Ask A Scientist© General Science Archive

>
> > >    name         Balqees
> > >    status       student
> > >    age          18
>
> > >    Question -   Hi!
> > >
> > >I am a first year engineering student. For a group project we picked
> > >to investigate different ways of fixing the ozone layer.  But after
> > >some research, we so far discovered that other than stopping the use of
> > >CFCs and other ozone depleting chemicals there isnt much we can do.
> > >  But perhaps there is. so my question is, is it possible
> > >to regenerate the ozone layer somehow, given that we stopped using CFCs.
> > >We're considering even wacky possibilities, it doesnt matter how unpractical
> > >or expensive.  Some of our ideas included thinking of ways of raising
> > >ozone in the lower levels of the atmosphere to the stratosphere. or using
> > >ozone generators and somehow shipping ozone up to the stratosphere<--we know
> > >now that that is so far impossible, but we want to consider everything.
> > >So if you know any other possibilities, we would sincerely appreciate
> > >a reply. Thank you for your time.
>
>I think you can't hope to outdo the sun at producing ozone.  The
>problem is essentially that there are ozone-destroying catalysts in the
>atmosphere whose effects are all out of proportion to their
>concentration.  This seems like the place to concentrate because
>removing one molecule of a catalyst would save many molecules of
>ozone.
>
>Tim Mooney
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>I am not sure where I heard this or read this, possibly the discovery
>channel or something, but I too used to wonder about the same thing.  It
>would be possible to use ozone generators to patch the big hole that we have
>BUT the amount of energy that would be needed to do this is something like
>more energy than we have already consumed on
>Earth.  Please don't quote me on that, just wanted to give you a bit of
>advice. but just wanted to say that your not the only one out there that has
>investigated this!

Baldwin
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