High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

karov · 2004-09-19 01:57:48

After we gently import this amount of L-He there the cooling, hence the liquification of CO2 will occur without shading. Such way the almost total mass of CO2 can be considered as absolutelly sequestered off the atmosphere. The 30-40 bars of He + 3-4 of N2 are good breathable mixture dilutant, already proven in deep dives. The mostly helium atmosphere will possess very usefull thermal features, i.e. no sunscreening for Venus again necesarry, cause it will no longer holds the heat by greenhousing. The several dozens of times bigger atmospheric total mass means several dozens of times better heat redistribution between the night/day and equator/poles than earth`s, i.e. no planet-spinning or introducing 24-hour orbit`s mirrors to simulate shorter diurnal cycle are necesarry.

To have the right temperatural and chemical conditions occurs that we only should import the huge amount of L-He.

Later: the L-CO2 oceans can be covered with something less denser than L-CO2, but denser than water - innitially to prevent CO2 evaporation, than mixing with water. Imported water by aerobraking of countless microcomets - icecubes distiled and fired by railguns or something else mechanical will settle onto the much thicker L-CO2 ocean entirelly engulfing it under water-bodies. There is no risk the underlying CO2 to evaporate cathastrophically fast cause it is liquid under non-watered conditions too, in difference with the solid CO2 sequestration under only 1 bar external atmosphere. The CO2 which slowly managed to escape can be pumped back in the underwater layer, as a part of the biogenical cycle...

BTW, the colour of the sky will be red, due to the much thicker air column hight.

Yes, strange world: red skyes, two months day/two months night, almost no difference between the night/day & poles/equiator thermal conditions, dense air which makes your voice to sound like cartoon hero, but faciliates the aeronautics. The baseline humans would need some constant aid against the effects of near to nitrogen narcosis and helium high pressure nervous sindrome, i.e. happy place... BUT shirt-sleeve habitable, although so different from the home planet environmental conditions.

Major point is that the L-CO2 "hydrosphere" could be left to mix freely with the later imported water. Under 40 bars of atmospheric pressure and 15-25 degrees celsius average ( i.e. actual ) temperature, the rate of the evaporation under or without 500-1000 metters of water, should be calculated and to be conserned the actual partial pressure of atmospheric CO2 vapour. If it occurs to be bellow 10 milibars, than everithing is OK. If it is 50-80 milibars or higher - the human inhabitants should ware masks or to be chematologically changed...

SpaceNut · 2004-09-21 10:46:08

Is there a chance that this could also happen with venus do to close proximity to the sun?

Atmospheric Escape from Hot Jupiters
http://www.jupitertoday.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=13878

karov · 2004-09-21 16:09:25

Of course, even worse, but after ~5-7 000 000 000 years.

Earthfirst · 2004-09-30 14:44:09

One to inport He and H would be make a magfield for venus.
But instead of deflecting the solar wind it could be used as a trap. By facing one of the poles towards the sun, the solar wind would be channel into venus atmosphere where it adds to the mass. Magtraps have been prosed for the capure of lost atmosphere from mars, moon, and other small body terraformed atmoshere. It could easly work on venus to add He, from a large area of space. It cheaper than making little ships that suck He from jupitor or the sun.
Also if a sea of co2 was cover with water, any mixing would result in co2 water ice substance that would sink to the bottom. On earth some want to store co2 under the ocean to prevent the gobal warming, it would work on venus too, thanks to the great preasures.

karov · 2004-10-07 02:01:15

One to inport He and H would be make a magfield for venus.
But instead of deflecting the solar wind it could be used as a trap. By facing one of the poles towards the sun, the solar wind would be channel into venus atmosphere where it adds to the mass. Magtraps have been prosed for the capure of lost atmosphere from mars, moon, and other small body terraformed atmoshere. It could easly work on venus to add He, from a large area of space. It cheaper than making little ships that suck He from jupitor or the sun.
Also if a sea of co2 was cover with water, any mixing would result in co2 water ice substance that would sink to the bottom. On earth some want to store co2 under the ocean to prevent the gobal warming, it would work on venus too, thanks to the great preasures.

I agree on every point. The artificial mag-field should be designed in such way that to fullfil the requirements for good atmosphere retention budget. Channeling in H/He ions is very suitable, also such arrangement could be usefull to retain the trying to escape ions.

I believe that economical and effective magtraps can retain an earth-like atmosphere not only on Venus or Mercury ( They are gravitational giants indeed) but on much-much lower surface gravity worlds in much-much closer proximity to the Sun. For example - a lunar size body with SG of say 0.1 G orbiting the Sun even closer than Mercury, might be designed to hold an earth-like atmosphere for billions of years ( indeffinitelly in practical terms), via increasing the top cloud layer albedo ( up to ~100% if necesarry), decreasing the greenhousing to the very possible minimum, increasing the efficiency of the tropospheric cold trap to the biggest possible figures, and with specially designed/arranged magfield to hold the iones with sufficient energy for thermal escape + traping of the incoming with the solar wind, which in other case ablate the exosphere via magnetodynamical 'pick-up'...

Facing one of the poles of the artificial magfield to the Sun, or even both poles if we superimpose one over the other several magfields is PERFECT idea. The natural solar wind density and hence traffic is too small, but towards a planet provided with such trap the outcome of several particle accelerators ( solar wind amplifiers ) positioned close to the Sun could be targeted.

Harvesting the Sun mignt be really cheaper than to hawl all these 10exp18 tonnes of whatever from the outer system. The Sun has both almost all the energy to do the job and the materials in plasmed state - easy fopr extraction and refinement. The solar wind-amplifiers ( plasma pumps) can fire refined/distiled matter with chosen chemical content towards the trap, not natural composition particles` stream:

1. Hydrogen - to turn the atmosphere in 3-4 bars of naturally present gaseous envelope of N2+, liquid water and solid carbon - the last later sequestered en situ via rock formation and biomass, and after that the O2 to reach the breathable levels.

2. Helium - to make the He-high pressure scenario, liquifying the CO2 at room temperature, an later sequestering in it under deep water oceans, biogenically or geologically. ( Organisms designd or found to thrive in room temp L-CO2 can do the rockysation or biomassization)

3. Neon - element more abundant in the Sun than even the nitrogen ( several thousand earth`s masses total sol stockpile), to do the helium job in other Ne-high pressure scenario. In many breathing respects Ne is better than He.

3. Metals - iron, aluminium, magnesium... extracted from the solar mass, by the same ram-scoop harvesters, and fired to the venusian mag trap, so in several decades to react all the CO2 (+N2) in solid residue, hence leaving the solid venusian surface in naked vacuum, in order to faciliate the planetary engineering - hydro- and atmosphere construction...

qraal · 2008-02-13 03:34:43

Hi All

Just trawlling through the archive. Found Karov's odd idea of "terraforming" Venus under a helium blanket. Liquid CO2 is all very well, but it suffers from the fact that the lowest CO2 partial pressure compatible with its liquid phase not evaporating away is ~5.2 bar. CO2's critical point is just 31 C and over 72 bar. Thus decent temperatures mean the atmosphere is full of evaporating CO2 - bad news for colonists.

I'm guessing Karov realised the mistake and dropped the idea.

JoshNH4H · 2008-02-14 15:15:56

I have a related idea. What about CO2 sequestration by burying it under the oceans (which will have to be made). Very similar idea, except
A-it's okay if it's a supercritical fluid
B- 4-5 bars atmospheric pressure is perfectly acceptable.

qraal · 2008-02-15 18:33:10

Hi jumpboy11

There's a suggestion that our CO2 could be stored down there - it's only 5 C so the high-pressure should easily keep it liquid and all the water would suppress mixing.

I have a related idea. What about CO2 sequestration by burying it under the oceans (which will have to be made). Very similar idea, except
A-it's okay if it's a supercritical fluid
B- 4-5 bars atmospheric pressure is perfectly acceptable.

...super-critical CO2 mixes too easily, but there's no reason why we can't cover it with an impermeable barrier, then pressurise it underwater. Venus might need a heavy atmosphere to suppress the water-mixing ratio in the stratosphere anyway so sea level might be at high-pressure.

Gregori · 2008-03-11 17:34:46

If you could use a stellar shade to cool the atmosphere of Venus,

Would it be possible to electrolysis C02?

I'm thinking that removing the atmosphere of Venus inot space is prohibitively expensive and pointless so it might be easier to turn it into a more useful from on the planets surface.

RickSmith · 2008-03-29 04:19:41

Hi Karov,
This is a very interesting thread but I see a few problems.

- Where does the He and H2O come from. Postulate 'from space'.
- As others have pointed out, the long day is a problem.
- To maintain an O2 atm. you must have a viable biosphere.
- I doubt that an aerobic biosphere is stable in the scenario you describe.

Consider, H2O can dissolve O2, the colder the better. On Venus this water will be significantly hotter than on Earth. So Venus' oceans will start more oxygen starved than Earth's. The water will have as much CO2 in it as it can hold. If the water is maxed out on the amount of CO2 it can carry, does this decrease the O2 carrying capacity? I am not sure, but it easily could.

Under the water ocean is an ocean of CO2. O2 does not dissolve in CO2 liquid to any large extent.

The oceans must be living. As life dies it floats to the bottom and rots. The little O2 dissolved in the CO2 liquid ocean will be used up by the first wave of rotting material and then...

We get the dead biologicals being broken down with sulfur oxidizing bacteria (anaerobic decay). This produces hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gas which sterilizes your oceans, sterilizes the land and then breaks up O3 which lets the UV light from the sun (twice as dense as at Earth) thru. Once we have H2S in shallow waters, purple algae starts to grow which uses sunlight to produce H2S directly via photosynthesis.

(Note, I've read that the H2S breaking up O3 may not be as bad as first thought. Also Venus has a thick atmosphere so any ozone layer will be deep. The problem with the UV light is a maybe.)

This sort of hydrogen sulfide ecology is seen in the Dead Sea and off the coast of Namibia on Earth. There is geochemical evidence that it was much more wide spread at several periods in Earth's past (particularly at the end of the Permian).

I really think you will have to get rid of the CO2 somehow, not just say that it will be safely out of the way at the bottom of the ocean.

Warm regards, Rick.

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#26 2004-09-19 01:57:48

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#27 2004-09-21 10:46:08

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#28 2004-09-21 16:09:25

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#29 2004-09-30 14:44:09

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#30 2004-10-07 02:01:15

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#31 2008-02-13 03:34:43

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#32 2008-02-14 15:15:56

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#33 2008-02-15 18:33:10

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#34 2008-03-11 17:34:46

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

#35 2008-03-29 04:19:41

Re: High pressure 'terraforming' of Venus - trimix atmosphere and cooling

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