Magicians hold details in high regard, so it’s fair to inquire about one of the key details related to stunt artist David Blaine’s feat that begins today at Pier 54 in New York City’s West Village: How will Blaine’s team handle all the excess ozone gas produced with each million-volt discharge from the Tesla coils?

For three days and nights, Blaine plans to stand atop a six-meter-tall pillar while Tesla coils, controlled by spectators, zap him with electricity. Paul Hoffman, chief executive of the Liberty Science Center, where Blaine is magician-in-residence, estimates one million volts will reach Blaine at any time. The Brooklyn-based endurance performer hopes to survive the Tesla coils—worth about $5 million and donated by software giant Intel--with a protective steel chain-mail suit and metal head cage, which will direct the flow of current around, not through him.

But as those electrical discharges zap the air, they will separate oxygen molecules, which can then rejoin as O₃, or ozone, an reactive toxic gas.* Ozone, with its fresh, tingling scent, is a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fume. Up in the stratosphere, it protects Earth's life by shielding harmful ultraviolet rays produced by the sun. On the ground, however, it’s smog that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates. Although an exact mathematical equation to determine the amount of ozone is hard to produce, atmospheric scientists agree that the magic show could potentially raise the ambient levels of ozone around the pier.

The concern of creating excess ozone is “extremely reasonable,” says Renyi Zhang, an atmospheric scientist at Texas A&M University. “ I saw the [promotional] photo and I thought, wow, he will create a lot of ozone.”

A team on the ground will measure ozone levels around Blaine. Those attending the event in New York will be able to stand about 9 meters away from the pillar, Hoffman says. The EPA recommends the public avoid concentrations of ozone up to 75 parts per billion for longer than eight hours, because longer exposure can irritate a person’s airways and cause lung corrosion.* During a test run in a Brooklyn warehouse, Hoffman says that “ozone built up, I could feel it. I have asthma, and my throat got irritated.” The team is counting on the breezy Hudson River setting to keep a healthy mix of fresh air around the event’s venue.

Blaine’s experiment, in addition to sparking public awareness about electrical conductivity, is also a reason to remind the public that ozone on the ground can be harmful, especially indoors. Besides ozone’s direct effects on the lungs, studies have shown it reacts in various ways with our bodies and can become more toxic if it meets other floating particles, such as those created by cleaning liquids. So consumers should be wary of personal ozone generators marketed by manufacturers as ionic air purifiers. “In the U.S., we have a general mindset that says if things are being sold on the market, then we assume it’s safe for us,” says Michael Waring, an environmental engineer at Drexel University.

Last year Waring led a team of researchers to show that an ion generator can produce harmful levels of ozone in a residential room. Yet, despite this and other literature dating from 1913 on the potential harm of ozone, the devices still remain on the market. The EPA devotes a special section on its Web site warning consumers of potential dangers of these devices. Waring says the current indoor air standards set ozone limits to between 50 and 100 parts per billion.* “But that’s a very shaky policy because various things will influence what ozone concentrations will be achieved by these devices,” such as how well a home is insulated, he adds.

17 Comments

1. 1. Lewtheprof 10:53 AM 10/6/12

   What is not mentioned here (I believe erroneously) and seems rarely is mentioned as well, is that electrical discharges through air, especially these sorts of high frequency, high voltage coronal discharges of this very type (and lightning), actually "fix" nitrogen, aka; produce massive amounts of nitrogen oxides (N2O4), that compound being the real, visible and irritating culprit in smog (not the much maligned and invisible ozone). Ozone is [still] sexy these days, I suppose, and easy to say and blame, much easier, it seems, than the not so "sexy" sounding Nitrogen Dioxide (sometimes Di-nitrogen Tetroxide), which actually IS the visible and the most irritating component of smog (not ozone at all), manifesting itself as the brownish red haze often visible above Los Angeles (and above pools of fuming red nitric acid), for example.

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2. 2. ozonelarry 11:42 AM 10/6/12

   BAD article. NOT scientific. Ever hear of Verify,Verify,Verify?
   
   75ppm ??!! instant on the ground with lung damage.
   
   EPA TLV is 0.1ppm, or 100ppb; that's Billion.
   
   DISD graduate.

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3. 3. Gatnos 05:18 PM 10/6/12

   And the EPA has classified carbon dioxide (the stuff we breath out and plants breath in)as a pollutant. So much for their credibility.

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4. 4. James4311 07:25 PM 10/6/12

   Here's the deal... the EPA and other organizations scream about ozone depletion, yet here is a method that could heal the ozone layer, provided it is done in a deserted area, such as in the deserts in Arizona. The government forced the makers of Primatene Mist to shut down production of this economical aid to people suffering of asthma, which was able to be purchased without prescriptions and cheaply available for anyone especially those without health insurance.
   
   The costs for electricity may be semi-expensive in periodically creating electrical discharges that produce ozone, but it would be outweighed by its ability to fix something that not- one scientist claimed this as a way to stop and repair the ozone layer. In fact, it is possible to use solar panels to produce such electrical discharges.
   
   Hmmm... we claim that the ozone is part of what is causing much of the global warming yet, not one government or scientific community has brought fourth or attempted to use this scientific information o repair this problem. It would also eliminate forcing of companies to stop making a product, such as Primatene Mist, that helps people.
   
   Another example of corporate greed, where the wealthy uses their power to control information and peoples lives for their profit.

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5. 5. James4311 in reply to Gatnos 07:40 PM 10/6/12

   It is only considered a pollutant when it exceeds the natural balance. As people continue to expand its population of the earth, and not replenish the amount of forests destroyed era's earlier as well as today, there is far more carbon dioxide entering the atmosphere than there is absorbed, and oxygen produced.
   
   Therefore, it becomes a pollutant. Just as oxygen is necessary for us to survive... if oxygen is over produced or saturating the air it becomes a pollutant and harmful to us. We need nitrogen and other gases to survive by the natural balance that has been necessary in permitting life to establish itself here on earth.
   
   I see no loss in their credibility in what you stated, however; they lose credibility by not forcing the government to implement or giving information on our ability to repair the ozone layer, instead of consistently crying that we will enter a stage of global warming beyond repair by the use of fluorocarbons.
   
   Here we have a way to fix something we screwed up, and nobody is attempting to use the technology available... unless you want to flood the nation with wasteful technologies as texting, tweeting on the internet for brain dead individuals that cannot pick up a phone or need someone to provide ways to occupy their time or find enjoyment.

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6. 6. Lewtheprof in reply to James4311 01:39 AM 10/7/12

   Ozone is an unstable and reactive chemical compound which is also denser than air. Just how is it that you plan for it to make it into the uppermost part of our atmosphere, quickly enough (before it decomposes) for it to be of any value as a shielding from UV radiation, as actually is its value to us here at ground level? It has little (nothing) to do with global warming and is only stable enough, long enough to do its job when it is formed where it only ever does us any good,, that being the upper atmosphere, where it then shields us from harmful amounts of UV radiation. The theory is that some chlorine compounds with carbon (Chloro-fluorocarbons) are eventually transported to the upper atmosphere, break down into free Chlorine in a sufficient amount that ozone formation and stability is negatively impacted (interfered with) and so the ozone levels are lowered, and so the radiation protection is diminished. That's all! As I also said anyway, most of the stable and long lived gasses produced by this kind of electrical discharge device, is nitrogen dioxide and NOT ozone.
   
   Too many erroneous statements by you along with some baseless conjecture, along with conflation of causes and effects in your statement, for it to be very meaningful to this discussion. Sorry...

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7. 7. oldmanfury 10:04 AM 10/7/12

   I'm more interested in how he's going to deal with the ~MeV endpoint Bremsstrahlung radiation dose he's getting? I've always wondered about this with regards to Tesla coils and Faraday cages - why don't you do an estimate of the full-body dose he's likely to receive? It would make for an interesting follow-on article.
   

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8. 8. Lewtheprof in reply to oldmanfury 11:03 AM 10/7/12

   In this case, do free electrons ever have the opportunity or ability to accelerate to the velocities (energies) needed to emit this radiation,, in air? What I mean is, the visible, atmospheric air pressure, Tesla coil electrical discharge (regardless of voltages reached) is [predominantly] conduction rather than a requisite, unimpeded, high energy electron or beam of electrons, which then at some point suddenly decelerate to produce more energetic forms of radiation than simply photons of visible and UV light. So no, theoretically anyway,, no [significant production of] "Bremsstrahlung radiation."

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9. 9. Al Toti in reply to Gatnos 11:41 AM 10/8/12

   Heat is a pollutant as well. In the wrong place in bad amounts anything can be a pollutant or in fact lethal as CO2 can asphyxiate in closed areas. The EPA largely exists to protect corporations from the folly of their actions and not so much to protect anyone in particular.

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10. 10. Al Toti in reply to James4311 11:44 AM 10/8/12

    I think the asthma inhaler was a bad move when you cant take a breath its so bad and they were available Now your option is an emergency room visit.

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11. 11. Lewtheprof in reply to Al Toti 12:10 PM 10/8/12

    That is the problem with a corrupted, left agenda-ized, politicized and "in bed" with certain business interested people (Dupont), agency like the EPA,, in spite of what (or not) their supposed original purpose in life was to be. A cold, heartless, one size fits all policy of action, on causes which in spite of general popularity, may or may not be real or not as big or as real a problem. Okay, so ban CFCs for major uses such as industrial AC units, maybe even home AC units too, but inhalers??? Seriously? Liberal left wing nuttiness to the extreme, again as it truly always seems to be the case, NOT worried about the individual, in spite of the line and load of crap they spew to the contrary. It's just their way, and the EPA is loaded up to the hilt with them!
    
    Funny how just when the patent privileges Dupont had on so many CFC products was about to go away, suddenly and in a remarkable "coincidence," they were all, in their entirety deemed to be so "bad" for us all, don't you think? Dupont and refrigeration products makers, made and/or preserved a fortune for themselves with regard to refrigerant and associated product manufacturing, as a DIRECT result of the banning of CFCs, forcing the development of new and different chemicals and devices,, all of it on the public's dime and winding up in political contributing business coffers. Yes, I really do believe they are actually just that corrupt!

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12. 12. admeralthrawn 01:32 PM 10/8/12

    I'm still amazed at the number of people who think ozone is related to climate change, beyond both being atmospheric science issues which humans are involved with.

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13. 13. jerryd 07:06 PM 10/8/12

    
    I think we should get rid of his Faraday cage suit and electrocute him ;^P
    
    

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14. 14. tempedan 07:07 PM 10/8/12

    Minor discrepancy: Intel is a hardware company. They make silicon. Of course their silicon operates on and runs code. However....

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15. 15. mrburkley 11:11 AM 10/10/12

    James,
    
    Thanks for your post. It's good to see people thinking "out the box) in regard to solutions of problems facing us all.
    
    I would point out that ozone depletion is not as big a concern as it was a number of years ago. Changing refrigerants and propellants to more ozone-friendly versions has really made a difference there.
    
    We could make lots of ozone (but really only a drop in the bucket of what would be needed if we had to "reshield" the earth) using this electrical spark method, but unfortunately, we can only do that on the ground, and ozone on the ground is a pollutant. Ozone is extremely reactive which means it doesn't hang around very long as Ozone. Any that we make here at ground level (or even on the highest mountain) wouldn't make it up to the upper atmosphere where ozone was (or is) depleted before it disappears.
    
    I don't know what you are writing of when you say that the government forced the makers of, "Primatene Mist to shut down production of this economical aid to people suffering of asthma." Are you speaking of an ozone generator?
    
    Finally, I don't think that ozone is implicated overmuch in global warming. It's CO2, methane, and other organics that seem to be blamed for most of that problem.
    
    Thanks again for writing a reasoned letter (even though I disagree with some of what you said it still is a reasoned letter!) that is civil as well. May your tribe increase!
    --Michael

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16. 16. ozonelarry 04:19 PM 10/10/12

    Good on the corrections. But 'unstable' is correct. Its instability is key to its reactivity. Ozone spontaneously decomposes back to O2 and the oft-mentioned 'free radical' O-2. This is the reactive part. It is second in oxidizing potential only to Fl-. Loves to attack almost anything. especially organic molecules. Why it is used so much in water treatment. But its spontaneous decay is why it is better than Chlorine

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17. 17. jgrosay 08:07 PM 10/12/12

    Does the "electrical stunt" you speak about have anything in common to what some called "Selectrocution" a way of arising singles used in disco places in the 80's?

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