Another reference to a BIO sphere project. A biosphere consumes water and converts it into solid carbon.
Water is not able to act like a terrarium. ie closed system. Its just not there.
Matter is not able to be created or destroyed. -edit- The earth is bombarded by micro comets everyday, that is the source of our water.
Yeah I struggle with the chemistry of that biosphere statement. There is no carbon in water. At a chemical and particle level It is all just rearrangement. With sufficient technological intervention then a closed biosphere is doable with enough energy to drive it. But non trivial. We need to master this one better so that space travel will become practical.
Splitting hydrogen off in gaseous form and industrial/planet-wide energy supply quantities is I think a way to deplete our resource. Simply as hydrogen is nearly as light as it gets and takes every opportunity to shove off. Even through the walls of vessels made from stuff that we might otherwise consider to be impermeable. Splitting it off as part of a reforming process though that immediately re-captures it in a less escapist form has got to be good.
Water may become scarcer eventually when we start using it all up for reaction mass and fuel for starships. But at least then we will be able to bring more water back from elsewhere. This won't happen till crisis point caused by self induced scarcity. Pushing matter down a gravity well is much cheaper and easier than trying to haul it up one.
On matter being neither created not destroyed. This statement gets messy when you drill down into it and it depends on at what resolution you are looking, together with what you consider matter to be. If anyone is bored look up "Pair Production" in the context of high energy particle physics. A Photon (No mass, and arguably pure energy, so therefore arguably not matter) passing through the fields of an atomic nucleus can and does spontaneously convert into an electron and a positron providing the photon energy is greater than the energy of the rest mass of the two particles that are created. An electron and a positron having mass are arguably matter having mass and being possessed of some energy. I found this a bit unsettling and mind blowing when I read about it.
It is true though to say that energy, mass and momentum are interchangeable and their product is conserved. If this is the meaning behind matter is neither nor created nor destroyed I think we could be in agreement.
The earth is not a terrarium style sealed biosphere, but it is probably more like a gold fish bowl type ecosystem. Where all our water came from I have no idea. Looking elsewhere in our solar system though we might seem to have more than our fair share of it though. So simple micro comet delivery is an interesting idea but there should be the same amount everywhere else as well. Especially where a planets gravity well is bigger/stronger. But elsewhere it is less likely to be water that we would recognise being either solid or gas, nor is it swilling around uncontrollably on the surface like here. So I am not sure on this one as yet till we go out there and look closer up.
Water could turn out to be more prolific in all its forms than we currently think.
On synthesised methane production I think the big problem with this one is that the oil lobby will be very quick to seize upon it as a way to continue with their business model, despite the damage it causes. Using petrochems as a concentrated and convenient conversion feedstock is a little too easy (And conveniently business as usual) for them to pass up.
Petrol etc and a certain number of petroleum fractions used to be a waste by product, till auto-motion took care of it and made it valuable. Surplus was burned off up flare stacks. The move to electric auto-motion will make this come around again. It will be interesting to see if catalytic conversion, reformation and organic chemistry have come along enough by then that the pilling up waste products can be profitably re-used for something else. In the mean time it is going to seriously disrupt the petrochems business model.
A hydrogen economy then is good news for the oil companies that are a little more serious about de-carbonisation as they can arguably strip out the carbon into solid or liquid form leaving a hydrogen surplus. Plastics and other bulk chemicals (Ethylene, Ammonium Nitrate etc etc etc) are the mainstay of the petrochems industry after all.
On globalisation, I think despite opposition it is pretty much inevitable. The world has become a much smaller place in my life to date and transit times are reducing. At the moment Globalisation is a touch "Wild West" driven by short term financial gain whatever the cost. I think we probably need to move beyond this and introduce long term sustainability into the driving equation as a counter Ballance or go back to the horse and cart. Either driver taken to extremes and excluding the other is bad.
Personally as a life long technologist and forward looking person I don't fancy the horse and cart as anything other than a fun pastime.
