Thread: My idea to help fix the ozone layer

Hello all,

I'm new here but i think I have a relatively good idea to help fix the ozone layer. please comment or critique me.

Ozone is what helps filter out some of the harmful sunlight the Earth receives from the sun and is currently the ozone layer in our atmosphere has a "hole" in it which is letting in those harmful rays and helping with climate change.

If ozone can be created during lightening strikes by both natural and man-made methods, why couldn't we say, install a large system of tesla coils or spark gap transmitters (yes i know these are mainly for things like morse code, i can't remember what it is i'm thinking of so this will have to do) up in the arctic or antarctic regions. These tesla coils or other devices could have large battery banks or capacitors that get charged by other renewable energy sources like wind turbines or solar panels, and when they fill up the tesla coils fire, creating large amounts of lightening and therefore ozone. If that can make its way into the ozone layer we could possibly start to patch this hole and maybe help slow climate change.

Thats my idea, please leave some comments on things i may have left out or your opinions.

~Mobious

Originally Posted by mobious

If ozone can be created during lightening strikes by both natural and man-made methods, why couldn't we say, install a large system of tesla coils or spark gap transmitters (yes i know these are mainly for things like morse code, i can't remember what it is i'm thinking of so this will have to do) up in the arctic or antarctic regions. These tesla coils or other devices could have large battery banks or capacitors that get charged by other renewable energy sources like wind turbines or solar panels, and when they fill up the tesla coils fire, creating large amounts of lightening and therefore ozone. If that can make its way into the ozone layer we could possibly start to patch this hole and maybe help slow climate change.

Thats my idea, please leave some comments on things i may have left out or your opinions.

~Mobious

The problem is that ozone is unstable, so a negligible fraction of what you generate near the surface ever makes it up to where it would do any good. The ozone would react with other species (generally creating smog) or dissociate long before it gets where it's needed.

So, you'd need to generate the ozone up there. Having generators orbiting the earth (and there is no such thing as a truly geosynchronous -- let alone geostationary -- orbit over the poles) means you'd have to power them up, which pretty much means that they'd have to be solar-powered, which means that they wouldn't generate much ozone, which means...

Murphy is damn powerful.

That said, I've never done, nor seen, an actual calculation that says for sure that this method would be impractical. I encourage you to perform a rough order-of-magnitude calculation just to see how much of a miracle -- or how many miracles -- it would take.

Originally Posted by tk421

Originally Posted by mobious

If ozone can be created during lightening strikes by both natural and man-made methods, why couldn't we say, install a large system of tesla coils or spark gap transmitters (yes i know these are mainly for things like morse code, i can't remember what it is i'm thinking of so this will have to do) up in the arctic or antarctic regions. These tesla coils or other devices could have large battery banks or capacitors that get charged by other renewable energy sources like wind turbines or solar panels, and when they fill up the tesla coils fire, creating large amounts of lightening and therefore ozone. If that can make its way into the ozone layer we could possibly start to patch this hole and maybe help slow climate change.

Thats my idea, please leave some comments on things i may have left out or your opinions.

~Mobious

The problem is that ozone is unstable, so a negligible fraction of what you generate near the surface ever makes it up to where it would do any good. The ozone would react with other species (generally creating smog) or dissociate long before it gets where it's needed.

So, you'd need to generate the ozone up there. Having generators orbiting the earth (and there is no such thing as a truly geosynchronous -- let alone geostationary -- orbit over the poles) means you'd have to power them up, which pretty much means that they'd have to be solar-powered, which means that they wouldn't generate much ozone, which means...

Murphy is damn powerful.

That said, I've never done, nor seen, an actual calculation that says for sure that this method would be impractical. I encourage you to perform a rough order-of-magnitude calculation just to see how much of a miracle -- or how many miracles -- it would take.

ok, just throwing this one out here... Giant airships tethered to the arctic/ antarctic regions with tesla coils on their tops. each ship has four ropes made from carbon fiber (nanocarbon fiber?). each individual rope would need to be able to hold each ship in place by itself but we would have four to be extra sure. these tesla coils would be powered by propellers, they would need to be out of reach of the ropes so they wouldn't cut or damage them. these propellers would generate electricity for a large battery bank inside the airships, that when reaching a certain capacity would discharge that current to the coils, which would fire, creating large lightening bolts that makes ozone. If the ships are high enough the ozone would be able to make it to the upper atmosphere before it has time to destabilize.

Giant airships tethered to the arctic/ antarctic regions with tesla coils on their tops. each ship has four ropes made from carbon fiber (nanocarbon fiber?). each individual rope would need to be able to hold each ship in place by itself but we would have four to be extra sure.

The ozone formed would have to be at or near the lower part of the stratosphere. 100 kms of carbon fibre rope of this strength is a pretty big ask. And how would you guarantee consistent buoyancy way up there where there's so little atmosphere. It's a long, long way - your equipment would have to be pretty lightweight to manage this. The ropes would have to withstand, near their mid-points, the polar jet stream which travels at about 160km/h. If you wanted to do this at lower heights, the jet stream would interfere with the flow of any ozone generated. The more vigorously it moves, the more likely any molecule will be to collide with another with which it could react.

Ozone layer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

To use a mechanical solution to a chemical problem. Thats not very efficiënt. Why not ionise the upper atmosphere with a laser?

Originally Posted by Zwolver

To use a mechanical solution to a chemical problem. Thats not very efficiënt. Why not ionise the upper atmosphere with a laser?

True, i never thought of lasers. I just really like tesla coils. but this was just an idea.