An Invention that Could Solve Global Warming, the Yellowstone Supervolcano, and the Canary Islands Tsunami Deadfall...

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Incidentally, I may have an invention that could be an effective emergency solution for global warming, as well as for the Yellowstone supervolcano and the potential Canary Islands volcano-deadfall-tsunami.

Any of these dangers is a potential mortal threat to millions of innocent human beings. I, Ralph Cerchione, am therefore placing all of the following ideas into the public domain, to be freely used by anyone who can make use of them.* I believe they have great potential as emergency interventions or solutions of last (or first) resort for each of the above threats.

What would we use to accomplish all this?

Two words -- pyrolytic graphite.

This is a form of carbon which is roughly one tenth the weight of steel and about ten times stronger. It is also an excellent conductor of heat.

Now imagine that you have many, many long shafts of pyrolytic graphite conducting heat out of the lower atmosphere. Obviously you don't want to add to the oceans' heat load, because we don't know how much more the oceans can take. But temperatures in the upper troposphere run around -50 degrees Centigrade, and you wouldn't have to go nearly that high to get far below freezing. So conduct massive amounts of heat away from the Earth's surface.

There are some technical details to consider. I understand pyrolytic graphite can result from burning natural gas underground, but the most frequently described method for creating it is to allow a layer of vaporized carbon to accumulate very slowly. Assuming you have a huge, clean energy source to provide the heat, however, this isn't necessarily a show stopper. You could create these shafts as long "sheets" -- say 1/2" by 3' or whatever -- and then stretch them skyward. You might find it useful to tether them to extremely high balloons, or to build a structure of pyrolytic graphite panels collecting heat at the base while slowly narrowing as the structure rose until a single great shaft (possibly a hexagonal or cylindrical tube created as a single piece) lofted the accumulated heat into the heavens.

But the question is: Would even pyrolytic graphite be able to move that much heat? Would it necessarily be strong enough to support large enough columns by itself? They would have to rise several kilometers, after all.

Possibly not. But that's where the invention gets interesting.

Let's assume the answer to both those questions is negative, and we're forced to improve the concept further as a result.

What if you were to send this pyrolytic graphite into the high atmosphere in the form of a tube, or perhaps multiple tubes bonded/bound together? And then what if you were to pump ordinary supercooled air from the higher trophosphere down through the tubes to the Earth's surface and then through a network of feeder tubes surrounding the base of the "tower"? The feeder tubes could be naturally insulated by placing them a short ways underground, but even if they absorbed heat relatively close to the tower, they could still fulfill their purpose of spreading out the impact of the supercooled air.

It's possible that a pyrolytic graphite "tower" would only have to go part of the way up. The remaining distance could be covered by an airtight tube of some flexible material like a plastic, but capable of handling the low temperatures without cracking (at least for a time). Air pressure in that version might not be such a problem.

There are also people working on developing a cable capable of serving as an elevator into orbit who have apparently had some success in getting to a mile or so above the Earth's surface (tethered to balloons). Since all you need is a reasonably impermeable tube to channel extremely cold air, a flexible, cylindrical sheet held open by a rib-work of rings would suffice. Alternatively, so would a tunnel of pyrolytic graphite or other strong, rigid material that could be suspended from balloons (and which included some flexible joints).

So there are possibly other materials with the strength needed to suspend some kind of a tube or pipe in the upper troposphere.

Clearly, you also need to be fighting global warming in the meantime, but this project could buy us some considerable time for other measures to take effect (a shift to alternative fuels, the mass replanting of forests or global flooding/economic collapse reducing demand for fossil fuels).

Would this solve all our problems? Actually, no. The stratosphere is fairly stable (which is why jet aircraft often cruise there), and the overall heat levels of the planet might not change as fast we would like.

But if you had a mobile air conditioner funnelling vast amounts of -50 degree Centigrade air wherever you wish, you could refreeze the melting glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland, and lower Earth's surface temperatures enough to substantially delay any oceanic "methane belching" or a meltdown of tundra soil. Which might buy us enough time to cut emissions down to nothing (say, by switching to cheaper alternative power sources) and to engage in a global reforestation program. Both of which would help control atmospheric carbon levels.

Frankly, it doesn't matter how successful this technical concept is, we won't survive an atmosphere that absorbs heat like, say, Venus. But our dependence on oil may be about to disappear due to both economic and geo-political reasons anyway, and we still need a way to get around the "point of no return" some scientists fear we may have already reached with regards to existing atmospheric carbon levels.

In any event, this conduction of raw heat could subtract considerable thermal energy from the atmosphere and from sea waters in key areas, though you will also want to consider the impact on the North Atlantic Current and other critical climatological elements. In other words, simply cooling the hottest places off the East Coast of the United States might not work out so well if you kill the North Atlantic Current as a result. Then again, with a little thought and a capable research arm, you should be able to find areas that really need a sudden freeze. Like those melting Arctic and Antarctic glaciers.

Further to this idea, if we used my idea of channeling supercooled air down through such a pipe into multiple "feeder tubes" for dispersion over a large area, one place we might use these underground tubes could be... Yellowstone National Park. Imagine steadily chilling that supervolcanic dome under there to the point that eventually the magma cooled into solid rock, thus defusing a major long term threat to human civilization. We might be able to kill two birds with one stone with this invention.

In a similar vein, take that Canary Island threatening to break apart and unleash a mega-tsunami and freeze the molten rock beneath it into bedrock until you have a better solution (or the breakaway piece can be quarried away into a far less menacing volume =) ).

The CNN article on the Canary Island situation notes:

Dr Day said: "The collapse will occur during some future eruption after days or weeks of precursory deformation and earthquakes.

"An effective earthquake monitoring system could provide advanced warning of a likely collapse and allow early emergency management organisations a valuable window of time in which to plan and respond.

"Eruptions of Cumbre Vieja occur at intervals of decades to a century or so and there may be a number of eruptions before its collapse.

"Although the year to year probability of a collapse is therefore low, the resulting tsunami would be a major disaster with indirect effects around the world.

"Cumbre Vieja needs to monitored closely for any signs of impending volcanic activity and for the deformation that would precede collapse."

If we had this lead time and a cooling system already in place, Cumbre Vieja could theoretically be cooled down before it went off. Alternatively, we might have to simply engage in major supercooling of the magma beneath that area well ahead of time. But either way, if we built this system, we would have both options. Which, of course, beats dying.

The Yellowstone magma chamber is also complex, as noted in this Wikipedia article:

The volcanic eruptions, as well as the continuing geothermal activity, are a result of a large chamber of magma located below the caldera's surface. The magma in this chamber contains gases that are kept dissolved only by the immense pressure that the magma is under. If the pressure is released to a sufficient degree by some geological shift, then some of the gases bubble out and cause the magma to expand. This can cause a runaway reaction. If the expansion results in further relief of pressure, for example, by blowing crust material off of the top of the chamber, the result is a very large gas explosion.

Again, we'll want to be very careful in how we handle this phenomena, and if we want to deal with it, we'll want to study this chamber very carefully. Nevertheless, being able to cool down and solidify the magma beneath Yellowstone is probably a very useful option, and if we have the technology in place to do so, we'll be able to employ if scientists ever tell us we need it immediately.


Future Imperative

*On the off chance these ideas are noticed and used in time to make a difference, and do make a difference in the lives of anyone, I hearby offer these concepts to the world in honor of my mother and my recently departed father. Thank you.

Also, if this article makes sense to you, you have my permission to reprint it to share it with others - Copyright 2006 by Ralph Cerchione, http://futureimperative.blogspot.com
You may reprint this paper to share with others, in whole but not in part, including this copyright notice.