#solar: man of the atom

[milkyberryjsk]

iauahejsahahj???!

[spaceshiprocket]

Solar, Man of the Atom Vol. 1 #3 (Valiant Comics, November 1991) cover by Barry Windsor-Smith

[holy-shit-comics]

[chernobog13]

DOCTOR SOLAR, MAN OF THE ATOM (vol. 1) #13 (July, 1965). Cover by George Wilson.

Asteroid, shmasteriod! It urns out Doctor Solar is the real reason the dinosaurs were wiped out!

[evilhorse]

Quickly, he converts the matter in his body into a radiating atomic fireball…

(Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #9)

[balu8]

Solar,Man of the Atom #3

Cover by Barry Windsor-Smith

Valiant

[hellishhotel]

Spindle Comics Presents:

STOLAS: Prince Of Hell.

Blame Blitz for spending the budget on weaponry and crack for the cover.

(Black and White variants.)

Original Cover:

[tomoleary]

Andrew Wendel Solar Man of the Atom #42 (1995) Source

Colors by Mark Pusateri

[donnatroyprincessofthemyscira]

Art EDIT Credit to Roberto Coltro

[allflooby]

ECCC 2023 purchases: The Origin of the Defiant Universe 1 (Cover art by Alan Weiss) and Secrets of the Valiant Universe 1 (Cover art by Bernard Chang and Paul Autio).

[ginge1962]

Unity 2000 #2 - December 1999, cover by Jim Starlin + Joe Rubinstein.

[holy-shit-comics]

[irradiate-space]

I agree that the rate of solar panel production seems to be the limiting factor on Terraformers.

Quotes from the whitepaper and my envelope math addressing your specific concerns are below the cut, plus a plea for someone to check my math.

1.

To convert carbon dioxide into a hydrocarbon requires, at a minimum, the same amount of energy yielded up by converting that hydrocarbon into CO₂ (with some fiddling involving the question of where the hydrogen comes from).

Yes.

2.

To convert CO₂ from the air into a solid form requires more energy than that, because you’re working against a concentration gradient. This is one reason why taking dissolved carbonic acid from seawater is a better choice.

Terraform Industries is not planning to convert their CO2 directly into a solid form, but they allow that it may be converted indirectly. See the note on ethylene reactors above.

3.

To draw out of the atmosphere, then, every year an amount of CO₂ roughly equal to the annual industrial emissions of the present day demands a commitment of energy pretty much equal to the whole world energy budget of the present day. This in turn seems to imply a society with an overall energy budget at least ten times that of the present day. A consummation devoutly to be wished!

A consummation devoutly to be wished, indeed! How much will it take?

We need a lot of solar panels. Something like 1000x current annual production. This will take 20-30 years, not 1000 years, because production is doubling every 33 months or so, and speeding up.

Statista says solar panel production was ~240 GW in 2021, and 116 GW in 2018. Our World In Data estimates the global energy production at 178,899 TWh in 2022, of which 3488 TWh was solar, and . TWh to TW at 8766 hours per year gives us 20,407 GW of total energy production capacity per year.

137,237 TWh to TW at 8766 hours per year gives us 20,407 GW of total energy production capacity per year. A one-megawatt Terraformer Mark One produces 2 million cubic feet of methane per year; a random energy.gov PDF says that a 3.5 MW nominal electric supply gas turbine burns 47.5 MMBtu/hr. The Energy Information Administration provides the helpful conversion factor of 1 Mcf = 1.036 MMBtu, so

2 MCf / 1 MW Terraformer-year 1.036 MMBtu / 1 Mcf 3.5 MW generation for 1 hour / 47.5MMBtu 1 year / 8766 hours x = 2 * 1.036 / 47.5 / 8766 * one 3.5 MW generator * 1/Terraformer = oops, slap a 1/(all that) = 200964.6 one-MW Terraformers per 3.5 MW gas turbine plant

That doesn't make sense to me; someone please check my math and units.

4.

Even with nuclear energy, far more compact (and thus harnessable to the wheels of industry) than any other source, we would find it difficult to expand the world energy budget by an order of magnitude in 25 years.

I agree, but if you take a pessimistic view of the rate of solar production, based on historical data over 2016-2021, doubling every 3 years, over 25 years, then capacity undergoes 8 doublings in the next 24 years, bringing us to 256 times current capacity, which is an increase by two orders of magnitude.

If we use Terraform's rate of doubling every 33 months, then we reach 6197.69 capacity units in 25 years.

Does that prediction bear out? Almost assuredly not; there's going to be a material constraint in there somewhere.

5.

With solar energy, noted for its extreme diffuseness, and thus, the large efforts needed to put it to work?

EIA again: the median natural gas well produces 400 million cubic feet of natural gas per year. The typical Marcellus Shale fracking natural gas drill pad is 5-8 acres, covering a radius of 2 miles via horizontal drilling. A circle of radius 2 miles has 8042 acres, and estimates for solar farms range at 1-2 acres per megawatt. At the ratio of 2 Mcf per Terraformer, 1 Terraformer per 1 MW solar, 1 MW per 2 acres, in 8042 acres you get a ratio of about 1 Mcf per acre, or 8042 Mcf per solar field, covering the same spacing as fracking wells but producing 200x the methane.

So in terms of McF per state, the Terraformer is denser. The Terraformer is also less dangerous to the local environment and watershed than a fracking plant, so you could conceivably cover your parking lot in a solar grid, and then use that to produce natural gas for your vehicle fleet, in the middle of a city.

when will we see the first reverse coal baron (negacoal?) who owns vast pits that armies of filthy labourers carefully stack full of carbon bricks spat out of vast capture machines sucking in CO2 from the sky

[chernobog13]

Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom (vol. 1) #17 (September, 1966). Cover by George Wilson.

[evilhorse]

I-I feel the might of the universe within me…refreshed…new-born…

(Doctor Solar, Man of the Atom #10)

[balu8]

Solar, Man of the Atom

by Barry Windsor-Smith

Valiant