Air on Coruscant

[Fleet Admiral JD]

I was thinking on my way back tonight...how is air circulated on Corucant? From what we see of the planet, there aren't enough green plants to produce enough oxygen for the many beings on the planet. Are there some sort of oxygen generators that are kept under the city?

What do you think?

[The Original Nex]

I was thinking on my way back tonight...how is air circulated on Corucant? From what we see of the planet, there aren't enough green plants to produce enough oxygen for the many beings on the planet. Are there some sort of oxygen generators that are kept under the city?

What do you think?

Seeing how much complete artificial control there is over just about every normally natural process on Coruscant, I'd say it's artificially circulated.

[YT300000]

I remember a mention of an air generator or something being damaged in *shudder* Jedi Search (first of the KJA books).

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

In one of the Rebel books in the NJO (the one where the go to Coruscant, obviously), you see giant vats of some substance that acts to circulate the air. They're located in the lower levels of the city.

[Molyneux]

They may also have more greenery than is seen. Think of cities today - no lawns, only a couple of parks, but individuals keep quite a few plants, not to mention moss and wild plants living in the cracks (often literally). Granted, this probably wouldn't be enough to provide breathable air for the entire populace, but it would reduce the burden on any artificial oxygen-producing tech.

[Pablo Sanchez]

They may also have more greenery than is seen. Think of cities today - no lawns, only a couple of parks, but individuals keep quite a few plants,

The oxygen production from would be so negligable that it should be ignored.

not to mention moss and wild plants living in the cracks (often literally).

The problem with this is that Coruscant's actual soil is buried so deep under buildings that no one really knows where it is. Most plants can be discounted then. Mosses and lichens adapted to survive on concrete (or whatever) would be possible, but again, they wouldn't really be thriving and would account for very little oxygen.

Granted, this probably wouldn't be enough to provide breathable air for the entire populace, but it would reduce the burden on any artificial oxygen-producing tech.

For a civilization with the technology present in Star Wars, it would be trivially easy to turn carbon dioxide into carbon and breathable oxygen. Very likely it is the very same process they use on starships, just on a rather larger scale. The real question about Coruscant's habitability is the question of what they do with their heat.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

The real question about Coruscant's habitability is the question of what they do with their heat.

And considering the amount of waste heat that has to be dealt with on the starships, this shouldn't be a problem.

[Pablo Sanchez]

And considering the amount of waste heat that has to be dealt with on the starships, this shouldn't be a problem.

The heat has to go somewhere, they can't just magic it away. For a number of reasons too numerous to even go into* it is far more difficult for a planet to shed heat than a starship. IIRC Curtis Saxton went into this issue in some depth, and he reasoned that Coruscant was a great distance from a dim star, was geothermally inactive, and so on.

*To name a few:
Coruscant would generating vastly more waste heat which diffused over a much larger area, as opposed to the work being done on a starship, which occurs mainly in a few specific areas. This makes it easier to use heat sinks. Also, Coruscant is a planet. There is less control over the environment, it's made of materials (concrete, dirt, etc.) that are harder to work with in terms of heat management, air circulation is more complex, and it's not really feasible to just radiate the heat away into space.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

I thought that Star Wars tech did effectively "magic it away" by converting it into neutrinos? Am I missing something key with that aspect?

I see what you mean with those points, though.

[Molyneux]

And considering the amount of waste heat that has to be dealt with on the starships, this shouldn't be a problem.

The heat has to go somewhere, they can't just magic it away. For a number of reasons too numerous to even go into* it is far more difficult for a planet to shed heat than a starship. IIRC Curtis Saxton went into this issue in some depth, and he reasoned that Coruscant was a great distance from a dim star, was geothermally inactive, and so on.

*To name a few:
Coruscant would generating vastly more waste heat which diffused over a much larger area, as opposed to the work being done on a starship, which occurs mainly in a few specific areas. This makes it easier to use heat sinks. Also, Coruscant is a planet. There is less control over the environment, it's made of materials (concrete, dirt, etc.) that are harder to work with in terms of heat management, air circulation is more complex, and it's not really feasible to just radiate the heat away into space.

If I remember correctly, most waste heat is conducted to the poles, where it's used to melt the ice caps as needed, when they have to get some water to add to the reservoir systems.

[Molyneux]

They may also have more greenery than is seen. Think of cities today - no lawns, only a couple of parks, but individuals keep quite a few plants,

The oxygen production from would be so negligable that it should be ignored.

Why? Given that a sizable number of alien species come from heavily-forested homeworlds (Ithorians being an extreme example), it's quite probable that a good number of residents would either a) have a LARGE number of plants in their living quarters, or b) need large, forest-type areas such as parks and greenhouses to go to, or c) both. There's nothing keeping the rich from having private parks, either - and there may well be plants which metabolize carbon dioxide into oxygen much faster than Terran species.

not to mention moss and wild plants living in the cracks (often literally).

The problem with this is that Coruscant's actual soil is buried so deep under buildings that no one really knows where it is. Most plants can be discounted then. Mosses and lichens adapted to survive on concrete (or whatever) would be possible, but again, they wouldn't really be thriving and would account for very little oxygen.

Dirt gets EVERYWHERE. Rock dust accumulates and, with some water and microorganisms, becomes soil. Then you get a little lichen living on it, and rootlets growing into the concrete, breaking it up bit by bit...

Over hundreds of years, you can get a HELL of a lot of mosses, lichens, and other hardy plant-type life living and thriving in the warm conditions that Coruscant would provide.

On the lower levels, they probably get MATS of algae and bacteria, some of which could very well produce oxygen.

Granted, this probably wouldn't be enough to provide breathable air for the entire populace, but it would reduce the burden on any artificial oxygen-producing tech.

For a civilization with the technology present in Star Wars, it would be trivially easy to turn carbon dioxide into carbon and breathable oxygen. Very likely it is the very same process they use on starships, just on a rather larger scale. The real question about Coruscant's habitability is the question of what they do with their heat.

Alternatively, they could just buy oxygen - bring in chunks of frozen atmosphere from very cold planets where no-one's living, and all you have to pay is the cost of transport (which, in the Star Wars-verse, would be pretty damn low). Dump it on a hard surface, it melts, and you've got some more atmosphere to work with.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Why?

Because
the load of oxygen consumption on Coruscant is orders of magnitude higher than Earth.
the biomass of plantlife is going to so much lower than on Earth that doesn't even bear comparison. First and most foremost, if Coruscant has oceans then they are covered by cityscape and cut off from the sun. 75% of Earth's oxygen comes from ocean-going algae. All of the human-cultivated plants on Earth account for a tiny percentage of the total plantlife biomass, and Coruscant has no significant native agriculture.
There is no real reason to assume that Star Wars plants are going to be vastly more efficient at converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. Remember that photosynthesis is a biological process that has been in continued development for billions of years; if it could be made inordinately more efficient than it probably would have.

Plant life will cleanse an insignificant portion of Coruscant's air for these reasons.

Dirt gets EVERYWHERE. Rock dust accumulates and, with some water and microorganisms, becomes soil. Then you get a little lichen living on it, and rootlets growing into the concrete, breaking it up bit by bit...

The majority of Coruscant's area (or volume, rather) is meticulously maintained because people live and work there. Soil isn't going to be allowed to accumulate or conrete to be "broken up bit by bit." Lichens and moss being an eyesore, it's probably dealt with immediately. The only parts of Coruscant where this action is at all likely to take place is in the deep depths of the city, which recieves no sunlight whatsoever and hence would only produce some mosses and lichens with very minor oxygen production.

Over hundreds of years, you can get a HELL of a lot of mosses, lichens, and other hardy plant-type life living and thriving in the warm conditions that Coruscant would provide.

Unless, during this period, the surfaces are being constantly cleaned, torn down (disintegrated, in fact) and rebuilt, as we know is happening on Coruscant (via the EU).

On the lower levels, they probably get MATS of algae and bacteria, some of which could very well produce oxygen.

Alternatively, they could just buy oxygen - bring in chunks of frozen atmosphere from very cold planets where no-one's living, and all you have to pay is the cost of transport (which, in the Star Wars-verse, would be pretty damn low). Dump it on a hard surface, it melts, and you've got some more atmosphere to work with.

More trouble than it's worth. They can get clean air locally, with machines they have on hand. Why go to the trouble of moving matter around like that?

If I remember correctly, most waste heat is conducted to the poles, where it's used to melt the ice caps as needed, when they have to get some water to add to the reservoir systems.

Yeah, that's wouldn't cut it at all.

I thought that Star Wars tech did effectively "magic it away" by converting it into neutrinos? Am I missing something key with that aspect?

I hadn't heard of that, and I have to say I don't see how it makes sense.

One of the things about starships and their heat issues is that we can comfortably assume that the machines on them are very efficient with regards to work lost as heat. No engine is perfect but perhaps, with their amazing technology, they've got near that. A space ship also has the advantage of being in a vacuum. They could run a superconductor all throughout the ship in a single connected loop, and in an emergency release an extension of it with a lot of surface area into space--since the superconductor would transmit energy evenly throughout its mass, it would radiate the heat out very well.

It's harder to do that with a planet, though it may be what's happening. I checked Saxton's website, and an EU novel makes reference to some efforts made via the upper atmosphere to reduce heat. Possibly this includes some way of safely transmitting the heat into space. I'm not clever enough to know how this kind of thing works.

[Spanky The Dolphin]

I thought that Star Wars tech did effectively "magic it away" by converting it into neutrinos? Am I missing something key with that aspect?

I hadn't heard of that, and I have to say I don't see how it makes sense.

That's how SW ships vent away heat from their heat sinks, by converting it into neutrinos. That's also how their shielding works.

[Cykeisme]

Yeah, considering the rate at which shield systems are capable of getting rid of energy (very high weapon yields) and momentum from weapon impacts, wouldn't be surprising if a similar application of the same technology was used to cool the planet.
There's no known method of doing such a thing of course, but it doesn't violate any basic laws.

If Saxton is right about Coruscant being far from a dim star and being geothermically inactive, the planet might even need heating.

Regardless of whether it needs heat dissipation or addition, IIRC there are atmospheric processing stations and even weather control towers described in rpg sourcebooks.

Edit: I recently read the Medstar duology. There's a part where Barriss Offee remininsces about an experience with her master Luminara Unduli on Coruscant, where there's a statement about the controlled weather patterns beings scheduled weeks in advance.

[Hardy]

If Saxton is right about Coruscant being far from a dim star and being geothermically inactive, the planet might even need heating.

The waste heat generated by trillions of beings packed so densely would already make Coruscant uncomfortably warm. I doubt Coruscant would need extra heat.

[Cykeisme]

I'd think the waste heat generated by power generation facilities, machinery, vehicles etc would be far greater than body heat, even if body heat was significant.

[Darth Raptor]

In one of the Rebel books in the NJO (the one where the go to Coruscant, obviously), you see giant vats of some substance that acts to circulate the air. They're located in the lower levels of the city.

Ding, ding! We have a winner. Giant vats of a red algae like organic soup is the source of most of Coruscant's oxygen.

More importantly, these facilities were some of the very, very last under Imperial control. Disturbingly enough, it seems as if Imperial droids were still monitoring these installations when the Yuuzhan Vong attacked. Because of their organic nature, they can operate independently, but it seems like Palpatine had a definate ace in the hole with his ability to have them shut down. He literally held Imperial Center hostage and could choke it to death on command.

[Hardy]

I'd think the waste heat generated by power generation facilities, machinery, vehicles etc would be far greater than body heat, even if body heat was significant.

Yes, but human bodies don't have neutrino raidators

My point was that waste heat generated by living beings could be staggering enough.

[Darth Raptor]

It's my understanding that Coruscant has a heat deficiency, not an excess. There's still ice at the poles and they have giant mirrors in orbit to amplify the light from the weak and watery sun. The Vong had to literally shift the planet's orbit closer to its primary for their jungle to really take hold.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'd think the waste heat generated by power generation facilities, machinery, vehicles etc would be far greater than body heat, even if body heat was significant.

Yes, but human bodies don't have neutrino raidators

My point was that waste heat generated by living beings could be staggering enough.

Yes, I theorized they have massive refrigeration grills pooling heat where it can be pumped into space or something. The surface of Coruscanti buildings may be very reflective for visible and infrared wavelengths of light; when it is abandoned by most of its population and most of the power is lost, it becomes cool or even cold.

[Hardy]

Yes, I theorized they have massive refrigeration grills pooling heat where it can be pumped into space or something.

For some unknown reason, I feel a problem with entropy here since it probably takes energy for them to work. But my understanding of thermodynamics ends there, so I really can't elaborate. I just want to point that out.

The surface of Coruscanti buildings may be very reflective for visible and infrared wavelengths of light;

That seems to be the case, canonically, since many of the buildings are reflective in the visible spectrum (or however you word that).

It's my understanding that Coruscant has a heat deficiency, not an excess.<snip evidence>

Perhaps choosing a "cold" planet was a deliberate move, likely because planners foresaw certain problems with excess heat. Is it possible that Coruscant is somewhat Hothlike?

Or even more interesting, could Coruscant be the victim of excess greenhouse gasses that limit sunlight?


My mind seems to be misaligned today.

[Darth Raptor]

Okay, I just saw RotS again and this is probably the best thread to bring it up in.

WTF is with the thundershower when they're bringing Vader in? I thought it was a nice artistic touch the first two times but the meteorological implications totally escaped me at first. Doesn't Coruscant have exactly one small sea pre-Vongforming? How the hell do we have a water cycle?

In retrospect, I suppose it's not that surprising. The first two movies show tons and tons of cumulous clouds, implying that there's significant moisture in Coruscant's atmosphere. All I know is that in the NJO doesn't it say something about the first rainstorm in thousands of years after the Vongforming? Maybe I'm confusing it with the first total blackout... Meep.

[Illuminatus Primus]

For some unknown reason, I feel a problem with entropy here since it probably takes energy for them to work. But my understanding of thermodynamics ends there, so I really can't elaborate. I just want to point that out.

Not a problem; Coruscant already is a net-negative energy state at the end of the day. Naturally, just like a refrigerator, it would radiate heat; but all that matters is that technology exists to radiate that heat into space fast enough to keep the atmosphere comfortable and habitable.

It's my understanding that Coruscant has a heat deficiency, not an excess.<snip evidence>

Perhaps choosing a "cold" planet was a deliberate move, likely because planners foresaw certain problems with excess heat. Is it possible that Coruscant is somewhat Hothlike?

Or even more interesting, could Coruscant be the victim of excess greenhouse gasses that limit sunlight?

The EU is stupid; there is clearly Earth-levels of atmospheric opacity. Ice caps/frozen polar regions are basically a given with a human-comfortable, "Earth-like" planet. So it works perfectly with my "refrigerated planet" theory. Personally, any decent system has the means to adjust things, and the orbital mirrors are no doubt part of the weather control system as much as the refrigeration/heat radiation systems are.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Okay, I just saw RotS again and this is probably the best thread to bring it up in.

WTF is with the thundershower when they're bringing Vader in? I thought it was a nice artistic touch the first two times but the meteorological implications totally escaped me at first. Doesn't Coruscant have exactly one small sea pre-Vongforming? How the hell do we have a water cycle?

In retrospect, I suppose it's not that surprising. The first two movies show tons and tons of cumulous clouds, implying that there's significant moisture in Coruscant's atmosphere. All I know is that in the NJO doesn't it say something about the first rainstorm in thousands of years after the Vongforming? Maybe I'm confusing it with the first total blackout... Meep.

We've known about rainstorms on Coruscant for a long time.

[Hardy]

Not a problem; Coruscant already is a net-negative energy state at the end of the day. Naturally, just like a refrigerator, it would radiate heat; but all that matters is that technology exists to radiate that heat into space fast enough to keep the atmosphere comfortable and habitable.

Ah. I think I understand now. But I'm a bit confused about whether or not you're trying to say that Coruscant is cooled predominantly by technology or is merely assisted by technology.