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karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

Energy wise most efficient way to get rid of the CO2 on Venus is every way except these involving it export off-venus...

snelson5871

Member

Registered: 2005-12-16

Posts: 11

Re: Terrform Venus

Well one way to make Venus shed its atmosphere is to make it hotter. Once the CO2 in the atmosphere reaches a higher temprature it will move faster so just heat it up enough that the CO2 can reach escape velocity. The Bosch and Sabatier reactions are also good ones but require a large amount of hydrogen and a catylst to be imported from elsewhere which is cost prohibitive.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

snelson,
do the maths -- it is cost prohibitive to export mass -- the import is net producer of energy.

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

snelson5871,

It is a simple process to overheat Venus.

Since Venus has so much free C02 you could easily import the products to create super greenhouse gasses right in the atmosphere.
The importation volumes would be relatively small, but still large quantities for our technology.

It would have to be done pretty quickly as the heating caused would cause problems for the mechanism producing the greenhouse gasses.

When we super heat C02 do we get C02 escaping or 0 escaping as the C02 bonds weaken?
Guess that all depends on how hot how fast.?

Cleaning up the 20 or 30 bars remaining on Venus afterwards could envolve carbon fixing in a number of ways, hydrogen mining or importation, metals mining etc, anything that will capture free 0 or C02.
Once machines could work for extended periods of time on the surface i think teraforming the rest would be quite possible.
Bring the big chemistry set also.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
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nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

karov,

I think Venus is a question of making stable carbon chains.
Once Venus is cool enough for any carbon products to survive on the surface it's possible to teraform.

I cant think of a possible importation right now that would lower the temperature of Venus to any degree to allow any stable carbon chemistry.

Other than hydrogen and its beyond practical importation quantities for the current Venus.

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Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

snelson5871,

It is a simple process to overheat Venus.

When we super heat C02 do we get C02 escaping or 0 escaping as the C02 bonds weaken?
Guess that all depends on how hot how fast.?

quote]

Did you calculated how much energy you should beam into Venus to reach escape velocity for its gases?

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snelson5871

Member

Registered: 2005-12-16

Posts: 11

Re: Terrform Venus

No I'm not that great at figuring out my own formulas.

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

karov,

All depends on what reactions we get with a slow heating VS a fast one.

Adding a greenhouse gas that self bonds with CO2 shouldn't be to difficult.
Getting it to Venus another story.

If higher temperatures cause 0 and C to separate it might make for a very different teraforming model for Venus.
We might be able to make some interesting chain reactions with free O and much less energy needed as the free atoms occupy more space than CO2, a loss of heating though as CO2 is converted.

I'm curious if very hot CO2 becomes O and O and C or simply escapes as  CO2?

Shows how a simple planet heating can have unseen outcomes, and we haven't talked about the heated sulphur or nitrogen yet and what they might do.

What is the escape velocity for CO2 on Venus? what temperature do we need to produce that on Venus and what temperature is the breakpoint of the CO2 bonds on Venus?

That would answer the how much super greenhouse gas question, and the what happens to CO2 when super heated (escape as CO2 or broken bonds and O only escapes)

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

snelson5871

Member

Registered: 2005-12-16

Posts: 11

Re: Terrform Venus

The Bosch reaction is a chemical reaction between carbon dioxide and hydrogen that produces elemental carbon (graphite), water and heat.

The overall reaction is as follows:

CO2(g) + 2 H2(g) → C(s) + 2 H2O(l)

The above reaction is actually the result of two reactions. The first reaction is a fast one.

CO2 + H2 → CO + H2O

The second reaction controls the reaction rate.

CO + H2 → C + H2O

The overall reaction produces 2.3x103 joules for every gram of carbon produced at 650 °C. Reaction temperatures are in the range of 450 to 600 °C.

The reaction can be accelerated in the presence of an iron, cobalt or nickel catalyst. Ruthenium also serves to speed up the reaction. The production of elemental carbon tends to foul the catalyst's surface, which is detrimental to the reaction's efficiency.

Together with the Sabatier reaction the Bosch reaction is studied as a way to remove carbon dioxide and to generate clean water aboard a space station [1]

Thats from wiki here is the link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosch_reaction

Now if this reaction requires 450 - 600 degrees to begin there is a vast area of the atmosphere in which it would occur. This would break the CO2 down into good things and also create heat to help some of the remaining CO2 obtain escape velicity. Also with the water added to the atmosphere we could add sulphur metabolizing bacteria (here is a link to a google search on those http://www.google.com/search?hs=qFE&hl= … tnG=Search ) to begin ridding the atmoshpere of the sulphur and  sulfuric acid. Once the sulphur metabloizing bacteria begin to thrive and reduce the acid we can then begin adding photosynthesisers to the atmosphere to begin converting the CO2 into O2.Coupling all this with mechanical means of reducing the CO2 it should do something real fast.

noosfractal

Member

From: Biosphere 1

Registered: 2005-10-04

Posts: 824

Website

Re: Terrform Venus

guys I`m talking about kinda tamed / cathalized coronal mass ejection...

karov, this is awesome.  I've been thinking about this all week.

Now, please invent the plasma-management hardware!!!

I'm reading up on solar dynamics to get a feel for the figures, but here is the basic idea: create a magnetic lens in heliostationary orbit with current running through dusty plasma "coils" maintained by one or more (relatively small) coil generators spinning around the center of the lens.  The center of the lens could simply be the center of gravity of the coil generator swarm, or, the coil generators could be tethered , for example, in pairs.  The diameter of the lens would be tens of thousands of kilometers.  The coil generators not only generate the dusty plasma that constitutes the coils, but also the electric current that (by flowing through the dusty plasma coil) generates the magnetic field that focuses the proton wind.  Once focused, the proton stream is directed into a Venetian counter-orbit to be swepted up by the planet as it moves through its year.

This would be a passive mechanism.  I haven't even begun to think about teasing out additional mass, but that is a great idea as well - perhaps we could create a kind of lighting-rod for coronal mass ejections with high energy EMPs.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

The escape velocity from Venus is ~10 km/s. In order to eject all the CO2 via "simply overheating it" -- you need to "simply" warm up to about 180 000 degrees Kelvin.

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Terrform Venus

The escape velocity from Venus is ~10 km/s. In order to eject all the CO2 via "simply overheating it" -- you need to "simply" warm up to about 180 000 degrees Kelvin.

If you do that, you might as well reshape the continents as your going to melt the crust, then you will have to shade the planet and wait for it to cool, and then you can work on molding the planet's hardening crust in the shape of Earths continents and fill the ocean basins. Reminds me of the Movie the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

You know so long as you melt the planet down, why not take it apart and place it in its proper orbit. Just take globs of it and transport it over to the Earth-Sun L5 point and dump it right there. Dump enough of Venus in that spot and you can build yourself a slightly smaller replica of Earth out of that material. Now would you call that terraforming or planet building?

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

Karov,

Thank you for the escape speed.
~10 km/s
A lot higher than i thought.

No need to figure out the Kelvin temperature to reach escape velocity for c02 as c02 bonds should disassociate long before that temperature.

I can't find any paper or information about c02 disassociating in heat.
O escape velocities are much lower, so we need to  know what temperature it will escape at, and will it be lower than the super greenhouse gas disassociating, and will it be a respectable escape temperature for O.
Starting to feel like a chemical experiment with many locked variables dependant on each other for a result.

I think realistically we could double the temperature of Venus for the short term to chemically alter it, but beyond that it would require more input than a realistic amount of super greenhouse gas could contribute.

We probably don't need to remove all the c02 from Venus, as soon as Carbon can accumulate on the surface with lowering temperatures we have a place to work chemically or with machines.

Overheating Venus is easy, doing anything useful with a hotter Venus not so easy.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

Tom Kalbfus,

When you make that could we have an ocean on it? and maybe forests?

Just watched that series

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Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

SpaceNut

Administrator

From: New Hampshire

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 29,017

Re: Terrform Venus

Hi nickname, I would think that it would be simular to electrolysis but I could be way off.
As I recal it had something to do with the use of Cubic zirconia.

Mars In Situ Resource Utilization (ISRU) Oxygen Production

Recovery and Utilization of Extraterrestrial Resources

In-Situ Propellant Production on Mars

The ultimate objective of any ISPP demonstration is the production of oxygen and/or fuel from in-situ resources. The primary objectives of the OGS experiment are to demonstrate the production of oxygen from Martian atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as to investigate the basic performance of zirconia solid-oxide oxygen generator hardware in the Mars environment. The zirconia solid-oxide oxygen generator produces oxygen by electrolyzing CO2 at elevated temperatures (750?C) to strip off an oxygen ion from the molecule. Once the oxygen ion has been removed from the CO2 molecule, the zirconia material acts as an oxygen pump and separator by allowing only the oxygen to pass through it’s crystal lattice when a voltage is applied across the zirconia material.

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

SpaceNut,
Hi

Geesh i didn't even know Venus was hairy

I can't believe a table of disassociation temperatures doesn't exist somewhere.

While looking for a table i did stumble across a very interesting idea that involved simple carbon machines that self replicated and grew exceptionally.

It looked very promising as a way to soak up carbon from Venus, but still the initial ground temperatures were an issue as the carbon copies failed.

Virus engineering also offered a similar approach to remove carbon.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

Even iuncluding the dissociation of CO2 -- and separate "heat pushing out" of the venusian atmosphere -- you still need 100 000 K!
The easiest way to figure out how much usefull energy will be wasted if we sequester the CO2 out in space ( which I REPEAT is not necessary cause Venus DO NOT possesses more carbon than Earth - just on Venus the carbon is not in the good solid form, but gaseous ) is to take the total mass of the venusian atmosphere ( indeed 95% of it), to multiply it on 10000x10000 = v2 and to divide it on two...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus

mass = 4.8x10exp20
velocity squared = 10exp8

Energy = 2.4x10exp28 Joules...

look in: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orders_of_ … 8energy%29

the total energy output in one minute or the energy bill for the entire Earth for 4400 years!!!

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Terrform Venus

What if you added enough hydrogen to remove most of the carbon dioxide by combining the oxygen atoms of each CO2 molecule with hydrogen leaving the C behind?

CO^2 + 2H^2 ---> C + 2H^2O The hydrogen would probably come from the outer solar system, perhaps the energy of impact can disassociate the CO2 and power the above reaction.

Chaos Master

InActive

Registered: 2006-08-31

Posts: 2

Re: Terrform Venus

The hydrogen would probably come from the outer solar system

or from the Hydrogen output of the sun, as karov suggested...

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

karov,

I will have to believe you on the temperatures because i can't find anything proving or disproving it.

As i said overheating Venus is easy but doing anything with that new temperature range questionable.

The max i could for see for greenhouse gasses was maybe double the temperature of the current Venus.
Probably a useless addition to temperature on Venus unless some chemical genius can use nitrogen somehow to alter C02 (I couldn't)

I agree that Venus has no need to loose its C02, infarct just dumping it to space would probably cause unforeseen problems in the inner solar system.

Adding hydrogen to Venus from the sun is a excellent idea, but lets not forget that the current Venus retains 12% of its total heat from its far less than 1% of  water vapor in the atmosphere.

Creating water vapor on Venus will add heat from the H2O reaction itself in the short term  and from the water vapor in the long term.

For this idea to work Venus would have to be at a temperature lower than the steam point of H2O to avoid the original runaway greenhouse condition.

Water as steam is a very powerful greenhouse gas.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

karov

Member

From: Bulgaria

Registered: 2004-06-03

Posts: 953

Re: Terrform Venus

What if you added enough hydrogen to remove most of the carbon dioxide by combining the oxygen atoms of each CO2 molecule with hydrogen leaving the C behind?

CO^2 + 2H^2 ---> C + 2H^2O The hydrogen would probably come from the outer solar system, perhaps the energy of impact can disassociate the CO2 and power the above reaction.

Bosch reaction is exothermic. It releases heat. The excess energy of the import ( impact not necessary ) could be used for further engineering and mainly for REFRIGERATING by force of Venus - astmosphere and upper litosphere. The excess of energy comes either from the virial theoreme -- the thermal kinethics of the solar hydrogen, or by gravitational potential energy of the Outer system bodies... But solar is purer - only H and some He , --the Outer system bodies are equal parts ices-rocks-carbohydrates and the solar source is closer and faster, together with cleaner... If the terraformers insist to export the C and to leave Venus "carbonless" -- than calculate -- One proton in the solar wind moves with ~800 km/s and weights 1/12th of the carbon atom... The carbon atom confined into CO2 molecule moves at about 0.65 m/s... At system efficiency of ~10% one harvested impacting proton , could hawl out >10 000 carbon atoms...

atitarev

Member

From: Melbourne, Australia

Registered: 2003-05-16

Posts: 203

Re: Terrform Venus

Has anyone considered using hollowed out asteroids (around 50 km in diameter) to ship excessive compressed gases out of Venus? It will take a while still.

Realistically what can be achieved by humans is reducing the atmosphere to 2.5 - 3 bars (95% nitrogen, 5% oxygen), creating a powerful magnetic field (more powerful than that on Earth) partial sunshade, no change to rotation - I don't think there are realistic plans to change its rotation.

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Anatoli Titarev

nickname

Banned

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-05-15

Posts: 354

Re: Terrform Venus

atitarev,

I did see an idea on this forum about a year ago.
It involved giant carbon balloons made at Venus filled with co2.
After sending a couple to mars no real destination was left for the other 999,998 of them.

Continuing on the asteroid idea, a large asteroid with a glancing blow on Venus deposits a lot of material as a sun shade that lasts for a long time.
This might be step 1 in teraforming Venus.

As you point out though even a 2 or 3 bar Venus would still have lots of troubles.
I wouldn't want to hazard a guess but even on that teraformed Venus near the equator, temperatures would probably boil water and begin a runaway.

Changing the spin of Venus is probably possible with impacts from water ice asteroids, but changing it to more than about twice its spin is doubtful.

Even on a terformed Venus we will still have to deal with the lack of magnetic field to solve the radiation problems.
That can be fixed with a massive ground or space based field generator, but either are massive engineering jobs.

---

Science facts are only as good as knowledge.
Knowledge is only as good as the facts.
New knowledge is only as good as the ones that don't respect the first two.

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Terrform Venus

Has anyone considered using hollowed out asteroids (around 50 km in diameter) to ship excessive compressed gases out of Venus? It will take a while still.

Realistically what can be achieved by humans is reducing the atmosphere to 2.5 - 3 bars (95% nitrogen, 5% oxygen), creating a powerful magnetic field (more powerful than that on Earth) partial sunshade, no change to rotation - I don't think there are realistic plans to change its rotation.

There is the problem of lowering the asteroids into Venus' atmosphere, hollowing them out, filling them up with CO2 and then launching those same hollow asteroids back into space. This looks like a job for ...  SUPERMAN!!!

Just kidding folks.

Seriously though, I don't see what good asteroids are going to do, the problem is getting rid of carbon dioxide, if the solution is to send it into space, the main problem is lifting the gas out of the gravitational well, asteroids don't help very much. If your going to lower them into the atmosphere and fill them up with gas, your going to have to somehow lower them in slowly and prevent them from crumbling under Venusian gravity when you do, then you got to lift them out in addition to the gas they contain and launch them into space. Sounds like something you might see Superman do in the comic books, but I doubt it would be realistic.

Tom Kalbfus

Banned

Registered: 2006-08-16

Posts: 4,401

Re: Terrform Venus

atitarev,

I did see an idea on this forum about a year ago.
It involved giant carbon balloons made at Venus filled with co2.
After sending a couple to mars no real destination was left for the other 999,998 of them.

Continuing on the asteroid idea, a large asteroid with a glancing blow on Venus deposits a lot of material as a sun shade that lasts for a long time.
This might be step 1 in teraforming Venus.

As you point out though even a 2 or 3 bar Venus would still have lots of troubles.
I wouldn't want to hazard a guess but even on that teraformed Venus near the equator, temperatures would probably boil water and begin a runaway.

Changing the spin of Venus is probably possible with impacts from water ice asteroids, but changing it to more than about twice its spin is doubtful.

Even on a terraformed Venus we will still have to deal with the lack of magnetic field to solve the radiation problems.
That can be fixed with a massive ground or space based field generator, but either are massive engineering jobs.

Oh, I see, you smash the asteroids into the planet! The problem I have with this idea is that it uses up alot of valuable asteroids. People might want to live in them or build space colonies out of their material, if you smash them into Venus, you are denying this possible use. Asteroids can house alot more people than a terraformed Venus can, and the people who are homesteading the asteroids are going to have questions about this misallocation of resources. The asteroids are also going to mess up the landscape of Venus, either make it look like the Moon or melt the crust entirely. I think making Venus molten is a giant step backwards if you want to terraform it.

One small consolation is this, if you cool Venus, it will shrink, and if Venus shrinks, it will spin faster, just like any figure skater that pulls in her arms while spinning.

I think the best thing you can do is to shade Venus with a diffraction lense dispersing the sun's rays, then have a giant reflector parked on the night side that alternately provides night and day on the side that would otherwise experience continuous night. Perhaps as compensation, the light received by Venus should be dimmer than that received by Earth, perhaps on Mars levels of illumination. While Venus is cooling, you don't have the reflectors on the night side. A Martain level of light will facilitate the cooling of Venus while still allowing photosynthesis to convert CO2 to oxygen. When this is done, you just add in the reflectors on the night side.