REM%IMSSS@SU-AI.ARPA (Robert Elton Maas) (03/03/86)
But if you find massive amounts of methane, and you burn it to make energy, you deplete the oxygen in the atmosphere, replacing it by carbon dioxide and water vapor. You have to get rid of that carbon dioxide, for example by dissolving it in water and letting it combine with minerals to form carbonate, or by having a great increase in plant life so that the carbon dioxide gets incorporated in biomass and then the plants die and sink to the bottom of the ocean, but in either case then you have an atmosphere with neither oxygen nor carbon dioxide in it, just 99% nitrogen and 1% argon etc. Space platform to fasten things to will prevent them drifting aimlessly and needing individual tracking and re-rendezvous. Therefore I'm in favor of immediate construction of a space platform to fasten things to between the time they're launched and the time they're fitted together. Pressurized crew quarters, power bus, etc. can be added to the platform later as needed. But a canonical place to stash things so they don't drift around and collide with each other or other things (STS) or get lost, seems first priority in the "space station" category.
Slocum@HI-MULTICS.ARPA (Brett Slocum) (03/06/86)
> ... increase in > plant life so that the carbon dioxide can be
incorporated in biomass
Plants do not store CO2 in tissues. Pllants take CO2 and H2O, add
sunlight for energy, add chlorophyll as a catalyst, and they produce O2
and carbohydrates, which they store. They do absorb some O2 at night,
but plants are net producers of oxygen.
--Brett Slocum <Slocum at HI-MULTICS.ARPA>ems@apple.UUCP (Mike Smith) (03/12/86)
I don't know how to break this to you, but incorporation into plants (of CO2) would not result in an atmosphere devoid of O2. Seems that the plants have this habit of spitting out the O2 and puting the C into storage ... Does take water though, with consumption of its H2 and O. Might be a problem in a few million years, but by then it would be oil again ... -- E. Michael Smith ...!sun!apple!ems 'If you can dream it, you can do it' Walt Disney This is the obligatory disclaimer of everything. (Including but not limited to: typos, spelling, diction, logic, and nuclear war)