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#1
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Cheap method to cool the earth
This topic was mentioned in sci.space.policy
(How to Cool a Planet), but sci.space.tech is a better forum for serious technical debate. The review of nearly all ideas was published in: http://www.rense.com/general18/scatt...rwithnotes.pdf I am not ignoring extremely lightweight contraptions, but there is some concern about their survivability in outer space. Sometimes simple contraptions, like like Mikhail Kalashnikov's AK-47 rifle are the best ones. Could we use the moon or its part as the earth cooling contraption? Suppose that we drill a hole in the moon, place a big hydrogen nuclear bomb at its bottom and detonate the bomb. If we aim the detonation towards the earth, the regolith, much of it fine dust, will either orbit the earth or it will plunge into the earth's atmosphere. Suppose that the detonation’s energy equals 50 megatons (Tsar Bomba, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba) A megaton of TNT = 4.184 × 10^15 joules (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaton) The escape velocity from the moon's surface equals 2.38 km/s (source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moon) The kinetic energy of the launched regolith is on the order of: m*v*v, so the mass of the regolith = 50 X (4.184 × 10^15 joules)/(2.38 × 10^3 m/s)^2 = 3,693,242,002 kg = about 3 million tons. 3 million tons is roughly the amount of fine dust in the earth atmosphere or in its orbit that is needed to cool the earth a little. The Tsar Bomba had the mass 27 tones. (It would be easy to make much more powerful bomb of the same mass.) The cost of making typical nuclear bomb is between $1 million and $4 million (in 2005 dollars, source: http://paxchristinewmexico.org/SERENE/factsheet.pdf) It seems that the cost of making the big, 30 ton bomb would be much smaller than the cost of launching the bomb and landing it on the moon (about $300 million). To avoid damage to existing satellites they would have to be retrofitted with lightweight meteoroid (Whipple) shields -- this is perfect job for telemanipulators. Telemanipulator is also perfectly suited for digging the hole in the moon. I guess that the whole project would not cost more than $1 billion. Can you imagine a cheaper method? The dust would alter the spectrum of the sunlight -- everything would have yellowish tint and big fraction of the ultraviolet light would be scattered away. This means that the dust would reduce damage caused by the hole in the ozone layer. Stars would not be visible at night because the dust would scatter mostly bluish light. This bluish night light would probably eliminate the need for streetlights but it could disturb wild animals. |
#2
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Cheap method to cool the earth
On Mon, 03 Jul 2006 06:53:22 +0200, Andrew Nowicki
wrote: Could we use the moon or its part as the earth cooling contraption? Suppose that we drill a hole in the moon, place a big hydrogen nuclear bomb at its bottom and detonate the bomb. If we aim the detonation towards the earth, the regolith, much of it fine dust, will either orbit the earth or it will plunge into the earth's atmosphere. To what avail. That would be dangerous and foolish. I suggest you study some meteorology. Just how much did you expect the earth to cool and where? Do you think this dust distributes evenly? Now imagine such a plume coming to wards the earth. It released by detonating a bomb so it all comes in one pulse. Thus it hits only one side of the earth. This would indeed be cooled. In a small area to perhaps -20 centigrade. Over the Brazilian rainforest's perhaps? Then it spreads and causes chaos in the weather all over the world. Is this supposed to counteract greenhouse warming? Forget it! The dust settles after a couple of years but the CO2 is still there. So all you get is a couple of years of chaotic weather. I guess that the whole project would not cost more than $1 billion. Can you imagine a cheaper method? Are you joking! A shuttle launch alone costs 500 million. And you need 100 tonnes into orbit in order to get the bomb etc to the moon. But then you also need to develop and distribute these Whipple shields. There are hundreds of these. And the technology to place them there doesn't exist. So several more 100 tonnes. Of course the 50 billion or so this would cost is insignificant compared to the cost of collateral damages on earth. -- Using Opera's revolutionary e-mail client: http://www.opera.com/mail/ |
#3
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Cheap method to cool the earth
Here is good, concise article about the moon dust:
http://www1.jsc.nasa.gov/toxicology/Taylor.pdf It says that specific surface area of the moon dust is approximately 0.5 m^2/g. It means that one gram of the moon dust has the average surface area of one half square meter. If one gram of the dust is thinly dispersed in the outer space, it will absorb and diffract about 0.1 square meter of sunlight. One million tons of the dust will absorb and diffract about 10^11 square meters of sunlight, which is the equivalent of a square that is 300 kilometers long and 300 kilometers wide. The same article mentions magnetic method of sorting the moon dust so that its particle size is reduced and its specific surface area is enlarged. The very fine dust would be less damaging to satellites, but it would be quickly swept away by sunlight and solar wind (like a tail of a comet). If this fine dust enters the atmosphere, it will take a few months before it is washed down by the rains. |
#4
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Cheap method to cool the earth
Assuming it would work and the dust wouldn't be too radio active and
one could retrofit however many scores of satelites would be affected and you didn't trigger some sort of "Space: 1999" scenario, blasting Lunar dust into Earth's atmosphere would seem to be at most a one-shot or N-shot thing and not sustainable - there is only so much Moon up there and if you mess with it too much you will affect its orbit an/or the Earth's tides and such. Unless the root cause of Earth's warming is the quanity of sunlight reaching the surface, it is also only treating symptoms. rick jones -- denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, rebirth... where do you want to be today? these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway... feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH... |
#5
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Cheap method to cool the earth
We need to understand the dynamics of climate system before we
*activiely* try to control it. I mean we know hardly a thing about long term ocean mixing for example. Messing with a poorly understood non-linear system is not a wise thing to do. You end up with complete chaos. The earth will change over time, we, like other species either adapt or perish. However the climate changes we are talking about are not that serious so...... all IMHO of course. mm no just IMO. delt0r |
#6
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Cheap method to cool the earth
Andrew Nowicki wrote:
contraption? Suppose that we drill a hole in the moon, place a big hydrogen nuclear bomb at its bottom and detonate the bomb. If we aim the detonation towards the earth, the regolith, much of it fine dust, will either orbit the earth or it will plunge into the earth's atmosphere. There has been a proposal to blow up dormant volcanoes here on Earth with nukes to release dust into the atmosphere to cool Earth. It was mentioned in a novel by Risto Isomäki. I don't know how seriously it has been studied. |
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