# Can we shoot garbage into a black hole? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2012, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901 "2012-10-26T02:47:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Michael63129](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3da27b/32.png) [@Michael63129](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Michael63129)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/21 "2012-10-26T20:19:33Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Second, there’s no reason to break it down to its smallest components: Why bother, if you’re just getting rid of it anyway? Exactly, and why not just break it down and reuse the components (something we already do - it’s called recycling)? Also, if we could really break it down into its smallest components, which would be atoms, there would be no point in throwing it out. The only “waste” that I can think of that might deserve to be shot into a black hole or otherwise away from Earth is nuclear waste, and that could be taken care of (for the most part, especially the nasty long-lived stuff) if we developed advanced nuclear reactors (current reactors use [less than 1 percent of the available energy](http://ossfoundation.us/projects/energy/nuclear) from fission; we could get over 100 times more energy with proposed reactor designs - and reduce waste proportionally). Actually, even nuclear waste (as we have today, since it will be a very useful fuel source when the reactors are built) would then be something we wouldn’t want to just throw out. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2012, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/22 "2012-10-26T21:29:33Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Physicist Tony Rothman suggested using garbage dumped into a nearby black hole as a way to generate energy. I don’t recall the details, but it’s in his novel _The World is Round_. I’ve heard of various schemes like that. An artificial black hole of about a billion tonnes could be used to absorb unwanted garbage and generate power. This would be one of the most efficient ways of turning mass into energy possible, but there are a few problems to be overcome before it becomes reality. Making artificial black holes would be really, really difficult. A billion tonne black hole would be very small, about the size of an atom; it would be tricky to get garbage into it. A billion tonne black hole would be very, very hot, and emot gamma rays as Hawking radiation. It would be a power generator that produced only highly dangerous radiation. Even if these problems were overcome, there’s the question of the definition of garbage. A lot of things that are currently thrown waya might at some point in the future become valuable resources; radiactive waste, heavy metals, organic materials, metals, and so on. It would be a shame to throw stuff into a black hole which might at one point be useful in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/23 "2012-10-27T01:24:39Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > If it seemed feasible to launch trash toward a black hole, why not just launch trash toward the Sun and let it all become one with the molten plasma there? Turns out, launching trash into space and/or toward the Sun has already been thrashed out right here by the Brain Trust of the SDMB. A quick search yields at least the following four threads: > > [Launching trash into space - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=596194) by **CheeseDonkey** 02/07/2011 > > [Expel all the trash to space! - Great Debates - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=630665) by **jrriojase** 11/07/2011 > > [Why can't we just dispose waste out in space? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=554102) by our very own favorite, **Diamonds02** 02/28/2010 > > [Would There Be Any Ill Effects to Launching Things Into The Sun? - Factual Questions - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=514691) by **Alastair Moonsong** 04/19/2009 > > General consensus: It’s too energy-intensive to boost junk up there. I don’t want my trash coming back at me as solar radiation. That’s dirty! I want it gone. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/24 "2012-10-27T04:24:58Z")
(Regarding the idea of launching trash into the Sun: ) > [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > I don’t want my trash coming back at me as solar radiation. That’s dirty! I want it gone. Okay, here’s a new and bona fide question then: Is this what happens if we were to send various kinds of junk into the Sun? Would it be vaporized and plasmatized and thoroughly assimilated into the sun, or would it affect the composition of the sun in some way as to come back at us as solar radiation? ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/25 "2012-10-27T05:50:49Z")
That’s a tragic waste of atoms. Time will come when all carbon-based organisms across the universe will become extinct because of insufficient atoms. ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/26 "2012-10-27T06:36:56Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > (Regarding the idea of launching trash into the Sun: ) > Okay, here’s a new and bona fide question then: Is this what happens if we were to send various kinds of junk into the Sun? Would it be vaporized and plasmatized and thoroughly assimilated into the sun, or would it affect the composition of the sun in some way as to come back at us as solar radiation? Being beyond infinitesimal compared to the size of the sun, it would become a molten slag as it ionizes and evenntually atomizes while becoming engulfed by the intense sun’s corona (in the range of 1,000,000 K to 2,000,000 K). And this is before it even reaches the relatively cooler surface of the sun (the photosphere, around 5,000 K). From there, each atomic nuclei (according to their atomic number) and their stripped electrons are all pretty much identical, and perfectly sterile. Not sure what the various elements would do at that point, as there’s some crazy levels of magnetism and convection roiling about. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 9:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/27 "2012-10-27T09:59:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Physicist Tony Rothman suggested using garbage dumped into a nearby black hole as a way to generate energy. I don’t recall the details, but it’s in his novel _The World is Round_. > The people doing this were living very close to a black hole, so it wasn’t that long a trip. Don’t try this at home. The one I’ve read about uses a rotating black hole, and you get half the actual mass energy of the trash out of it. I can’t remember the details, but it involved a type of lever with the trash on one side, and the energy being gathered from the lever on the other side. ---
**Author:** ![Yoyodyne\_Propulsion\_Systems](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/82dd89/32.png) [@Yoyodyne\_Propulsion\_Systems](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yoyodyne_Propulsion_Systems)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/28 "2012-10-27T12:25:25Z")
I always default to Professor Farnsworth on these issues! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2012, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/29 "2012-10-27T15:25:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Being beyond infinitesimal compared to the size of the sun, it would become a molten slag as it ionizes and evenntually atomizes while becoming engulfed by the intense sun’s corona (in the range of 1,000,000 K to 2,000,000 K). And this is before it even reaches the relatively cooler surface of the sun (the photosphere, around 5,000 K). The Sun’s corona is very hot, but it doesn’t have very much heat. There’s a lot of energy per particle there (that’s basically what temperature is), but the particles are so sparse that it adds up to a very small amount of energy. You’ll get a lot more heat from radiation from the photosphere than you will from the corona, and a decent-sized chunk of material could well remain intact until it hit the photosphere. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/30 "2012-10-29T12:57:32Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > the nearest known black hole is 1600 light years away. Even if you were in interstellar space having achieved solar system escape velocity, your pod is going to take millions of years to get there. By that time the black hole has moved, and no we can’t know where it’s going to be in millions of years accurately enough because the black hole will almost certainly gravitationally interact with other objects (nearby suns etc) in the millions of years it takes for your trash to get there. Not to mention that, even if we could account for all the gravitational interaction with _everything_,on a trip of 1600 light years, being off course by one millionth of a degree means you would miss your target by about 164 million miles. Yeah, we haven’t got nearly the tech to make that shot. If you really never want to see it again, send it into the sun. That will destroy almost anything the Fires of Mordor won’t. ---
**Author:** ![SpyOne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/82dd89/32.png) [@SpyOne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpyOne)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2012, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/31 "2012-10-29T13:06:16Z")
Quick clarification: By “destroy” above, I meant to include “make REALLY hard to recover for a few billion years”. Anything that goes into the sun and stays there is effectively destroyed as far as we humans are concerned. ---
**Author:** ![Random\_Al\_Yousir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Random\_Al\_Yousir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Al_Yousir)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/32 "2012-11-05T16:11:55Z")
> [@eburacum45](#): > > Making artificial black holes would be really, really difficult. > A billion tonne black hole would be very small, about the size of an atom; it would be tricky to get garbage into it. > A billion tonne black hole would be very, very hot, and emot gamma rays as Hawking radiation. It would be a power generator that produced only highly dangerous radiation. Not to mention that a black hole that small will evaporate FAST, so you’ll have to constantly feed it lest it blows up on you, releasing all the stored energy in a _very_ short time … Shoudn’t be too close to earth, then. Not at all, actually, not even if it is meticulously maintained and runnig smoothly. Of course, all the feed matter needs to be close by. _Lots_ of feed matter, you don’t want to see it run dry for no better reason than supply hiccups. Assuming we’ll ever be able to handle that kind of technology, we _will_ have a very different understanding of “waste” then. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/33 "2012-11-05T16:33:23Z")
Toronto (long known as the centre of the universe) used to do that via the 401 until Michigan’s economy lost so much mass from olfactory radiation that by the end of 2010 it ceased to be a black hole, so [The Great Toronto garbage shoot was shot](http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2010/12/30/toronto-garbage.html). Interesingly, Michigan is soon to vote on whether or not to permit Canada to build another birdge to Michigan at Canada’s expense. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/34 "2012-11-05T16:40:00Z")
It’s not that bad, actually; a black hole massing 4 billion tonnes would only put out 21 megawatts of power, and last 180 trillion years . [http://www.gdnordley.com/\_files/BHP\_Glossary.html](http://www.gdnordley.com/_files/BHP_Glossary.html) Even a 4 million tonne black hole would last 180,000 years. I think that a good compromise would be somewhere between those two figures. Trouble is, to make a million tonne black hole which lasts thousands of years, you probably have to make a much smaller one first, which would evaporate very quickly and violently, destroying the black-hole-making equipment. There’s a reason why it takes the mass of a star much bigger than our Sun to make a black hole; the pressure required is _incroyable_. ---
**Author:** ![Random\_Al\_Yousir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Random\_Al\_Yousir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Al_Yousir)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/35 "2012-11-05T17:12:42Z")
I admit, I didn’t take the time to look up the numbers. :o So, we need to start with a black hole big enough to integrate new matter faster then it radiates it away. The rest should be a matter of supply management. And of course we need a way to turn hawkings radiation into a usable form of energy. ---
**Author:** ![chargerrich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chargerrich/32/5399_2.png) [@chargerrich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chargerrich)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2012, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/36 "2012-11-05T17:36:02Z")
I recall a really a colorful documentary called futurama where a Dr… I think his name was professor Farnsworth spoke of large garbage ball technology that could be tracked with a smellometer, so I think a solution is at hand! ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2012, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/37 "2012-11-06T01:15:50Z")
> [@](#): > > And of course we need a way to turn hawkings radiation into a usable form of energy. That part’s easy: If nothing else, you can use it in a heat engine. You will get some losses from neutrinos (which are just going to escape whatever your apparatus is), but if we’re talking a hole of mere millions of tons, there’s going to be plenty of energy to emit all sorts of particles, so the neutrinos won’t be a major portion of it. ---
**Author:** ![Dana\_Scully](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/5daacb/32.png) [@Dana\_Scully](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dana_Scully)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/38 "2013-07-19T05:41:16Z")
This discussion is why I love this MB 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/39 "2013-07-19T11:44:56Z")
Now, if only we could send _zombies_ into such a black hole! ---
**Author:** ![RememberMe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/5fc32e/32.png) [@RememberMe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RememberMe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2013, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901/40 "2013-07-19T13:05:41Z")
All this assumes we have a trash problem on earth. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-shoot-garbage-into-a-black-hole/638901.md?page=3)