[DIYbio] Re: Planetary science - biology

On Jan 31, 11:32 am, Cathal Garvey <cathalgar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Surely for a heat-pump to work, you need to have a gradient, not just
> lots of heat.
>
> To ask that another way: Are there larger heat *gradients* on Venus with
> which to generate useful energy, or is there just more ambient energy,
> which is of no use?

1. Ambient energy isn't 'of no use'. Many of the 'eco' options being
looked at on Earth make use of nothing but ambient energy (tidal,
wind, gravity and flow,...). The only trick is on Venus they have to
work at or avoid 500ish degrees C.

2. Between Earth and Venus, there is a fantastic thermal gradient.
Using existing technology, we float manned oil rigs on oceans to drill
miles into the Earth to actively pump out our dominant energy source
and for almost half a century we've had the technology to float
massive structures in an atmosphere 90 times less dense than Venus'. I
don't mean to imply quid pro quo, but 'drilling' into Venus for energy
and or materials seems a lot more obvious and abundant than doing
anything on Mars.

Turn the question around. You're a colonist on Mars and you need to
build something or power something you've built. Where do you get the
materials and energy? Earth? The Sun?

>
> Venus is scary precisely because it used to be almost identical to
> Earth, except that Earth developed life and Venus succumbed to runaway
> global warming. There but for the grace of an ecosphere go we.
>

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no evidence that a runaway
greenhouse effect similar to Venus' could occur on Earth and the
planet's history would suggest the opposite. Ignoring gross celestial
differences (Earth's faster rotation, the creation and existence of
the Moon, etc), immediately preceding the Oxygen Catastrophe was the
Huronic Glaciation and 'Snowball Earth' has been hypothesize in
several time periods since. In all likelihood, if we discovered a
parallel universe where life never existed on Earth, Venus and Earth
would have similar albedo except Venus' surface is 500 degrees and
Earth's is -20.

Venus is scary the same way an autoclave or submarine is scary.
Personally, the trip to either planet is going to be about 100X as
"scary" as actually being at the destination.

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