Venus the diamond mine

nickname · 2006-11-11 05:28:08

Since the pressure and temperature are both so high at the surface of Venus, i wonder how close it is to being the perfect place to create diamonds.

Making diamonds on the surface would go a long way to reducing the atmosphere and temperature.
Maybe enough to start fixing other carbon and oxygen materials less tolerant of the heat.

The process of diamond creation at Venus shouldn't be to difficult since it is so close to needed pressures and temperatures already.

Rxke · 2006-11-11 05:44:05

the pressure's not even close to what's needed.

noosfractal · 2006-11-11 06:28:50

Today, in the year 2006, the industrial diamond industry is an annual US$1 billion market, producing some 3 billion carats, or 600 metric tons, of synthetic diamond. This should be put in comparison with the 130 million carats (26 metric tons) mined annually for gem purposes.

http://experts.about.com/e/s/sy/synthetic_diamond.htm

$1 billion for 600 tons. I don't think that is going to support a Venusian production facility, even if you can make it rain diamonds there.

nickname · 2006-11-11 15:47:56

Rxke,

To bad the pressure needed is more than 100 earth atmosphere.
Any plan that has a potential to make money and get Venus moving the right way towards a less hostile surface is what i was thinking.

noosfractal,

Not much money to play with when trying to alter a planet.

Rain was exactly what i was thinking.
Carbon packages sent to the surface to form diamonds.
It looks like that will work but with compressive explosive charges needed to increase pressure further at the surface.

At least on Venus we could make diamonds of a size that wouldn't exist on Earth, but would they be of value to start such a project? and the wait for collecting those diamonds from the surface until it is less than machine hostile.

noosfractal · 2006-11-12 00:26:52

No need to terraform Venus, it is already perfect at 50 kms above the surface ...

Venus Terraforamation - Can we colonize the death furnace?
http://www.newmars.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=432

John Creighton · 2006-11-12 15:57:43

Rxke,
To bad the pressure needed is more than 100 earth atmosphere.
Any plan that has a potential to make money and get Venus moving the right way towards a less hostile surface is what i was thinking.
noosfractal,

Well, you get the first 90 for free. Then again why not just go to the bottom of the ocean.

nickname · 2006-11-13 05:16:39

John Creighton,

The only advantage to making diamonds on Venus is the free temperature and more free light over the earth ocean.
Lots of disadvantages exist also on Venus.
I have no clue how you would go about recovering the diamonds from the surface of Venus.
Even if Venus was covered in diamonds right now i doubt we could go collect them.

It was more of an atmosphere reduction thought process than a real plan anyway.
Lots of bound carbon products should be able to resist the hostile surface.
We just need to figure out what and how to mass produce it.
With floating factories so much free light and elements to work with Venus is ideal to create things.

If we can produce some carbon based item that can resist the surface pressure and temperature then altering Venus might not be as difficult as we think.
Factories that create factories and carbon based items so its an exponential process with little input from us.

Then the same process to bind O2 and C as the temperature on Venus decreases.
What to create in those floating factories is the question though?

noosfractal · 2006-11-13 05:22:01

What to create in those floating factories is the question though?

They should collect tritium or create antimatter. Energy is always in short supply.

karov · 2006-11-13 06:09:23

What to create in those floating factories is the question though?

I think: Split the CO2. Use the carbon to weave nanotube high pressure tanks for O2 and for N2 ( or directly air - 78% N2 + 22% O2). Use CO2 working fluid laser-thermal rockets to deliver the C-tanked O2 and N2 out of the gravity well of Venus... ( not necessary full escape velocity - just high orbit to the Martin Lo`s interplanetary highway, i.e. trajectory passing through the Sun-Venus L1 ... from there where necessary supply is asy, use solar gravity assist, too). It is orbital-mechanicly obvious that delta-V-wise Venus is closer to the asteeroids than Earth. Of course in asteroids we find plenty of water, and other hydrogen and oxygen compounds, but the N2 is in short supply all over the Inner SolSys...
Oxygen although plenty everywhere, is energy dependent for production... so paradoxally Venus exporting oxigen in tanks produced from valuable constructuion material , occurs to be important ENERGY exporter for the whole system:
1. The asteroids = > 75% C-type, consist of big part kerogenes, kerogen + solar thermal depolymerization is petrol.
2. The Outer system -- Titan alone possesses ligt hydrocabones reserve enough to drive the nowaday earth economy for millions of years...
A sufficient and regulary supply of compressed oxygen, is the conditio sine qua non est utilization of this chemical gradient...

On first glance to install self-replicating solar-power factories in the venusian cloudtop which to spawn exponentially oxygen loaded carbon ships / tanks all around the Solar System, SEEMS too low-density energy-wise, but the low intensity is smashed by the shear size and growth pace of the proces. The other advantage is that we know very well the internal combustion engines - including rockets. The solar syatem could be linked weell in vry comfortable time-spans if available good fuel + oxigen supply for normal rockets operating everywhere...

A;lthough on first glace such chemical based scheme seems strange and "steam-punk" one, cause our hads are for decades filld with nuclar rockets and antimatter systems, such low-density energetically way is much closer and more userfriendly than the non-natural ones...

Imagine, a interplanetary probe provided in flight with as much fuel+oxydizer, i.e. power as the Shuttle before to lift of the ground!!!
Imagine Mars-Earth shuttle-bus having on disposal as much fuel+oxydizer ( in the order of thousands of tones ) both in low-mars and LEO!!!
Imagine a seed-base on Titan, at the shores of one of these methane/ethane lakes around which millions of tones of Oxigen are parachuted every earth year!!!
Or cave-settlement on some of the beyond_the_Frost-Line asteroids ( or a comet nuclei!!!!), rich of carbohydrates where regulary and plentifull air-filled tanks arrive ( for breathing, for filling the habitat sections, for literaly burning the combustible content of the asteroid mass )...

Exponentiality: if the solar -powered factory multiplies 10 times a year producing and orbiting off-venus , say a tank with 100 tones of oxigen at a time... calculate!

nickname · 2006-11-14 07:20:46

karov.

Very interesting idea to split the co2 and use the o2 to power all space ventures and the C as containers.

At the 10x exponential rate of growth the production of O2 as rocket fuel would be astronomical even after only a couple of years.
Even with an expected 20% failure rate we would be moving bars of 02 very quickly.

I haven't done the math but i believe we are talking in a single human life span to completely alter Venus.

A little tweak to the plan might be the additional C created from 02 separation could also prove useful.
Send the additional C into a geo orbit to start creating a moon for Venus.
We can either leave it as a growing moon or use it later as a raw source of pure carbon.

karov · 2006-11-15 03:36:14

BTW, LOX / liquid oxigen ( ~1.4 kg/litre) is highly paramagnetic, which means that it is very appropriate for mass-drivers launching. The carbon is appropriate for lots of tasks: producing balistic electron conductors from nanotubes, "carbogel", analogous to aerogel, solar pannels and radiators...
That`s why perhaps better and more efficient atmosphere packaged export mechanism for Venus will be: kilometers long vaciimed aerostatically supported mass-driver mostly carbon tubes, launching LOX and LN2 loaded carbon tanks. The tanks could unfold into absorbtion type of solar sails in order to have propelantless drive. The solarfacing side of the unfolded carbon "wings" of the carbon LOX tanks could work as solar sails and photo- and/or thermo-voltaics. The good insolatiuon achieved with carbogel of the tanks comibed with kinda Peltier effect and the non-solarfacing side of the "wings" can refrigerate all the time the LOX until delivery. The electronic circuitry, and the sensors could be inbuilt in the wings, too. Every package could have serial number and code -- the sale of the code will give access of the buyer to the navigation of each carbon LOX tanker, and some insect-level "artificial instinct" will be embedded in order the "brain" of the tank to understand and to execute the command to arrive here and there. The Access Codes could be traded on special Code Exchange. One code = certain quantity of LOX or liquid nitrogen...

The mass-driver launch solar powered of course, will be part of the total reporoduction of the tankage factory -- some life-like indystrual unmanned system... unmanned, but indeed it will produce the sufficient amount of venusian cloudtop floating infrastructure, which to be 'terraformed" -- i.e. the normal air is lifting gas in Venusian cliudtop... the vacuum in the mas-drivers` tubes even more lifting power... the mass-driver tunels as "armature" of the human habitats floating continents...

Of course some other elements than simply O, C, N will be necessary, but the self-replicating machinery could have such gathering ability from the venusian surface...

karov · 2006-11-15 15:17:27

..... similar with Mercury:
use solar power split the rocks into Oxygen, Aluminum, Silicon.
-- launch the oxygen off-planet ( you can store it in form of LOX lakes if sunshade provided )
-- shot the aluminum to Venus to react with CO2 forming Al2O3 + carbon black "raining" on the ground.
-- the silicon = produce LOTs of computronium + photovoltaics...

trade the CO2+N2 with the Al between Venus and Mercury using coupled "tennis" mass-drivers...

The Hydrogen: turn Mercury into giant magnetic "lense" focusing the denser at this distance solar wind from crossection with radius of say, 100 000 km into collectors or directly onto Venus with sub-escape velocities...

nickname · 2006-11-15 18:10:56

karov,

Or how about park one decent sized iron asteroid in Venus orbit, use the iron and nickel to bind the C and 02 from Venus with the varied metals on the asteroid into nearly anything we like.

Factories in orbit preparing the elements from Venus and from the asteroid.
Use the same Venus C02 separation process to get 02 and C to orbit.

No reason we can't create a hydrogen collection system from all that man made material we will have available in Venus orbit, or at least a giant sunshade.

A plus to collecting hydrogen at Venus although less efficient than at mercury.
We can store it for delivery all at once, and make it as big as we like.
This would avoid the thermal increase of the chemical h20 reaction and steam production until Venus is ready to create water, or cool enough to avoid a runaway from the reaction itself.

Then we can alter Venus, create space ships, fuel, metal and carbon material needs etc.

With this sort of setup altering Venus might not even be a priority, just something that happens after we use most of the free resources at Venus to open up the solar system.

John Creighton · 2006-11-15 21:48:56

Does anyone know about diamond making methods. I know with one method you create a molten ball of iron and well the ball cools the surface tension of the molten metal compresses the carbon into diamonds. Now on Venus is it cold enough for this to work?

nickname · 2006-11-16 04:47:00

John Creighton,

I'm not sure what temperature the metal must be, but i think most metals on the surface of Venus would be pretty soft under the heat.

We might be able to put the local conditions to use to create diamonds in a new way.

Send down pure carbon spheres with pressurized 02 surrounding them in a metal case.
Let the heat and pressure of the surface cause an explosion of the 02 surrounding the C to cause a compressive explosion.

Might work to create diamonds, a similar idea created the first A bomb.

John Creighton · 2006-11-26 00:16:41

John Creighton,
I'm not sure what temperature the metal must be, but i think most metals on the surface of Venus would be pretty soft under the heat.
We might be able to put the local conditions to use to create diamonds in a new way.
Send down pure carbon spheres with pressurized 02 surrounding them in a metal case.
Let the heat and pressure of the surface cause an explosion of the 02 surrounding the C to cause a compressive explosion.
Might work to create diamonds, a similar idea created the first A bomb.

I think using an implosion is another method that is used on earth as well. This method clearly wouldn’t work under the ocean but may work better on venues.

karov · 2006-11-26 03:22:36

Method to produce cheap diamonds with imlosions, etc. -- OK!
But, why do one needs to go to Venus for doind that? Earth is as rich of carbon as Venus -- the necessary diamond forming pressures make irrelevant the pressure of the surrounding the 'imploder' environment -- one needs millions of atmospheres / + or - couple of dozens ot hundreds around only makes the performance more complicated , doesn`t helps...

nickname · 2006-11-26 03:51:35

karov,

I guess the only advantage to making the diamonds on Venus is that it would be an automatic process.
Just let the spheres drop to the surface and they create diamonds, the inevitable sphere failure will cause the compressive o2 explosion.

Getting the explosive fuel and carbon at once for the process could be done with c02 splitting, and maybe even the sphere outer material could be made at the same time.

To make any impact on atmosphere reduction we would have to create an enormous amount of diamonds on the surface.

Probably not a realistic idea to create a 50 meter deep diamond surface on Venus to lock away the C, but a good chemical experiment to show that a way exists to reduce the C02 on Venus but not in practicality.

If we could replace the creation of diamonds with some other product that locks away the C, then reducing the atmosphere on Venus might not be that difficult.

karov · 2006-11-26 13:44:02

diamonds are useless, especially if quadrillions of carats... better buckytubes

Gregori · 2008-04-06 00:50:23

diamonds are useless, especially if quadrillions of carats... better buckytubes

Diamonds have loads of industrial uses. bucky tubes have very few as of yet. Both will eventually have there applications.

Given the horrible conditions on Venus, Diamonds exceptional properties could give them many awesome applications, esp on the surface.

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