What do we do when lots of garbage mounts up in our homes? Easy, we throw it out. A scientist has extended this logic and suggested we treat Carbon dioxide in the same manner.
Alfred Y. Wong professor of Physics and director of the Plasma Physics Laboratory at the University of California, Los Angeles, has come up with a very interesting way to get rid of our carbon emissions. In the latest issue of The Economist, he hypothesizes a conveyor built in the Arctic that vents out emissions into the outer space. He speculates that a little effort on our part and the Earth’s magnetic field over the poles could be used to expel the gas into the space, from where it would never return.
The Arctic and the Antarctic are the only two places on the Earth above which the magnetic shield directly opens into space. It is in the Arctic that Prof. Wong proposes to build the conveyor belt. To be more precise about the location, he proposes the site of the conveyor belt as his workplace near Fairbanks, Alaska.
The poles are so special in this regard because there the magnificent auroras are witnessed. These magnetic particles could be harnessed for their vast amounts of power that, in turn, would expel greenhouse gases.
The concept is a bit far-fetched but coming from a Physicist, it seems workable. Wong builds up from the fact that some CO2 molecules team up with free electrons to form negatively charged CO2 ions. The second base for his theory is that all over the planet, a constant vertical electrical field is present. This field, automatically, makes the negatively charged ions drift upwards. This occurs slowly at first, but beyond 125 km of altitude, the atmosphere is rarified and the ions freely drift rapidly. Here they can float into outer space along the vast magnetic fields of the Earth.
So, as far as the theory part is concerned, it seems that Mr. Wong has got that figured out nicely. The question is to translate this process and carry it out artificially. Here, too, Wong is optimistic. He proposes to create ions in the atmosphere by zapping dust with lasers. Then those ions that have drifted upwards can be pushed on using radio waves. Thence on he expects the natural process of auroras to take over and add their own spark to the entire process.
So far, Wong has only made rough estimates required to carry on the entire process. Nonetheless, he believes, even if powered using fossil fuels, the overall effect of the process would be positive and the expulsions will always outweigh the emissions.
Do you think it is plausible? Already the levels of greenhouse gasses have reached a melting point. We cannon afford to be wasting our time in mere discussions of pros and cons. Desperate times call for desperate measures and this one’s is at least taking a different route to solve the problem. Who knows this might just work.
Aliens might be better equipped to handle our emissions. Give them a chance!
