Has Anyone Thought of Creating a Protected Marina in the Ocean?

[markpierce]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Like I suggested earlier, cruise ships inhabited by 5000 people already exist, and they're much more luxurious, all inclusive and a far better idea than your waterworld surrounded by a bunch of floating crap out in the middle of nowhere. Good luck selling your idea.

[first wind]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

To the over obsessed over population crowd:

If you built a modern type city four stories high, the entire population of the earth would only encompass an area the size of Texas. We are hardly anywhere near some sort of terminal population number.

If you're truly worried about over population, and want to do something.... by all means, be the first to step forward and depopulate.

i suppose you must be right. silly scientific community. worrying about the population explosion humans have experienced since the industrial revolution.

[Jdege]

Originally Posted by first wind

it's predicted, at the present rate of growth, we will reach the point where the earth will no longer be able to support us in the next 30 years

Predicted by the same people who predicted that the earth would no longer be able to support us in twenty years - almost fifty years ago.

The Simon-Ehrlich wager 25 years on | Environment | spiked

[Island Time O25]

It's not the number of people but what are they all doing. With "only" 5-10% of the world population the developed nations have managed to pollute as much as we can see and with China, India, Indonesia, most of other Asian nations not to mention Africa and So. America trying to catch up and industrializing as fast as they can, the pollution will reach truly unbelievable levels, even WITHOUT the additional population growth. Even if we freeze the current world population at the present levels (as unrealistic as this sounds) but allow the 3rd World to industrialize on the Western model (the only model of development they have been able to replicate so far) we will choke on all that pollution regardless of how well we manage to stem the population growth.

Another great obstacle to any population control outside the developed world is the fact that for most of the rest of the world having children and grandchildren in abundance is their people's only hedge against starvation and homelessness in their non-productive old age. Even China's one child policy is only partially successful as the estimate of "hidden" and unregistered females there is around 100-150 mil if not more. And without that policy it's population would easily be another 1bil people or more.

[Island Time O25]

Originally Posted by first wind

i suppose you must be right. silly scientific community. worrying about the population explosion humans have experienced since the industrial revolution.

Hopefully there will be a technological breakthrough of the kind we experienced at the turn of 19th and 20th cc.

I recall an interesting "prediction" flashback which was done in the 70s by then advanced state computer modelling. We covered it in the early 80s in one of my econ classes in college. Basically, some econ modelling team input into a computer the living situation in NYC at the turn of the century, 1900, i.e. number of people, horses, stores, buildings, density, and the city's relative growth up to that point, and asked the computer to predict the state of the city in 1975 (I think that was the year of that experiment). The computer came out with the prediction that at the unabated rate of then growth the city will be covered in 8ft of manure. Which accidentally may not have been far from the truth in 1975.

Of course that model did not account for the horses and carriages being replaced by the automobiles or the subway, etc. So similarly all our current predictions are just as unreliable as that one.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

To the over obsessed over population crowd:

If you built a modern type city four stories high, the entire population of the earth would only encompass an area the size of Texas. We are hardly anywhere near some sort of terminal population number.

If you're truly worried about over population, and want to do something.... by all means, be the first to step forward and depopulate.

Considering the tendency for feces to run downhill, I'd hate to be living on the first floor...

And the Texans would likely want to outsource it to Oklahoma. Oklahoma at that point would be empty (being part of the world population now living in Texas) so it might work. What an idea, Ken... I don't see any problems at all!

Jim

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

If you're truly worried about over population, and want to do something.... by all means, be the first to step forward and depopulate.

Most western countries have already done what is required to "depopulate" and it was as easy as giving women control over their reproductive biology with "the pill". The worry they are now obsessing over is the consequences of an aging population because women are having too few children.

There were small societies of people who existed their entire lives afloat on the sea in the southern Philippines/northern Borneo area. They were called the sea dayaks. The governments in the area have been resettling them ashore for some time now.

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

To the over obsessed over population crowd:

If you built a modern type city four stories high, the entire population of the earth would only encompass an area the size of Texas. We are hardly anywhere near some sort of terminal population number.

If you're truly worried about over population, and want to do something.... by all means, be the first to step forward and depopulate.

I love realistic thinkers. That being said, I don't think we are over-populated but rather over-polluted. Bucky Fuller said there should be no such thing as trash, everything can be recycled. Humans by nature are lazy and careless. It has been said that if you could build a one mile square box, all of the people in the world could fit into it. And if you had a dozer large enough, you could push that box into the Grand Canyon and hardly see it. Some crazy food for thought.

[Zephyrcat229]

Honestly I've thought about this kind of stuff over the years and I think it's actually a pretty good idea if you can provide the right mix of investors and envision a diverse enough use base.

For starters, no ones mentioned the tech billionaires? some of them are pretty open minded and willing to dream. I've often thought such offshore platforms would be a perfect place to put large scale server farms beyond the reach of increasingly police statey governments around the world. it's really not hard to imagine enough clientele to help fund such a beast, and that's where you could use all the power from the thermal-differential power plant referenced above. also, provided that some were placed on or very near the equator they are potentially a great place from which to offer launch services for private space companies.
Also I've thought for years that it's really just a matter of time before people start to realize what those garbage gyres are, The worlds largest potential recycled plastics mines.

just sayin, the OP's right y'all need to try and approach this with an open mind

[LakeSuperior]

Originally Posted by Zephyrcat229

I've often thought such offshore platforms would be a perfect place to put large scale server farms beyond the reach of increasingly police statey governments around the world.

And how would you get the heads up that a freighter packed with explosives is headed to your world server farm and your very own fiefdom? Would you ask a police statey government to help out in such a time?

[Zephyrcat229]

Originally Posted by LakeSuperior

And how would you get the heads up that a freighter packed with explosives is headed to your world server farm and your very own fiefdom? Would you ask a police statey government to help out in such a time?

Easy peasy bud it's called radar and railguns, multi-kilowatt lasers on teathered balloons work pretty well too. Off the shelf tech, and there's plenty more where that came from...
all that power's pretty useful ��

[Stumble]

Originally Posted by Zephyrcat229

Honestly I've thought about this kind of stuff over the years and I think it's actually a pretty good idea if you can provide the right mix of investors and envision a diverse enough use base.

For starters, no ones mentioned the tech billionaires? some of them are pretty open minded and willing to dream. I've often thought such offshore platforms would be a perfect place to put large scale server farms beyond the reach of increasingly police statey governments around the world. it's really not hard to imagine enough clientele to help fund such a beast, and that's where you could use all the power from the thermal-differential power plant referenced above. also, provided that some were placed on or very near the equator they are potentially a great place from which to offer launch services for private space companies.
Also I've thought for years that it's really just a matter of time before people start to realize what those garbage gyres are, The worlds largest potential recycled plastics mines.

just sayin, the OP's right y'all need to try and approach this with an open mind

You are absolutely rediculious. To even get off the ground this thing need to have an airport capable of landing commercial aircraft. So figure a runway at least 12,000' long and 300' wide. And let's assume this is the maximum dimension of this monstrosity. At this size the thing is roughly 24 times larger than a Nimitz class air craft carrier. Just to keep the math easy let's then assume it will cost 24 times the price of a Nimitz to build... So our floating island will run roughly $100 billion.

But that's not all, to keep this thing stationary is going to require massive thrusters and a lot of power and manpower. Now a semi-submersible oil rig has a day rate of about $200,000, but those will be a fraction the size... A realistic day rate for this thing is going to be more like $5 million. Or roughly 1.8 billion a year just to keep in working.

This is litterly the GDP of Greenland, without th upfront cost to build the largest floating object by orders of magnitude.

And the pay back plan is what again? You want to sell hydrogen gass, act as a switching station for Internet, and what else?

You might as well go ahead and get approval for a nuclear reactor because nothing else will have the energy density to work for long. Or your day rate just shot thru the room paying to operate the thrusters.


There seriously isn't a single good idea out of this, other than if given enough weed someone will always come up with something even more outlandish than fiction. And on the internet convince someone else it's a good idea. If only they had the GDP of Equador to invest.

It would be cheaper to buy the entire country of the Turks and Caicos, and turn it into your own price country than build this thing.

[Juho]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

THERE ARE FEW PLACES TO LIVE ABOARD...BUT HAS ANYONE EVER THOUGHT OF CREATING A FLOATING MARINA WITH A SURGE FENCE TO CALM THE WAVE ACTION 3 MILES OFF SHORE?

The most straight forward way of building an offshore marina may well be to buy an old oil tanker, anchor it offshore, at some not too deep spot, and build the marina piers at the aft of the tanker. There will be lots of room for all the facilities you can hope for inside the tanker. The bigger the tanker, the better protection from the swell, wind and waves.

[Zephyrcat229]

Actually I don't think 12000 ft runways, or any runways are any kind of prerequisite, can you jusify that, other than to make the idea look ridiculous? As far as thrusters are concerned, I don't see why they'd be needed, under almost any circumstances. Look into deep sea oil rigs. They use a seafloor anchoring systems that are incredibly reliable.

If the costs of sinking Wells in deep water are economical it seems likely that other viable use cases can be made. The GDP of virtually unpopulated, or Tiny countries aside, they've already put quite a few of the things out there.

Why the knee-jerk negativities???

[Lizzy Belle]

Originally Posted by sailingfarmer

it could work financially...especially with fast ferry service...

It could work financially if you manage to get people like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg involved. Not a bunch of cruisers.

There's also the technical / engineering side of things, and a legal side, but if you continue to ignore those minor oversights you could be well on your way with investors like the above.

You should have waited posting this topic until Friday