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Floating cities to combat rising seas?


Eldorado

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"The United nations is exploring the possibility of building floating cities as the world continues to find a way to curb rising sea levels."

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"UN-Habitat, which works on sustainable urban development, will team up with private firm Oceanix, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Explorers Club, a professional society, to advance the concept."

Full monty at the UK Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-6886741/As-sea-levels-rise-U-N-climbs-aboard-floating-cities-push.html

At Nat Geo: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/04/floating-cities-could-ease-global-housing-crunch-says-un/

Oceanix: http://oceanix.org/

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That story triggered a memory:

https://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/209-dutch-build-floating-homes-in-amsterdam

I guess the plan would just expand on this idea.  It would be a marvel of engineering efficiency if they find a way to make it work while still being able to afford it.

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Nothing to see here. No need to worry, folks.

Everything is fine. 

Lol.

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1 hour ago, GlitterRose said:

Nothing to see here. No need to worry, folks.

Everything is fine. 

Lol.

I doubt that there are many today who doubt that the climate is changing.  Some of us just tend to look askance at people who demand that one nation pay for the remediation AND explain that a trillion dollars later, the impact will be negligible :st

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I am going to be a lone wolf and just use my dinghy.. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Considering that we could just move to higher ground, one wonders if the expense is justified.

Doug

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On 4/7/2019 at 1:12 PM, and then said:

I doubt that there are many today who doubt that the climate is changing.  Some of us just tend to look askance at people who demand that one nation pay for the remediation AND explain that a trillion dollars later, the impact will be negligible :st

Transition to clean energy will SAVE money, not cost money.  Wind is cheaper than any form of energy except gas-fired turbines and solar is rapidly closing the gap with oil.  The US could transition 62% of its more-expensive energy-generation to wind and save tons of money.  We might have to spend the savings on transitioning the rest, but there will be technical advances before we can get that far that will cut costs further.

Geoengineering/terraforming has a long way to go.  It is not now cost-effective.  There are some promising ideas, such as sequestering carbon in basalt formations, or sequestering it in forests.  There are some ideas on making fuels from CO2.  Growing plants and/or algae could be used to produce fuel and/or collect carbon for sequestration.  Paper could be buried in dry landfills.

Except for paper, which we are already doing to an extent, the current costs are quite high.  We will find cheaper ways of doing this before we actually start industrial-scale implementation.  We can do this in a cost-effective way if we do the research first.

Doug

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1 hour ago, Doug1o29 said:

Transition to clean energy will SAVE money, not cost money.  Wind is cheaper than any form of energy except gas-fired turbines and solar is rapidly closing the gap with oil.  The US could transition 62% of its more-expensive energy-generation to wind and save tons of money.  We might have to spend the savings on transitioning the rest, but there will be technical advances before we can get that far that will cut costs further.

Geoengineering/terraforming has a long way to go.  It is not now cost-effective.  There are some promising ideas, such as sequestering carbon in basalt formations, or sequestering it in forests.  There are some ideas on making fuels from CO2.  Growing plants and/or algae could be used to produce fuel and/or collect carbon for sequestration.  Paper could be buried in dry landfills.

Except for paper, which we are already doing to an extent, the current costs are quite high.  We will find cheaper ways of doing this before we actually start industrial-scale implementation.  We can do this in a cost-effective way if we do the research first.

Doug

That's GREAT news!  When India and China get on board and help share the burden of the initial "investment", I'll be happy to support any sane plan that doesn't crush our economy.  This country is $22T in debt already.  

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and then:

That's GREAT news!  When India and China get on board and help share the burden of the initial "investment", I'll be happy to support and sane plan that doesn't crush our economy.  This country is $22T in debt already.

 

India and China are already on board.  For India it's a choice between affordable wind power and sitting in the dark.  They need more electricity and wind is the obvious choice.

China is doing more than we are:  the Three Gorges Dam was built to provide pollution-free power.  China has the world's largest workforce dedicated to the transition to clean energy.  Of course, China let things get pretty bad before they started doing anything.  They're playing catch-up right now, but at the current rate, they will close the gap and reach a clean-energy economy before we do.

If our country wasn't dedicated to the endless war in the Near East, we'd have several trillion dollars less debt.  Hurting yourself just so you can hurt someone else is the very definition of insanity.

But seriously.  The transition to clean energy will be easily affordable.  Eventually our existing coal and oil plants will wear out.  Once it is no longer economical to repair them, we can replace them for cheaper, cleaner ones.  Then just link those new wind farms with a new grid system to carry power from where the wind is to where it isn't.  We already generate 6.4% of our energy from wind.  Why not ten times that much?

As of right now, geoengineering and terraforming are not something we can do on an industrial scale.  We need a lot more research into this.  We have about ten years in which to do that research.

Doug

 

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On 4/8/2019 at 2:56 AM, and then said:

That story triggered a memory:

https://www.dutchamsterdam.nl/209-dutch-build-floating-homes-in-amsterdam

I guess the plan would just expand on this idea.  It would be a marvel of engineering efficiency if they find a way to make it work while still being able to afford it.

Funny thing is one good hurricane and the city would be a train wreck. AU has tried several ocean powered systems costing us billions and without fail they all end up as scrap when a storm hits.

^_^

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16 hours ago, tmcom said:

Funny thing is one good hurricane and the city would be a train wreck. AU has tried several ocean powered systems costing us billions and without fail they all end up as scrap when a storm hits.

^_^

You need either a different system, or different engineers.  Ocean systems may end up being too expensive simply because you can't build one that will survive the storms and still be cost-effective.  In that case, something else, like a combination of wind and solar, maybe with some hydro thrown in when it's available.

Sounds like you started implementing systems before you had a system ready to implement.

One question:  What is your current breakdown for energy generation by source?

Doug

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I believe 1.7% wind/solar and the rest hydro and coal, (mainly coal).

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On 4/19/2019 at 8:44 PM, tmcom said:

I believe 1.7% wind/solar and the rest hydro and coal, (mainly coal).

So you're well behind us, then.  We're at 6.4% as of the end of 2017.

Doug

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