage when we will peak out the usage of fossil fuels (or CO2 generating fuels per se), and then like a bell curve, we will go down on CO2 generation, in years/decades/centuries to come..Things will become better once we will be forced to use less of fossil fuels.
Nature has provided us with the fossil fuels as quick source of energy to advance technology to the extent that we leave dependence on that itself. Its evolution, may not happen in our lifetime, and we may not feel the change in our lifetimes, but I am sure thats what will happen in the long run.
Besides, global warming is not something which will kill life in a day or two or even few decades/centuries.
Its a slow process (evolution) and life will find its way out. As a collective strength- life is much more stronger, flexible, intelligent...animal than us individuals or societies or countries...
-akshay
Come on guys, nobody is proposing to propel ALL CO2 out into space! So no waste of usefull chemicals, just a reduction of the excess of some of them. If we could bring down CO2 content of the atmosphere to pre-industrial levels, we would stop the scheme at that point. And we have been pretty good at creating CO2 the last one-and-a-half century, so if we don't have enough, we just burn some extra oil. As for oxigen: The second stage (accelerating the CO2) is specific for CO2, and does not accelerate oxygen. And, we have 0.035% of CO2 in the atmosphere, against 20% of oxygen. So if with every CO2 molecule an oxygen molecule gets lost as well, there's no serious problem. The same for the mass of the earth: CO2 is only a tiny fraction of the mass of our atmosphere, which is only a minute fraction of the mass of our earth (imagine a 10 kilometers thick blanket of air around a 12700 km diameter ball of rock...). And as stated before, the earth is not a closed system AT ALL. This leaking is going on constantly by natural means. The plan is to favour the leaking of CO2 a bit, not to evacuate the whole atmosphere.
I am not saying this is a brilliant, world-saving idea (sounds pretty far-fetched to me...) but some of the criticism here is just completely unfounded.
I'm wondering if this is a good idea? If the earth's atmosphere is a closed system won't will this throw something unknown out of balance?
Akshay seems to be the only person here who has actually done any math; those of you who rely on so-called common sense need to go back and learn your math.
As Akshay says, the atmosphere is approx 21% Oxygen (O2) and .038% Carbon dioxide (CO2). Our present levels of CO2 are estimated (well, the Wikipedia article on global warming estimates them) at 31% higher than they were in 1750. Thus, reducing the atmospheric CO2 to the level of 1750 would require losing .038% * .31, or about .012% of the current atmosphere (that's about 1 part in 10,000). Notice that the oxygen contained in that CO2 has *already* been lost to the atmosphere, in the sense that it's already locked up in the CO2; you can't breathe it.
Reducing our Carbon consumption would do nothing to restore that minuscule amount of oxygen locked up in the CO2. Most schemes for getting rid of the excess CO2 in the atmosphere call for burying it, or otherwise removing it from circulation, which is essentially no different from sending it off into space.
I suppose converting all that CO2 into trees would eventually restore some of the O2 (while locking up a bunch of it in sugars and other things that trees use Oxygen for), but it would take an awful lot of very tall trees, forever. Might be an interesting planet, if you're a Wookie...
that magnet is upside down in the diagram
magnetic north is infact at the south of our planet
and magnetic field lines always go north to south, this diagram shows them the other way
check your sources before you go posting incorrect diagrams
Before panicking about pumping out all the earth's oxygen, it's meant to be tested and regulated if put into effect, just think about it a bit: nobody's suggesting we pump out all the earth's oxygen and carbon and...kill all living things. There's enough Carbon stored within the earth and on other planets in our solar system to accommodate that even if it was what anyone was thinking.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think that global warming could pose a more immediate threat than people above think - it will without doubt mean the death of millions (the world's poor). This may be a part of the means to control it. Why is it any more far fetched than Mars probes or even landing on the moon?
Before panicking about pumping out all the earth's oxygen, it's meant to be tested and regulated if put into effect, just think about it a bit: nobody's suggesting we pump out all the earth's oxygen and carbon and...kill all living things. There's enough Carbon stored within the earth and on other planets in our solar system to accommodate that even if it was what anyone was thinking.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I think that global warming could pose a more immediate threat than people above think - it will without doubt mean the death of millions (the world's poor). This may be a part of the means to control it. Why is it any more far fetched than Mars probes or even landing on the moon?
I can't believe all the closed-minded,ignorant, and totally science illiterate people out there.What a bunch of naysayers.What ever happened to the Yankee ingenuity America used to be famous for? With people like this,it's a wonder the Wright Brothers ever made it off the ground.Instead of thinking like an inventor who always tries to find reasons and problem-solving solutions why things can work,what a waste of creativity and talent to always brainstorm stupid and ridiculous reasons why they can't !
It's downright silly nonsense to think it's going to affect the overall mass and rotation of the Earth.Akshay is about the only person here who has any real common sense and combined knowlege of math.The atmosphere is only a tiny miniscule fraction of the total mass of the Earth,and the carbon dioxide content is only a tiny miniscule fraction of the fraction.
There is some concern about long-term oxygen depletion if we contiue to be complacent and highly dependent on fossil fuels......instead of trying harder to wean ourselves off them in the long-term.However,for dealing with global warming over the short-term,as a temporary stop-gap measure to halt the warming trend,very little oxygen would be lost as to be insignificant.