From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Sun Apr 14 2002 - 03:35:18 MDT
On Sat, 13 Apr 2002, Extropian Agro Forestry Ventures Inc. wrote:
> I hate to be a non-conformist but really who wants the polar caps. The
I'm going into advocatus diaboli mode for a moment.
> extra water is a reserve which can be converted into air to breathe and
> hydrogen for fuel. More Co2 and higher temps ... isn't that what allowed
We did have enough air to breathe last time I looked. And making oxygen
from water (assuming, you can vent hydrogen into space as you really can't
put it elsewhere) to elevate the oxygen level by even a few % is rather
megascale engineering. As to fuel, combustion enthalpy of hydrogen is so
great that you'll go a long way with a liter or two of water. I.e.
negligible amounts. Even in the desert you can just capture atmospheric
moisture with a molecular sieve, or freeze it out to generate initial
amount of water, and since the output of the fuel cells is liquid water or
water vapour the recycling quote is near 100%. We're not living on Arrakis
here...
> those miraculous swamps to grow and make all that oil we now burn. Sure
Oil is being made on geological time scales (=it doesn't happen). It is
much quicker to pick up the biomass and process it in a reactor (here some
hydrogen does come handy).
> short term global warming might mean droughts and some environmental
> instability but change always involves transition.
I haven't seen the numbers for increased incidence of floodings and
hurricanes yet, and it's something which needs a trend evaluation and be
renormalized for increased amounts of people and infrastructure in the
landscape, but here's something which could cost real money. Like, *lots*
of real money.
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