my cure for Global Warming

[Tom King]

Published here for first time, so no one else can claim credit for it this time.  While thinking about an article I need to write about making Lime Mortar, and Plaster, I dreamed this up.

Manufacture, or mine Quicklime on the Moon, and dust it in the upper atmosphere of what will be the night sky, from a satellite in polar orbit.  Should be easy enough to calculate how much, and testing easy enough to see how effective it would be.

Quicklime is the product of burning Limestone.  Limestone is CaCO3  (calcium carbonate).  When Limestone is burned, it leaves CaO (calcium oxide-Quicklime), and gives off CO2.  Quicklime will bond readily to CO2.   Hydrated LIme (Ca(OH)2), that has many uses, is made from Quicklime, and water.  Hydrated LIme is what's used in making Lime Mortar, and Plaster.

At some point, it will be a lot cheaper to produce it on the Moon, and not have to worry about the CO2 given off.  It would fall to the Earth as microscopic Limestone dust after bonding to CO2 in the upper atmosphere.

[Chestnut]

If wikipedia is even close to right 11-15% of the moons surface is lime CaO so it might not need to be produced it could probably just be harvested and shuttled back. I have a feeling that cost would be something to consider. Just need to figure out a way to make the trip faster and cheaper.

[Tom King]

With water ice there, Hydrogen fuel could be easily made, and it wouldn't take much to blast off from the lower gravity.  It is very much doable, and even by robots. 

[RichardA]

Corvette.

[wtnhighlander]

I like science, and science fiction. I dabble at writing fiction now and again. There is one brick wall I run into every time I think through a story that involves extra-terrestrial colonization or attempts to fix the Earth's troubles with resources mined from nearby celestial bodies.

These activities always lead to depletion or imbalance of natural resources that end making the planet uninhabitable. My conclusion to that train of thought is always the same. The only way to keep earth viable is to reduce the production of the bad stuff, at least to the point where the planet can filter / recycle the elements through existing natural processes.

And on that cheery note, Have a Nice Day! 

[Tom King]

There has to be a new idea.  So far, everything done is too little, too late, or too expensive to be done on any scale that can matter, or just simply impractical.  Some type of simple removal is needed.  There are still too many people who don't believe it's real, or too many that want someone else to do something different.  Too many people is the real problem, but I don't see that going the other way any time soon.

https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2018/11/27/carbon-dioxide-removal-climate-change/

[Tom King]

copied and pasted from an email subject line I received from one of my Astronomer friends (not hobbyist), this morning:

That would work!!!

Inbox

x

[Mark J]

Are there other relevant green house gasses besides carbon dioxide?

[Tom King]

There are other hydrocarbons, and such, but excess CO2 in the upper atmosphere is the biggest problem, preventing enough radiation of heat off the planet to matter.  All that I can think of have Carbon in them, but I haven't studied the whole spectrum.  CO2 is given off from burning anything, and is the easiest to bond to something else.  As the number of mature trees diminishes, and population continues to increase, there is no choice but for levels of CO2 to continue to go up.  Some type of removal is needed.

edited to add:  I was curious how much dust enters the atmosphere every day anyway:   https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2013/08/08/While-shooting-stars-get-noticed-cosmic-dust-hitting-us-all-the-time/45801376006760/

[Gary Beasley]

31 minutes ago, Mark J said:

Are there other relevant green house gasses besides carbon dioxide?

Methane is one of the most powerful greenhouse gasses, way more heat trapping ability that CO2.

[Tom King]

Fortunately, methane has a much shorter life in the atmosphere than CO2.  And it doesn't matter which greenhouse gas is removed, as much as how much of any to make a difference, as far as warming goes.

edited to add:   This was the first thing Google found-copied and pasted:

Methane has a large effect but for a relatively brief period, having an estimated lifetime of 9.1 years in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period, having an estimated lifetime of over 100 years.