Re: forests on orbit

Ian Parker wrote:

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.

Better to turn the deserts green, and put the solar cells on the roofs,
where the power is being used.


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.

That is a lot of green space, 1/3 of the land surface which is desert would
be a huge CO2 sink, if planted with for example pine trees. I think turning
the world green is a much better idea.


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.

Island produce their own weather, Continents even more so. Plants put water
into the air, producing rain that the plants need to grow. A nuclear power
plant to pump a river to the interior of a desert like Australia would
essentially set up it's own new climate, it's own weather, to better use
the solar energy. Not as electricity, but generating plant material.

A while ago there was a story about Australia's Aboriginal people burning
underbrush and how this was somehow good. Positive in the CO2 equation,
worthy of a CO2 credit. To me it was just the type of backwards logic that
a CO2 pollution market place would bring. A positive would be a pine
forest, or crop lands, producing all kind of true wealth for these people.
Not turning them into wards of the state wondering when their next CO2
check will arrive from an industrialized nation.

I also read an article about a German pig farmer, getting rid of half his
productive farm in favor of a solar cell farm because it was so heavily
subsidized. Or, German highways where large amounts of growing grass are
replace with solar cells in the median. Makes me wonder what is more
efficient at solving the CO2 problem, plants or solar cells. Solar cells
are good, but it can be taken too far.

The deserts of California are some of the most productive crop lands in the
US.

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.

Israel has also turned Israel much "greener" than it was. Interesting to
look at a satellite map of Israel and it's neighbors, there is line between
them, one side green, the other not so much. Israel is producing true
wealth in the desert. The neighbors, not so much.


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.


--
Craig Fink
Courtesy E-Mail Welcome @ WeBeGood@xxxxxxxxx
.

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