I found a very good
description of Sagan's idea (totally off-topic for the place I found it, but relevant to our current discussion). It turns out that Sagan's idea cannot work.
If my memory is correct, Carl Sagan et al already proposed to seed bacteria or algae into the upper atmosphere of Venus. Their proposal was to use photosynthesizing organisms that reproduce so rapidly thay enough of them stay in the friendlier upper layers of Venus' atmosphere to survive. They would break down the carbon dioxide, reducing the greenhouse effect. As aeons pass, the habitable layer of the atmosphere would become thicker and thicker, so the process would accelerate. Another source of acceleration would be simple evolution.
After a number of aeons, terraforming could begin.
Perhaps the Russian Venera's carried the seeds...
This may be a nice article, but who is able to understand it? Except for Americans, that is. A million "gallons" - what's a gallon? A diameter of 13 feet - how large would that be?
Being a member of the majority of the world's population, I do not use local USA units. My country abides by the agreement to use only standard units. The USA signed the agreement too - but it seems some countries cannot be trusted even if they sign an agreement.
(Sorry for the inflammatory language - just getting tired of continually being forced to learn someone else's system. And still strong enough to resist!)
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Batteries have too little stored energy to power the devices.
Why not turn that around? The batteries are okay, but those stupid devices need too much energy to do something useful.
Technology gave us LEDs for light bulbs. If only the same reduction in required energy could be achieved for computers...
I've done some searching on the Net.
I found a very good description of Sagan's idea (totally off-topic for the place I found it, but relevant to our current discussion). It turns out that Sagan's idea cannot work.
If my memory is correct, Carl Sagan et al already proposed to seed bacteria or algae into the upper atmosphere of Venus. Their proposal was to use photosynthesizing organisms that reproduce so rapidly thay enough of them stay in the friendlier upper layers of Venus' atmosphere to survive. They would break down the carbon dioxide, reducing the greenhouse effect. As aeons pass, the habitable layer of the atmosphere would become thicker and thicker, so the process would accelerate. Another source of acceleration would be simple evolution. After a number of aeons, terraforming could begin. Perhaps the Russian Venera's carried the seeds...
Nice to see temperatures expressed in C; much better than F. Should have been K, however.
> 13 feet = 4 metres
> 1 gallon = 3.8 litres
I wasn't really asking what those strange units mean.
> sorry we can't all agree on a universal standard...
We can. We did. All countries in the world signed the agreement to ban non-metric units. Even the USA.
Over here, we used non-metric units too, but as a consequence of this international agreement they were outlawed.
There are only three countries in the world that cannot be trusted: the USA, Belize, and one country of which I forgot the name.
This may be a nice article, but who is able to understand it? Except for Americans, that is. A million "gallons" - what's a gallon? A diameter of 13 feet - how large would that be?
Being a member of the majority of the world's population, I do not use local USA units. My country abides by the agreement to use only standard units. The USA signed the agreement too - but it seems some countries cannot be trusted even if they sign an agreement.
(Sorry for the inflammatory language - just getting tired of continually being forced to learn someone else's system. And still strong enough to resist!)