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#1801 Today 13:32:54
- Void
- Member
- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,153
Re: Worlds, and World Engine type terraform stuff.
Maximized Shade-Balls, Shade-Cylinders.
There are only two worlds where I think this technology might have merit. Earth and Mars.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shade_ball
Image Quote: 
What I am after is a means to special environments like deserts and others. The hope is to find an alternate use for Carbon in fossil fuel reserves and also the CO2 in the atmosphere.
My idea is to make very large Shade Balls or Shade Cylinders.
Cylinders could work well for Canals in Deserts.
For Something like the Salton Sea, then whole rows of Cylinders. It can partially sun follow either North South or East West.
The ball itself makes primarily of plastics, and the sundeck to keep UV off of the plastic for the most part.
The internal waters could be capable of supporting a crop. For instance, for the Dead Sea, you could put fresh water in and grow things like duckweed for instance.
Part of the game is to limit evaporation. So, if you did a lot of this you might be able to expand the Dead Sea, and cover the exposed toxic soils.
It would probably make sense to take water from the Colorado River and fill basins which will be evaporating prohibited. You could cover much of Lake Mead, I think.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Mead
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The green goblins with their anti-micro-plastics Hysteria, are most likely socialists and commie wanna-bees, who hope to cripple cultures they want to take over.
Tell them to cure micro-plastics for things like Car Tires and Synthetic Clothing before worrying about the Maximized Shade flotation devices.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
For Mars you might do it dry on flat soil. But later when the planet is partially terraformed it might be possible to convert over to very salty cold bring that they can float on.
Ending Pending 
Last edited by Void (Today 14:04:12)
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#1802 Today 20:49:41
- Void
- Member
- Registered: 2011-12-29
- Posts: 9,153
Re: Worlds, and World Engine type terraform stuff.
From the last post:
My idea is to make very large Shade Balls or Shade Cylinders.
Cylinders could work well for Canals in Deserts.
For Something like the Salton Sea, then whole rows of Cylinders. It can partially sun follow either North South or East West.
So, I am imagining a future world, where AI and robotics might have dropped the cost of hardware, to say 10% or 5% of what it would be now.
To help justify adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it would be useful if you could pull CO2 out of the environment and with water and some other chemicals manufacture plastic for these devices.
For instance here are some ways to extract CO2 from seawater:
https://news.mit.edu/2023/carbon-dioxid … ation-0216
Copilot Search Brandingfigure 6
Recent advancements in technology have made it possible to efficiently extract carbon dioxide (CO2) from seawater, offering a promising approach to mitigate climate change and ocean acidification.
Methods of CO2 Extraction
Electrochemical Processes: Researchers at MIT have developed a membrane-free electrochemical cell system that can effectively remove CO2 from seawater. This method involves using reactive electrodes to acidify seawater, converting dissolved bicarbonates into molecular CO2, which is then collected as a gas under vacuum. The process is cyclic, allowing for the regeneration of the seawater back to its alkaline state before being returned to the ocean, potentially reversing local ocean acidification.
1
Direct Ocean Capture (DOC): This method involves removing dissolved CO2 from seawater for carbon storage or reuse. Companies like Brineworks and Captura are leading innovations in this area. Brineworks uses electrolysis to extract CO2, claiming a cost of less than $100 per ton when operating at scale. Captura employs electrodialysis to acidify ocean water, releasing CO2, which is then captured using membranes.
2
Ebb Carbon's System: A new system developed by Ebb Carbon at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory allows seawater to absorb and store CO2 from the atmosphere. This system is designed to mitigate climate change and ocean acidification by converting CO2 into bicarbonate, a natural storage solution, without increasing acidity in the ocean.
14 Sources
Implications and Future Directions
Climate Mitigation: These technologies aim to enhance the ocean's natural ability to absorb CO2, which currently accounts for about 30-40% of human-produced emissions. By improving extraction methods, it is possible to achieve net negative emissions, which is crucial for meeting climate targets.
2
Scalability and Environmental Impact: While these methods show promise, challenges remain regarding scalability and ensuring that the processes do not harm marine ecosystems. Ongoing research is needed to quantify the effectiveness of these technologies and their impact on marine life.
1In summary, extracting CO2 from seawater is an emerging field with significant potential for addressing climate change, leveraging innovative technologies to enhance the ocean's role as a carbon sink.
3 Sources
While it might be useful to simply use fossil fuels directly both the atmosphere of Earth and Mars carries CO2. It may be convenient to simply pull the CO2 out of water when by some means CO2 has migrated into the water from the Air.
Then to manufacture Acetate and Oxygen. Then to feed what is inside of the shading device as depicted in the above diagram.
I have provided that there could be windows or artificial light so whatever grows in the device will not be totally in the dark.
Then the notion is a pathway from organic matter to making plastics (A bit of a hand wave).
And I do not mean plastics the degrade fast. Rather I want stuff that can last 1000 years ideally.
The crops inside could be algae, or duckweed, or hydrilla. Or you could have floating gardens of something.
The interior of the device will have a fair amount of thermal inertia, and will also be largely shaded by the flat surface where solar devices will be installed.
The surface area of the device is greater than the surface of the water. So, I anticipate that both natural convection and winds will largely do a net cooling with air and not evaporative cooling.
I have also allowed the possibility that these would not even float on water. But the wear and tear on that may require special measures.
Obviously on Mars, you could pressurize the interior of the devices.
And on Mars it is said that if all the CO2 in the ice caps were evaporated, the atmosphere would allow snow melts and temporary streams of water. These devices on Mars then could reduce evaporation. But, on Mars, the ponds will likely need to be cold and very salty.
In the terraform of Mars, the earliest bodies of water possible might resemble this pond in Antarctica: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Juan_Pond
Quote:
With a salinity level of 45.8%, Don Juan Pond is the saltiest of the Antarctic lakes.[1][2] This salinity causes significant freezing-point depression, allowing the pond to remain liquid even at temperatures as low as −50 °C (−58 °F).
So, it is thought that the water is too harsh for life, but inside of the Shade devices the water could be warmer and less salty.
On Earth, perhaps the great basin, water bodies largely covered in shade devices of this type, might be sustainable from local rain and snow falls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_St … limatology
Image Quote: 
So, also depending on evaporation rates, green areas on the Map seem more likely to be able to have lakes.
But Yellows and Browns might be helped in it by these giant shade device.
So, for instance for the Great Salt Lake, if you covered half of the water with shade devices, you MIGHT cut the evaporation rate by 50%. So the lake would inflate and cover more area until its natural evaporation rate is restored. Therefore, you would not really reduce the amount of open lake available for wildlife and humans. You would reduce the salt gradient level though. In theory you could inflate the lake until it was 2x the saltiness of sea water, in which case it might be possible to grow fish in it.
But the idea is to sequester Carbon from the atmosphere while doing farming inside of the shade devices. Also producing electricity which you might use in the farming and for other things.
You might want to space these things a bit in case of fire.
Anyway, that might be how we get away with the rising CO2 levels. I hope it can be a Win/Win/Win............Situation.
Ending Pending
Last edited by Void (Today 21:32:46)
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