Vacuum out greenhouse gasses?

Question

OK, this is gonna be a doozy. I hope I don't lose too much credibility (if I ever had any) for asking this, but the idea occurred to me, so here goes. :)

We, as a planet, have an abundance of greenhouse gasses right now, right? They are bad and we not only need to cut down on their production, but it would be good to get rid of some we've already produced. So, why couldn't we build a giant tube or hose? One end would be attached to something in space (unmanned) and the other would be attached to something flying in the correct level of our atmosphere. We could just vacuum out some of the gasses, couldn't we?

Let the berating begin! :) But thanks to all serious answers. :)

Answer 1

My major thought is how do you seperate the bad gases from the good ones? Okay, other than some really seious logistical issues about that, as well.

The earth has a natural correction mechanism to get rid of ecxess CO2, we just need to stop overwhelming it, so it can function the way it should.

Answer 2

Well one problem (of several) with your idea is gravity. Once you send the excess CO2 up there it will gravitate towards the nearest gravity well. And that would be... hint: your standing on it... Some CO2 would be caught by the solar wind and get swept away but some would just drift back down again. And the huge effort you´ve put in building the tallest structure ever and the energy spent separating CO2 from the air would be wasted. It would be so much easier to just stop producing CO2 in the first place. Nature has many tricks up its sleeves for capturing CO2. We just need to give it some help, stop destroying the environment and walk more while driving less...

-edit-
And to Curt that has as much knowledge of environmental engineering as President Bush (didn´t know Exxon handed out masters)... Here´s the problem. Preindustrial CO2 levels: 280 ppm. Current CO2 level: 353 ppm. A slight tap on ye ol calculator gives you an increase of a whopping 26%. THAT is the problem. That is an increase of catastrophic levels. And as for watervapour: its concentration is increasing too BECAUSE of the increase of CO2. As the atmosphere gets warmer its ability to hold watervapour increases. Which would make it even warmer, wouldn´t it? If there was no such thing as a greenhouse effect earths average temperature would be -18 degrees C (0 F). It isn´t, is it? Go back to school and pay attention this time.

Answer 3

There is only one thing fundamentally wrong with your idea: in order to separate greenhouse gases from the other fractions of air like oxygen and nitrogen one needs to expend energy. We would have to make that energy... and doing so would mean we would have to either run more nuclear power plants, use renewable energy sources or burn more coal, gas and oil...

The result is that NOT using fossil fuels in the first place is MUCH cheaper than separating out the greenhouse gases it creates.

The second idea with the space vacuum is doomed to fail because there is nothing separating the atmosphere from space right now. The planet does not have a glass roof, so to speak. The reason that the atmosphere does not escape is the gravity of the planet. Putting a hose in would not change that. You would need enormously powerful pumps to get rid of the gas. And these pumps would need to be powered with more energy than the greenhouse gases generated to begin with. So again, it's a losing proposition.

But there is an easy way to stop global warming: screw in fluorescent lights, ask your parents to drive a small hybrid instead of a large SUV, get a new refrigerator and low consumption appliances and then install insulation in your home. Put solar cells on your roof. If everyone in the world did this, we would not be having this problem.

"Everyone" includes YOU!

YOU have to make the hard choice.

YOU can not wait for other people to do it for YOU.

And please keep in mind that YOU will inherit the world.

So the more YOU do to make adults do the right thing, the better off YOU will be.

That is a lot to ask from a kid. But every generation has their challenges. This one is yours...

:-)

Answer 4

As many state, you can't just vacuum one specific gas, leaving the others behind. It would be like sticking a straw into a martini and drinking only the gin, leaving the water and olive juice behind.

A possible solution would be to enhance the way Earth already reduces CO2 levels in the atmosphere with some sort of scrubbers or other material that bonds with CO2.

Chemical compounds that do this would of course take tons of energy to produce and distribute, and then you'd have the resulting compound in HUGE quantities to get rid of now. Basically, you'd be converting the CO2 to solid form.

That's just what our planet does now. Its mechanism is primarily photosynthesis. Other chemical reactions trap CO2 in rocks and minerals, but plants are the hands-down winners in the race to collect CO2 from the atmosphere. Bacteria do a lot of this as well. If we somehow were to mass-produce a lot of algae and put it on high surface area grids, it would take a lot of CO2 out of the air, but then you'd have the algae and its byproducts to deal with.

The real problem is that Earth is a closed system. The carbon was always here. It's just that over time, life has created a cycle whereby carbon enters and exits the atmosphere. We've discovered that we can free the earth-bound carbon and get energy. That's because plants captured the energy in the first place (solar energy) and used it to store it in the forms we're now releasing it from.

The best thing to do is to find other energy sources than releasing that stored in carbon compounds. Ultimately, the Earth has only absorbed X amount of sunlight over time, and only that much could ever be released back anyway. I am a big proponent of nuclear energy, and this is one of the reasons. We will eventually be able to safely launch radioactive waste into space - as long as we store the byproducts safely until such a time arrives, we could then go pick it all up and dispose of it in a more permanent fashion.

Once we stop pushing one part of the carbon cycle harder than the rest can cope with, it will all balance itself back out naturally.

Answer 5

The biggest problem is seperating the "greenhouse" gases from the Nitrogen and Oxygen gasses in the atmosphere, and if you could do that in a cost-effective and efficient manner, you could isolate them and wouldn't even need to put them in space. Additionally, how are you going to power this "giant vacuum?" Wouldn't it just produce more pollution?

Answer 6

Curt claims that because the absolute concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is small it has no effect. This is completely convoluted thinking that reveals that he has no understanding of the physics.

He also claims to have an MS and PhD in Environmental "Science" - they must be teaching a "soft science" version of atmospheric physics

Answer 7

Where do I begin!

A hose to space will not suck up air any more than a hose dipped in water would suck out the water.

Even if the hose idea could work, it would take all the air, not just selected gasses.

Answer 8

First, I don't accept the premise of your question...that we have an abundance of greenhouse gases. That scientific conclusion is NOT concluded at all. For example, the outside average CO2 level is 350 parts per million (ppm). Subtract that from the atmosphere and you get: 1,000,000 ppm - 350 ppm = 999,650 ppm left over. Yeah, CO2 is causing problems, riiiiggghhht!

Second, the most abundant greenhouse gas and the most potent for that matter, is water vapor. Are we supposed to suck out water vapor?

Good Luck. Don't give up your day job and leave the science to non-european or non-UN-loving scientists.

Answer 9

Problem is - how would your vacuum discriminate between what you consider "bad" and what we would want to keep in our atmosphere?

Second point - For the most part, the atmosphere is homogeneous. Suppose the percentage of CO2 in the air is 5% (I made the number up), and we want to reduce it to 1% (I made that number up too.) Unless your vacuum is sensitive only to CO2, it would not change the overall concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, only the total amount of homogeneous air.

Answer 10

ha ha
everybody has this kind of thought
but the main problem is cost
money!
and scientists usually calculate costs and effects
and they will do it someday when they figure out the way to reduce cost
it will be times and times more expensive then buiding the uranium accelerator
:D