Energy From Venus

I doubt that makes sense since it it likely to take more energy to acquire and transport it than the amount obtained.

Well, it would have to be bigger than a coffee can. Economy of scale would be important.

What kind of energy do you think Venus has to offer? You mean like heat or something?

Okay, then. You couldn't use one of these new style plastic coffee cans.

What energy is that? Oh...from the Venus Energy Company? No worries 'cause they supply the containers.

Seriously, whatever Venus has, we have the same energy here and you don't need the long trip up to there on a missile. We can go to the source...for example the usage of thermal or wind energy. The problem with accumulating that energy here on earth is the efficient distribution of the energy. Can't imagine any practical scenario where going to a planet to get energy would ever be worthwhile.

Surface temperature of Venus is around 900 degrees F. Venus is basically a fairly new planet, and hasn't finished cooling off.

Everybody talks about going to Mars. Going to Mars would be expensive, risky and the rewards would be small. The only thing Mars has is hematite which we have plenty of here.

Venus on the other hand has (for our practical purposes) an inexhaustible supply of thermal energy. The Earth could use a new source of energy. If we could bring back more energy than what was used to get there anything extra would be a profit.

It would be a difficult engineering problem to do this. However, this is the type of problem engineers love to solve. One idea I have is to transmute an element found on Venus into a type of fuel. Transmutation here on Earth isn't practical because the energy required is too expensive. On Venus it isn't. It is much easier to solve a problem given too much energy (Venus) than it is with not enough (Mars).

What element did you have in mind? And what do you mean by "transmute" exactly?

Transmutation is similar to transmogrification, only less so.

Transmutation is the addition or subtraction of the protons in a nucleus of an atom. Physicists have done this to create new elements that do not exist in nature. This procedure can change lead into gold but the energy required to do it isn't worth it. On Venus though energy is essentially free.

In response to Ragman, "Seriously, whatever Venus has, we have the same energy here and you don't need the long trip up to there on a missile. We can go to the source...for example the usage of thermal or wind energy. The problem with accumulating that energy here on earth is the efficient distribution of the energy. " Geothermal, solar and wind energy sources are a blip compared to oil. We will eventually run out of oil of course. Until then oil will only get more expensive. We also have hydro and nuclear energy sources but as you know they have their environmental hazards. If we could get large amounts of energy from Venus one of the other benefits would be the ability to cheaply desalinate seawater.

If there were an industrial strength transmutation complex on Venus it wouldn't matter what elements were needed for it. Any element can be transmuted into any other element. We could make carbon and change it to oil, and we could also make iron and change it to steel. We could make oxygen for breathing or for making water. The possibilities are beyond my imagination. All it takes is energy.

If ifs and ands and buts were candy and nuts it'd be Christmas every day.

Yeah, I know. According to the first law of thermodynamics without a significant temperature difference, no matter how hot it is you couldn't extract work from there. There is no way to use all of that heat. It's fun to think about anyway though.

I think you are severely overestimating the value of simple heat and pressure in relation to the logistics involved in converting that type of energy into something useful. It would be easier to build a production plant in the molten caldera of an active volcano than it would be to build it on Venus.

And as far as transmutation of elements goes, scientists don't create production level quantities of new elements, then create a few atoms at a time. The energy required to change atomic structure is enormous, and it must be applied in a very precise way, it can't just be floating around in the form of ambient heat.

Oh . . . you're no fun . . .

Come on now, I've cracked you up from time to time. Admit it. Besides, his post wasn't quite absurd enough to warrant a joke. Now if he had mentioned that we would be mining the Venusian rocks for fossilized mammalian blood vessels, then I might have been persuaded to take a different tack with my reply.

Or a pipeline from Venus to Earth to maximize economy of scale.