Expanding the orbit of the Earth works under the known laws of physics but wouldn’t be practically doable at all. A giant air conditioner wouldn’t work for simple physics reasons.
Why wouldn’t a giant AC work? Admittedly, you’d need to connect it to the Earth, not just “point it” at us. But an AC is basically a system that uses energy to move heat around; the trick is building one that puts the warm-air exhaust outside the lower atmosphere and gives it escape velocity.
For instance, as long as we’re talking mad science, if we could build a space elevator with a big pool of water at the upper end as its counterbalance, cooled by evaporating into space (and maybe by contact with the upper atmosphere?), with a series of tubes connecting the pool with the sea below, then we could run an AC cycle: send warm seawater up, get almost-freezing water down. Of course we’d need a huge throughput to affect global temperature, but the principle is sound :-)
Yes, that would work. I think I was reacting to the phrasing more and imagined something more cartoonish, in particularly where the air conditioner is essentially floating in space.
Build a giant air conditioner in space and point it towards the Earth.
(Hey, it’s just as plausible as expanding the orbit of the entire planet...)
Expanding the orbit of the Earth works under the known laws of physics but wouldn’t be practically doable at all. A giant air conditioner wouldn’t work for simple physics reasons.
Why wouldn’t a giant AC work? Admittedly, you’d need to connect it to the Earth, not just “point it” at us. But an AC is basically a system that uses energy to move heat around; the trick is building one that puts the warm-air exhaust outside the lower atmosphere and gives it escape velocity.
For instance, as long as we’re talking mad science, if we could build a space elevator with a big pool of water at the upper end as its counterbalance, cooled by evaporating into space (and maybe by contact with the upper atmosphere?), with a series of tubes connecting the pool with the sea below, then we could run an AC cycle: send warm seawater up, get almost-freezing water down. Of course we’d need a huge throughput to affect global temperature, but the principle is sound :-)
Yes, that would work. I think I was reacting to the phrasing more and imagined something more cartoonish, in particularly where the air conditioner is essentially floating in space.
So something like “put a big fan on the Moon and point it at the Earth” :-)