Re: forests on orbit

On 18 Feb, 12:19, Craig Fink <WeBeG...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

You have highlighted what is perhaps the Achilles heel of modern
civilization. Energy supplies. In fact energy to build robots is no
reason for sending humans to Ceres. Transport there will cost far more
in energy terms than simply building more robots.

My forecasts are a little bit more modest than yours. I do not see
constant doubling. I do see everyone in the World wanting to have a
Western standard of living. To give everyone that will be challenging
in terms of the resources we have but not impossible.

I do forsee solar power being the main prime mover and fuel cells
being the main way of propelling road vehicles. Aircraft will probably
run on liquid hydrogen. With everyone in the World having a car I
forsee a shortage of catalysts. This might well be the main reason for
going to the asteroid belt. Ceres is the largest, but is only one
asteroid.

Solar power (cells) may not be Green in the long run. If added to the roofs
of buildings, parking spaces,... Well then, yes, they are generating power
on land that has already displaced Green space. But, if they begin to
displace Green growing space, then no. Just like alcohol isn't Green,
turning food producing land into fuel producing, displacing Carbon sink
land like forest with corn/sugar cane.

Sugar cane etc. is grown on prime agricultural land. Biofuels are
indeed not green. Solar power :-

1) Will never exist on prime agricultaural land. It is essentially for
the urban environment (roofs etc.) and for deserts which grow (at
present) very little.

2) A large amount of power can be generated in quite a small area. The
energy needs of the world could be met by devoting a very small
percentage of the 1/3 or so of land surface wich is desert to cells.

Nuclear power and hydrogen is were I think we will eventually end up. Clean
nuclear power would take two to three hundred years to burn all the nuclear
trash that we have already produce. Two to Three hundred years of not
digging up any more uranium, to simply convert all the long half life
radioactive trash into much safer non-radioactive or short half life trash.
A bonus, while generating whatever amount of power and hydrogen we need.

If we want to fix the CO2 dumping problem, more Green production is the way
to do it. Converting all the deserts into Green Space, CO2 sinks, will be
necessary to produce all the thing people will want.

Lets be quite frank about this. To grow things in the desert you need
water. Cells do not need water to operate. In fact a plant adjusts its
water loss, to what is sustainable. In fact desert plants grow slowly
not because energy is not available - it is in abundance, but because
it cannot open its chloroplasts to let in CO2.

If Australia is
converted to a fast growing pine forest, CO2 might begin to decrease in the
northern winter months like it does in the norther summer. CO2 is a plant
fertilizer, we better start making smarter use of it, instead of
complaining or coming up with some unworkable pollution marketplace, some
sort of license to pollute? Treating CO2 as a resource for growing things
is a better idea.

Israel has grown algae in pure CO2 which could be converted into oil.
This is indeed an alternative to solar cells. Photovoltaics are the
most promising technology at the moment, but we should indeed be aware
of alternatives.

Plants will in fact need less water with more CO2 as their
chloroplasts need not be opened as much. Only one problem. You would
need to grow your lants under cover.

Orbital forests will be forests that never leave orbit. The people in orbit
will use it all.

I think I a inclined to agree.

- Ian Parker
.

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