My limited understanding is that ozone depletion is a major factor in global warming. Mother nature already has her own ozone generator (lightning) that replinishes it some. Why can't we help the old girl out?
So why not build a large generator (or generators) to create ozone?
Getting governments and companies to donate or pay for ozone generation should be much easier than convincing them (businesses) to stop depleting the ozone layer with harmful chemicals. And if the net result is the same, then isn't that the important part?
The first time I had this idea it was in a dream. In my dream the ozone generators were actually unmanned balloons that floated around in the upper atmosphere. I'm not sure if that is really necessary. The ozone-depleting chemicals are all created down here and manage to get up there.
I'm not a chemist, so someone will have to help with that part. But I have an air filter at home that creates ozone as a by-product. And I'm sure that it is generally doable. But someone would have to do the math on what it would take to generate a useful amount of ozone.
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Ozone is a highly reactive form of oxygen and is highly corrosive and dangerous to breath in concentrated quantities. It bleaches colors from clothes and destroys chemical bonds whch causes many materials to lose strength. In the upper atmosphere it is protective. Down here it is destructive.
Sand's comment made me think and research a bit. Maybe balloons aren't such a bad idea. This link at the epa website explains the way Ozone pollution gets created. It seems relatively easy to make high-flying balloons that carry the correct volatile organic compounds (and maybe even nitrous oxide compounds).
That's a hellofalotofballoons.
I recently bought on EBAY a USB negative ioniser that can be switched to produce ozone (http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/USB-Powered-Desktop-Ioniser-7-99-inc-p-p_W0QQitemZ9712399663QQcategoryZ16164QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) so ozone creators do exist - but now I'm concerned at the effects of localised ozone !!!
As I understand it, ozone is a natural byproduct of the sun's UV rays striking a 20% oxygen atmosphere. If the sun isn't producing enough ozone to keep up with depletion, I imagine that we can't do any better.
Most of the depletion is near the poles of the earth (especially the south pole). Maybe we could put big mirrors in orbit around the earth and have them direct extra sunlight into the upper atmosphere in the southern hemisphere.
By the way, ozone depletion is not connected to global warming. However, it is connected to increased skin cancer and decreased crop yields due to UV damage.
See http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1475
Seems like there are a lot of high flying commercial jet aircraft that could be spewing ozone while flying using part of the power from the jet engines. Perhaps the government could provide a rebate program to the airlines based upon the amount of O3 generated annually.
But then again, high is relative. Thunderstorms reach 60,000 feet and more, while most transport aircraft fly around 30,000 feet. Perhaps thunderstorms would wash almost all of the O3 down onto the ground and pollute the lakes, streams, farmlands, and corrode everyone's automobiles.
Once the O3 is produced, care should be taken to make sure it only goes where it is needed.
As for directing more sunlight onto the atmosphere above the polar regions, please refer to my submission "Weather Control System".
dumllama pretty much nailed it.
Ozone is an ion. Chemically, it's O3. It's very unstable, and enjoys reacting with anything and everything it can to return to a stable compound.
Ions are short lived; ozone is constantly produced and destroyed. It's not like oxygen, or water, or your car, or anything else you're used to dealing with. It doesn't stay around. It reacts, or decays. And then it's not O3 anymore. So, the sun is constantly pumping UV energy into the atmosphere, and constantly creating ions. When this process is interrupted by adding chemicals that hamper the whole shindig, you get ozone depletion.
So, in very short, ozone doesn't last long enough to be bottled/ballooned/created somewhere and still be effective. You'd need fleets of gigantic, floating nuclear reactors with ion generators to do what you propose.