Monday, August 19, 1996
UCLA physicist developed zinc screens to reverse depletionBy Scott Stimson
Summer Bruin Contributor
The solution to ozone layer depletion and the preservation of life on the planet may very well come from UCLA.
At the UCLA Plasma Physics Laboratory, co-directed by physicist Dr. Alfred Wong, in an attempt to repair the ozone layer, Wong has developed plans to send fleets of helium-filled airships into Earth's stratosphere in order to reverse the destruction of ozone by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).
Wong's plans call for the use of large football-field sized zinc screens to be held aloft by helium balloons and for the resulting platforms to be held in place by "ion engines" that are environmentally safe.
"Without a protective ozone layer in the atmosphere, animals and plants could not exist," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said, the organization that administers the annual Nobel Prize awards. The Academy's statement underscores the importance of the ozone layer, and thus the need to protect and replenish it, Wong said.
"Helium gas will occupy the balloons and hydrogen gas can be used since the platforms are designed to be unmanned ... modern technology allows for remote control," Wong said, describing the nature of his airships.
Wong also provided some information on his invention called the "ion engine" that will be used to hold the platforms steady at points above the earth. "The new design of the ion engine uses ambient air as fuel and solar power as the electric source," he said. Wong declined to discuss the engine further pending patent approval.
According to a videotape describing the project, the zinc screens attached to the stratospheric platforms will react with sunlight, liberating zinc electrons from the screens.
The freed electrons will then react with chlorine ions the ones responsible for the dismantling of ozone molecules. By satiating the chlorine ions' "hunger" for electrons and making them inert, the ozone is spared, allowing the ozone layer repair itself.
The idea behind the use of zinc screens is "a simple and brilliant idea," according to Dr. Earle Williams, professor of atmospheric electricity at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.).
"A single chlorine atom can remove as many as 100,000 molecules of ozone," according to Nobel laureate F. Sherwood Rowland, professor emeritus in the department of chemistry at UC Irvine.
In order for Wong's plan to work, 25 platforms will be released and floated 25 miles above each pole, Wong said. "The first (platform) will cost $35 million, and thereafter each one will cost $15 million," he said. The first airship will take two years to build, and each one after that should take two months, Wong said.
But not everyone agrees with Wong's proposal. Opponents do not believe that his proposed airships will not end the destruction of the ozone layer.
"In the scientific literature, (Wong) has not done anything to address the fact that lots of electrons are produced at all levels of the atmosphere all the time," Sherwood said.
"He has been talking about this (platform project) for at least a decade and he has yet to address the electrons produced by cosmic radiation and natural radioactivity; this is based on what he has published in the scientific literature," Sherwood said.
"He is off by unbelievable factors in the scale-up of this project," he added.
Williams was less severe in his critique of Wong's proposal. "There may be some impractical aspects (to the project)," he said.
"It is an idea which is simple and brilliant in concept but may be impractical to implement," he continued, saying that the project tackles the problem from many different fields, such as physics, chemistry and engineering.
Wong publicly responded to his critics this year and said that "my critics did not understand how energy sources in the environment can be used for (fixing the ozone)," he said.
"They have ignored effects of charges in the atmosphere in their calculations. Disputes in science can be settled by experiments. In my opinion, it is not wise to consider large-scale schemes impossible unless one has performed outdoor experiments," Wong said.
Wong is now in the process of gaining investments for the approximate $500 million cost of the platforms. According to Wong and his associates, these investors are not so much interested in saving the ozone layer as they are in using the platforms as a means to improve earth communication capabilities.
Instead of putting satellites into space, which entails a much higher cost and more "space junk," the platforms would reportedly carry relays for cellular phone systems, television, global positioning systems and weather sensors.
Wong said that he believes very strongly in his concept and project.
"Our whole survival depends upon the solving of the ozone problem," he said. "No problem is too big to tackle."
PATRICK LAM/Daily Bruin
Dr. Alfred Wong, a professor of physics and astrophysics, stands before his atmospheric chamber.