A method(s) to deal with CO2.

Void · 2020-08-03 13:25:04

Moderators, I will be perfectly happy if you move this. As you know I have had trouble that may have to do with this site, so, I am quickly making a post. No problem if you move it.

A method to deal with CO2.
Although this could be adapted to shore installations, I am more interested in floating machines in the Doldrums.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertrop … gence_Zone
While it can be rather cloudy, it would seem, it is near the equator, so solar energy should have some significance. What I am rather interested in is the usual lack of wind, and so I presume waves.
This may have a relationship with OTEC.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
What I am looking for is a solar salt pond method, out in the Oceans.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_pond
Quote:

Description
When the sun's rays contact the bottom of a shallow pool, they heat the water adjacent to the bottom. When water at the bottom of the pool is heated, it becomes less dense than the cooler water above it, and convection begins. Solar ponds heat water by impeding this convection. Salt is added to the water until the lower layers of water become completely saturated. High-salinity water at the bottom of the pond does not mix readily with the low-salinity water above it, so when the bottom layer of water is heated, convection occurs separately in the bottom and top layers, with only mild mixing between the two. This greatly reduces heat loss, and allows for the high-salinity water to get up to 90 °C while maintaining 30 °C low-salinity water.[1] This hot, salty water can then be pumped away for use in electricity generation, through a turbine or as a source of thermal energy.

I am thinking of a mostly water and brine filled boat shaped enclosure. A sealed floation ring around the perimeter of the shape. The bottom holding the brine, and a less briny liquid above it.
The structure might be able to slowly move to follow then "Doldrums",
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intertrop … gence_Zone.
Like OTEC, it could generate power and clean water. However I am more focusing on growing plants in it's upper layer. Whatever type, maybe even Sargasso Sea plants. Don't know the economic value of that. Fish? I suppose.
While all of the forementioned uses may be explored, I am most focused on making clean water, and dealing with CO2.
While surface tropical sea water, is fairly warm, you could warm it up more, by circulating it through heat exchangers using the heat at the bottom of the solar pond. Then with what electrical energy you do have, you may suction a vacuum on that heated water, both extracting water vapors and degassing the water, which would include CO2. Then compressivly condensing the vapors, the hot to warm water would not be as accepting of disolved gasses, so the condensation would leave behind a non-condensed gas mixture including CO2. You may concentrate that if you like. Not yet mentioned is that if you forcibly boil warm/hot water, that has salts in it you will create a byproduct that is cooled brine. You may compress the non-condensed gasses into it. It is cold, and briny, so if you release it it should sink in the Ocean(s). So, if you really want to be silly you might even have tubes and turbines to extract energy of falling for that fluids. Scale might make it worthwhile.
And yes you are interring CO2 into ocean bottom waters, and also brines. So, you may damage what is below. You would need to make a calculation of what matters most. Keeping most of the surface biosphere stabalized, and if so, possibly damaging what is below. But it may be that the brine would mix on it's way down with cold salt water, and might not be that shocking to the life below.
And yes I guess if you are generating fresh water, there might be a market for that.

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Now, I annoy you even more. Could these "Boats" be manufactured on the Moon, by telepresence and robots, and a few actually local humans?
And could you send them to aeroburn into the Earths environment and somehow make a soft enough landing. Well, SpaceX does, drop Fairings from up high. But of course this would need much more. Something to ponder.
Done

Stealth bomber posting methods, advised by Louis.

Void · 2020-08-07 19:05:48

Cislunar transportation system

Potential energy in the Earth–Moon system. Because the Moon has higher potential energy, tethers can work together to pick an object off the Moon (the tiny dimple on the right), and place it closer to the Earth in LEO, taking essentially no propellant and even generating energy while doing so.
Although it might be thought that this requires constant energy input, it can in fact be shown to be energetically favorable to lift cargo off the surface of the Moon and drop it into a lower Earth orbit, and thus it can be achieved without any significant use of propellant, since the Moon's surface is in a comparatively higher potential energy state. Also, this system could be built with a total mass of less than 28 times the mass of the payloads.[23][24]

Rotovators can thus be charged by momentum exchange. Momentum charging uses the rotovator to move mass from a place that is "higher" in a gravity field to a place that is "lower". The technique to do this uses the Oberth effect, where releasing the payload when the tether is moving with higher linear speed, lower in a gravitational potential gives more specific energy, and ultimately more speed than the energy lost picking up the payload at a higher gravitational potential, even if the rotation rate is the same. For example, it is possible to use a system of two or three rotovators to implement trade between the Moon and Earth. The rotovators are charged by lunar mass (dirt, if exports are not available) dumped on or near the Earth, and can use the momentum so gained to boost Earth goods to the Moon. The momentum and energy exchange can be balanced with equal flows in either direction, or can increase over time.

Similar systems of rotovators could theoretically open up inexpensive transportation throughout the solar system

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Moderators, I will be perfectly happy if you move this. As you know I have had trouble that may have to do with this site, so, I am quickly making a post. No problem if you move it.

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In my previous post I mentioned this, and I am actually sort of serious in the attempt to make it into a rational notion.
Quoting me:

Now, I annoy you even more. Could these "Boats" be manufactured on the Moon, by telepresence and robots, and a few actually local humans?
And could you send them to aeroburn into the Earths environment and somehow make a soft enough landing. Well, SpaceX does, drop Fairings from up high. But of course this would need much more. Something to ponder.
Done smile
Stealth bomber posting methods, advised by Louis.

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In my last post, I said something that might seem silly to many. However, I am somewhat serious. Boats from the Moon to Earth's oceans. I think it is time to think bigger in the long term.
A rotavator for the Moon. Typically I feel nervous about tether devices as I think they will be prone to erosion or even breakage from impactors. However, perhaps some robotic devices could transit the length of the device and make reasonable repairs live.
OK, in my previous post, I suggested brine water filled "Boats". From the Moon
SpaceX recovers Falcon 9 fairings, but of course this would need much more. The rotavator to pick them off of the Moon. A heat shield, probably ablative, from Lunar materials.
So, then what about terminal velocity, if these things can actually be brought to subsonic speed to impact the Ocean? I suppose parachutes, if necessary.
But I have two other possible options.
With the ever improving capabilities of AI, I anticipate that drones which are air breathing could fly to intercept the falling boat, within the troposphere. I suppose maybe there could be drogue parachutes that they could latch onto, and then with their efforts slow down the velocity of that load.
I also like the supposed Bermuda Triangle trick. This would be where supposedly Methane Clathrates vaporize and create a curtain of bubbles, and then ships are not buoyant, and so sink quickly. I don't care if it is real, I like it for splashing down a fast traveling object with lots of surface area.
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So, the first challenge would be to make the Steel structure. I believe that Elon Musk claims that robots will do everything better than humans in the future. So, if they kill us, then we don't need to worry about it further. But, if somebody who makes them is not stupid, and makes them with enough intelegence for the task, but without an angry parinoid nature, then the making of these "Boats" on the Moon, is not beyond a possibility.
Lately, I have noticed articles that indicate that the Moon is not what we thought it was.
More metals deeper down:
https://www.space.com/moon-metal-myster … %20decades.
Carbon on the Moon:
https://www.sciencealert.com/the-moon-i … o-question
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Ca … &FORM=VIRE
But not sure it is economically obtainable.
Chromium on the Moon:
https://lunarpedia.org/w/Chromium#:~:te … overburden.
Anyway the above, suggests that the ingredients for Stainless Steel may be present on the Moon. And robots and telepresence could be greatly assistive in forming large "Boats" of it on the Moon.
How to get it off the Moon. I am not going to be all that specific, but it would seem that as you might generate a lot of Oxygen on the Moon, creating the Stainless Steel, you may have that part of the propellant rigged already, if you are going to use rocket propulsion. I did mention rotavators, In that case, plucking these "Boats" off of the Moon and flinging them at Earth, would create a energy void which could be filled by bringing materials from Earth to the Moon. But it would be a very advanced method, and is not yet proven as practicle.
I, in this post am just trying to identify the plausable parts of the notion.
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Aeroburn. I am sure that slag or some other item could be deposited on one side of the boats, the side that would point down, both during atmospheric entry, and during floation on the water.
But, I also think that if we look at the SpaceX ability to bring Fairings through the atmosphere, some interesting things can be pointed to. We can fall back on ablative heat shielding if we need to, but lets look at a stainless steel boat impacting the atmosphere it high speed. Where the fairings are of an Aluminum-Lithium alloy, we would be dealing with Stainless Steel, which I will Ass u me, will tolerate higher temperatures.
Another feature of the SpaceX fairings is that they have sound proofing materials on their leward side. Our "Boats" would not. This would mean that the leward side of the aerobraking boat, could radiate heat with incandecence from the leward side, greatly increasing the survivability of the object. (In my opinion).
But if not enough then put an ablative coating on the windward side.
Let me make sure that you understand that I have no intention of a thick layer of steel for the "Boat". I would like something on the order of sheet metal. (More or less). Not an aircraft carrier hull.
So, we would have to have figured out how to get into the lower atmosphere, into the Troposphere. What is the terminal velocity of the item? Well that depends, of the weight to surface area. I believe mine is about 60 mph???
I prefer not to have parachutes for this thing. Maybe drogue shutes. I am thinking that air breathing aircraft with advanced AI could fly to the thing while it was falling, and grab the lines, and slow it down more if needed.
As a splashdown, I guess I want a continental shelf. I want to express a mass of air bubbles into the water, with good timing. This I hope makes for a cussioned impact, not a water hammer impact.
I have mentioned floats for the thing, which would add weight. They would probably be on the leward side. But if necessary, we could allow the boat to sink to the sea floor and then lift it up and install the floats from Earth manufacture. It is a question of what would work best.
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The "Boats" then floating on water, would be largely filled with briny liquids. Heavier brine on the lower portions, and lighter brine on the higer portions of the internal water column.
This to be a solar collector which also allows for some kind of aquatic agriculture in at least its upper layers.
Hopefully it is not a desecration to bring Dr. Robert Zubrin into this. He recomends open ocean mariculture for the future, and I am OK with that. But with this scheme, you may put your nutrients into a more isolated enclosure, to grow things from sunlight. Much of the Ocean is a desert for lack of nutrients. Therefore, much of the sunlight that reaches the Earth is not engaged in capturing Carbon from the atmosphere. But here we can utilize that sunlight to a greater degree, and yes potentially cature Carbon in this way. Since the system will incorporate a solar pond, we might get the bottom waters as high in temperature as 90 degC? And if the boat is rather deep, cold water may be just outside the bottom of the enclosure. OTEC on steroids then.
If we were going to grow sargasso seaweed in the upper layers, we may destructively distill some of it producing fuels. Also the Carbon remnant could be dropped to the sea floor where it takes a very long time for biology to re-activate it.
And if you wish, in the process of a sort of OTEC, we might generate a cold brine, which we could even inject more CO2 into and dump into the Ocean. I think this could be done with lower damage to the ecology below, by mixing it with the ambient sea water say at some lower level in the Ocean water column.
And of course to generate fresh water.
I will have some spelling problems in this which I will try to correct before I close out provided, that my computer does not get bogged down again while trying to edit and save.

Stealth bomber technique used again.
Done.

OK, I am getting bogged down again. Spell checking later. I hate that.

Last edited by Void (2020-08-07 19:12:42)

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#1 2020-08-03 13:25:04

A method(s) to deal with CO2.

#2 2020-08-07 19:05:48

Re: A method(s) to deal with CO2.

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