Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.
Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.
The article focuses on how this could save us from global warming. What I see is a possible tool for making the construction of interplanetary spaceships more practical. On any vessel in space, something has to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide. Finding a cheap way to do this makes building those vessels much easier.
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Researchers in California have produced a cheap plastic capable of removing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the air.
The article focuses on how this could save us from global warming. What I see is a possible tool for making the construction of interplanetary spaceships more practical. On any vessel in space, something has to cleanse the air of carbon dioxide. Finding a cheap way to do this makes building those vessels much easier.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The key for interplanetary travel is not just absorbing the CO2, but recycling it in a (near) closed loop system.
In that vein the following quote jumped out at me:
“Once saturated with CO2, the PEI-silica combo is easy to regenerate. The CO2 floats away after the polymer is heated to 85°C. Other commonly used solid CO2 absorbers must be heated to over 800°C to drive off the CO2.”
To me, what was interesting is that this comes from work spearheaded by George Olah, Nobel Prize winner, and one of the most well known experts in hydrocarbon chemistry. He has worked for quite a while on mitigating problems from greenhouse gasses. He once said:
“I have developed a promising new approach for solving not only our long range dependence on decreasing fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal) but also at the same time to mitigate global climate change (warming) caused significantly by derived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane.”
It is interesting to note this came out of their attempt to make cheap iron based batteries that can store energy from renewable sources that will later be fed back to the electrical grid at times of peak demand.
You never know.