🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter Webb" <webbfamily@optusnetDIESPAMDIE.com.au> wrote in message 
news:4ebf35dd$0$22473$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>
> "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> wrote in message 
> news:7uzvq.5815$7r4.4501@viwinnwfe02.internal.bigpond.com...
>> Well, if science can split the atom (nuclear power), this should be a 
>> cinch.
>>   There was a TV doco on SBS last night, about evolution of the 
>> submarine, and the modern nuclear-powered sub solves its oxygen supply 
>> problem by electrolysis of sea water.
>>   How do astronauts in the space station recycle their air?
>>   Presumably, it involves reduction of carbon dioxide back into carbon 
>> and oxygen.
>>   By photosynthesis?  Or, electrolysis of "dry ice"?
>
> If you think that we can eliminate or reduce CO2 emissions by "splitting" 
> CO2 molecules into Carbon and Oxygen, you are simply demonstrating 
> ignorance of the law of conservation of energy.
>
> The energy produced by burning fossil fuels is released when Carbon and 
> Hydrogen joint with Oxygen in the air to produce CO2 and H2O. The only way 
> that you can split these molecules apart again is by supplying more energy 
> than was released when they were created, meaning fossil fuel plants would 
> consume more energy than they produce, rendering them useless.
>
> If you are really unfamiliar with the law of conservation of energy - 
> which is primary school science - you are probably better off not posting 
> your ideas to science newsgroups.
>
>

#  Carbon dioxide is not an inert gas (eg argon), and there can be several 
ways of coping with it, apart from using more electricity than is economic - 
like a desal plant using reverse osmosis (as compared with distillation).
     Trouble is, the polluting industries don't want to bother doing a 
clean-up, unless forced.
     Chimney/vehicle discharge is merely one example of failure to recycle, 
and everything we humans don't recycle accumulates as waste - until we 
"drown" in our own polluted habitat.
     To revert to the original topic: a submarine has sea water to draw on, 
but a space station has no such luxury.