Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 1:01 am
How many tons of raw materials a day do you have to process for that?3000 tons
a discussion forum for Polywell fusion
https://talk-polywell.org/bb/
How many tons of raw materials a day do you have to process for that?3000 tons
Quoting McKay: To bring "just a few parts per million" of PFCs to the Red Planet would be a monumental task, both expensive and time-consuming. We must manufacture PFCs on Mars from the materials on the planet; there is no other practical way.Skipjack wrote:Hey, I am willing to learn new stuff and new info is always good. But this does seem to me like they are underestimating the size of an entire planet. Think of the entire industry and transportation of earth and what it has really done to the climate here (very little). I mean, all the green house gasses on earth (including the ones they are proposing which are present here as well and by far not all are manmade either) have managed to raise the temperature so little that people are still arguing about the temperature increase being actually true.
Even if these proposed gasses are 16000 times are efficient, one would need the equivalent of about 1 million fully industrialized people (and the equivalent of their factories and transportation) to even make a small dent in the temperature on mars. One would probably need even more to actually cause the runaway effect that was predicted there. It would take thousands of these factories and an infra structure to supply them with raw materials to do all this.
Lets see from wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrogen_trifluorideAero wrote:Let's examine that.... just a few parts per million of the super-greenhouse gases ...
The Mars Atmosphere is 25 teratonnes, according to Wikipedia, so 1 part per million would be 25 million tonnes. Let's say that you have 25 factories in production. If each factory produced roughly -
3 tonnes per day- about 1000 tonnes per Earth year, 1000 years for 1 million tonnes
30 tonnes per day- about 10,000 tonnes per Earth year, 100 years for 1 million tonnes
300 tonnes per day - about 100,000 tonnes per Earth year, 10 years.
Now, is 1 part per million enough, or do we need 10 or 100 parts per million? How much mass needs come from Earth for each factory?
I wrote, "Let's examine that." I've examined, my conclusion is that a planet is a big place. Now, you examine. I await your conclusions.
EXPOSURE LIMITS:
NITROGEN TRIFLUORIDE:
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) OSHA TWA
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) ACGIH TWA
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) NIOSH recommended TWA 10 hour(s)
10 ppm (30 mg/m3) UK OES TWA
15 ppm (44 mg/m3) UK OES STEL
Okay but remember we would not be breathing it...it is being outgassed into the Martian air which is unbreathable. Even after all the CO2 and water has outgassed the Martian air would be unbreathable anyway. Mars would have a thick atmosphere with warm climate liquid water on the surface but you would still need a breathing mask with O2(though you could get by with normal clothing, no spacesuit). If you were breathing the mars air without a breathing mask you would asphyxiate in minutes, 10 hr exposure limits would be the least of your problems.Aero wrote:MSDSEXPOSURE LIMITS:
NITROGEN TRIFLUORIDE:
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) OSHA TWA
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) ACGIH TWA
10 ppm (29 mg/m3) NIOSH recommended TWA 10 hour(s)
10 ppm (30 mg/m3) UK OES TWA
15 ppm (44 mg/m3) UK OES STEL
Not a lot. If we build a CFC production facility on Mars that would equal the human CFC output annually prior to the montreal protocol, and released all that CFC into the martian atmosphere, within 10 years, it would be warm enough to outgass enough CO2 to push the atmospheric pressure over 300 millibars and make 60% of the martian surface a shirt sleeve environment for most of the year. All you would need is an oxygen mask, but no pressure suit would be necessary. Thats when you introduce plants on a wide scale and you convert some of the CO2 into O2, but the atmosphere will be thick enough to equal that on top of Everest, which is more than thick enough to protect life forms on the ground and in the water. it will also melt the martian glaciers and cause the northern basin to fill and become a shallow ocean.Diogenes wrote:williatw wrote:http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/elon-m ... ns-of.html
He does not say how he will pay for it...but low billions sound like private would work. sounds like "Bank of Mars is good to go". viewtopic.php?t=3383
I am very much a supporter of the idea that humanity should make Mars habitable, but I have been dismayed by recent speculation that the lack of a powerful magnetic field surrounding Mars will allow life destroying radiation to hit the surface, thereby rendering it unfeasible to survive there.
Now I and some of my friends have speculated as to the possibility of creating an artificial magnetic field for Mars, but it is still an open question whether such an idea is feasible.
Also, the absence of a significant moon is another detriment for the planet. Likewise the recent discovery that the solar wind seems to be sweeping up great chunks of the Martian atmosphere and throwing it out into space. (As it is also doing to Earth.)
Mars needs more mass and quite likely more water. Perhaps we could steer some asteroids\comets\debris into it to create a bigger moon, and maybe raise the mass?
Mars is going to need a lot of terraforming to become a decent planet.
A few years ago, I speculated on the notion of putting talc (or some better substance) into the Lagrange point between Venus and the Sun, and carefully puffing it into a cloud. Likewise, talc could be put into a smeared orbit around the planet in order to provide further temporary shading.choff wrote:Some SF movies have suggested life could survive in deep ravines on Mars. Underground colonies would have better luck than anything on the surface. I just wish there was some way to terraform Venus, the gravity and orbit are better suited, just too darn hot!
A friend of mine had an interesting idea to help terraform mars: send cold adapted kudzu cuttings to the planet (being very careful not to release any of it here on earth ).IntLibber wrote:Not a lot. If we build a CFC production facility on Mars that would equal the human CFC output annually prior to the montreal protocol, and released all that CFC into the martian atmosphere, within 10 years, it would be warm enough to outgass enough CO2 to push the atmospheric pressure over 300 millibars and make 60% of the martian surface a shirt sleeve environment for most of the year. All you would need is an oxygen mask, but no pressure suit would be necessary. Thats when you introduce plants on a wide scale and you convert some of the CO2 into O2, but the atmosphere will be thick enough to equal that on top of Everest, which is more than thick enough to protect life forms on the ground and in the water. it will also melt the martian glaciers and cause the northern basin to fill and become a shallow ocean.Diogenes wrote:williatw wrote:http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... ?full=true
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/12/elon-m ... ns-of.html
He does not say how he will pay for it...but low billions sound like private would work. sounds like "Bank of Mars is good to go". viewtopic.php?t=3383
I am very much a supporter of the idea that humanity should make Mars habitable, but I have been dismayed by recent speculation that the lack of a powerful magnetic field surrounding Mars will allow life destroying radiation to hit the surface, thereby rendering it unfeasible to survive there.
Now I and some of my friends have speculated as to the possibility of creating an artificial magnetic field for Mars, but it is still an open question whether such an idea is feasible.
Also, the absence of a significant moon is another detriment for the planet. Likewise the recent discovery that the solar wind seems to be sweeping up great chunks of the Martian atmosphere and throwing it out into space. (As it is also doing to Earth.)
Mars needs more mass and quite likely more water. Perhaps we could steer some asteroids\comets\debris into it to create a bigger moon, and maybe raise the mass?
Mars is going to need a lot of terraforming to become a decent planet.
Diogenes wrote:A few years ago, I speculated on the notion of putting talc (or some better substance) into the Lagrange point between Venus and the Sun, and carefully puffing it into a cloud. Likewise, talc could be put into a smeared orbit around the planet in order to provide further temporary shading.choff wrote:Some SF movies have suggested life could survive in deep ravines on Mars. Underground colonies would have better luck than anything on the surface. I just wish there was some way to terraform Venus, the gravity and orbit are better suited, just too darn hot!
This idea is relatively easy. (Hell, we could perhaps even use moon dust and a mass driver of some sort. ) Don't know how much cooling might be had by this technique, or how long such a cloud might last in the Lagrange point, but it might last decades or centuries.
Anyone got a better idea?
Plus the fact that the L1 point between the sun and Venus is not stable to begin with. Nothing placed there will stay there without active re-centering. Only the L4 and L5 points, which would provide no shade) are three dimensionally stable. And I suspect that Mercury would play hob with Venus' L4&5.Diogenes wrote: After further thought, the solar wind would probably blow it away rather quickly.
A few years ago, someone posited putting lots of relatively small, smart mirrors at the relevant Lagrange point (L1) to reflect a small fraction of insolation.*Diogenes wrote:After further thought, the solar wind would probably blow it away rather quickly.