On Jan 29, 2009, at 11:36 AM, Charles Davis wrote:
> > Right!! But there was never any effort at figuring out how to speed > the migration of the Ozone from where it was a bother, to where it > was (is) needed. There's never been any serious effort towards making perpetual motion machines or flying by flapping our arms like birds, either. It's physically and chemically impossible for it to work like that. Only stable molecules will diffuse from the surface up to the stratosphere where the protective ozone is.* That is akin to saying we could solve the problem of not enough water in the Sahara, by picking up icebergs with helicopters and dropping them in the desert. Works for Wile E. Coyote (at least until the ACME rubber bands suspending the iceberg's break), but not in reality. Ozone is too reactive to diffuse far, it does not migrate upwards, it reacts very quickly with just about anything it touches, including lung tissue, which it burns. This is also why conditions of high ozone that form naturally, such as during inversions, quickly dissipate once normal weather conditions return. The ozone in the upper atmosphere is created there, by the action of UV on O2 molecules : <http://www.atmosphere.mpg.de/enid/m2.html> Ozone is used in a variety of processes on earth, like water sterilization and some chemical manufacturing processes. In all cases the ozone is not supplied by opening a tank of Ozone, but by the use of ozone generators, which work in analogous ways to the natural process, by irradiating oxygen with UV. *Ironically, the chlorofluorocarbons that catalyze the ozone depletion are dangerous *due* to their general inertness and stability...this is why they were used for the reasons they were used; among other things this inertness made ideal propellants for aerosol cans, because they didn't react with the contents, and their inertness also made them ideal for use in air conditioning systems: they didn't corrode the thin tubing, and repeated heating and cooling cycles didn't cause them to break down or form reactive chemicals. But the thin atmosphere of the upper stratosphere coupled with the high flux of UV turned these molecules into ozone destroyers. The UV can knock a chlorine atom off the CFC molecule, which can then break down MANY ozone molecules, because the reaction tends to keep re- releasing the Cl atom. <http://tinyurl.com/dbn7pl> It took us a while to figure out where the chlorine was coming from, as noted in the link above, the 1995 Nobel Prize in chemistry went to the folks who figured it all out. This is also why my asthma inhaler just went from $15 to $60. %...@$!#@ mother-...@$6 pharmaceutical companies got to patent the use of a non- CFC propellant, so the drug is a generic, but the stuff to make it come out of the inhaler? Patented, and thus expensive as hell for a number of years. Bastiges. -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to Low End Mac's iMac List, a group for those using G3, G4, G5, and Intel Core iMacs as well as Apple eMacs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/imac/list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/imaclist?hl=en Low End Mac RSS feed at feed://lowendmac.com/feed.xml -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
