AMAI, a "friend" of this blog asked these questions about the possibility of reclaiming a Seamount. Her scepticism is understandable and I'll do my best to explain.
How much space is needed?
I would ask a question in rebuttal... How many people would come? At the outset I honestly can not see more than a relative handful of true pioneers upping stakes and striking out to set up a colony in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Their requirements for space would be limited but those requirements would grow as the colony became established. From the information Steve found (and relayed in the comments here) a single square kilometer ought to be able to support about 250 people.
Keeping in mind that that is a self-sufficiency number not a construction number. Certainly during construction when all food and supplies are being brought to the site 250 people could live in much less space than 1 square kilometer. Like a single large-ish ship/working platform.
I'd also like to point out that that is using modern traditional farming methods, not something more space efficient like hydroponics.
How many people are needed at start-up?
I would like to say the more the merrier but that is not quite right. The correct answer right now is that I don't know. But if I had to guess I would say that there is probably a number that would give economy of scale between the goods that must be brought in to the site to support the workers and what must be brought in for the construction itself. I would put the number of workers (on site) somewhere between 50 and 100. Supported by half that number off site in more logistical roles, but as I said at this point that is speculation, pure and simple.
How many people are going to be able to join in later?
I have no clue but I am willing to bet that if Rome circa 44 BC had a population of over 1,000,000 then the possible population could be quite high. Of course the other question again, is how many would come?
What kinds & amounts of provisions are needed at start-up?
The basic necessities, food, water and shelter. Enough for the number of people working on the colony.
What is the safest way to obtain interim provisions?
By ship.
What kind of product/good/service can be produced/offered to earn money and to whom shall it be offered?
I honestly consider this to be somewhat of a red herring. What sort of product/good/service could be offered in Hong Kong or the Seychelles? What about the services offered in your local mall?
Off the top of my head I would say anything and everything from Secure Data Storage to Offshore Financial Services, Basalt Mining and processing to Aquaculture and traditional fishing.
All this you understand while construction continues ...
I disagree with this statement. While the initial construction is ongoing the necessities will have to be shipped in from elsewhere. It does not make any sort of sense to be trying to establish an agricultural base while the main focus is on reclaiming land from the ocean. Once a couple polder have been established then we can think about weaning ourselves off of foreign dependences, but until then, we must trade for what we need. No, this is not a cheap option.
The one question that AMAI didn't ask was how much it will cost? I believe that to be the biggest stumbling block. Aside from the fairy tale happenstance of Bill Gates donating a couple of million/billion dollars in seed money to the Colony, sadly, I don't have any possibility of trying this on my own. Although there are some thoughts on funding such a venture that I will explore in another post some time.
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I thank you for your answers, Zip.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I didn't even think about the cost issue because even more difficult is finding people who are seriously interested in having a go at this. Perhaps it is kind of a chicken-egg scenario. However, finding the people who will commit to the concept and getting them to all agree on the form which outside investment will be solicited & integrated is in my view the giant first step that must be successfully navigated.
Money IS out there, looking for a valid and worthy cause to be spent on. We need to come up with a proposal that will convince those with money to spare to underwrite our venture.
I suspect there are a lot of people who would do it if enough other people would do it--and there were deep pockets out there.
ReplyDeleteI think it would also make a difference how the economy is going to be set up. Imagine BasaltCorp decides to do this... and builds a polder. Do they lease parts of it out? Or sell acreage? If they sell.... how do we finance the maintenance that the polder will require? (I.e., paying for the continued pumping of seepage.) Since a sale is a contract, I can imagine a system where the buyer agrees to pay part of the cost, proportional to his acreage. It would look like a property tax, without actually being one. But I know a lot of people won't move if there is anything that even remotely smells like a neighborhood covenant in place. If it's some sort of lease (at which point the landlord pays for the upkeep) I see even fewer people being interested.
I don't see that as being an issue Steve. Basically you are implying that none of the people who would move to the Colony would ever consider buying a condominium because they wouldn't own the building outright. It's not a tax to have a deeded responsibility to ensure your property doesn't swim with the fishes!
ReplyDeleteI agree with that, Zip--but I know far too many people (many of them solid Objectivists) who swear they will never live in a place with a covenant. (It's important to note that they do not advocate banning the practice--they just don't want anything to do with it themselves.)
ReplyDeleteIn any case, it remains the case that whoever ends up building the place will need a business plan that ensures a return on their money--and the sheer expense of doing this implies the price of properties, if land were to be sold, might be simply unaffordable to most, which in turn implies high rises and *lots* of people to make it possible to pay for the land. (The fact that land is only reclaimed from the ocean when space is desperately needed and expensive should say something.)
For example, if it costs 100 million to construct a 1 square km polder, each hectare costs 1 million dollars--that's ~400,000 dollars an acre to United Statesians. And something tells me a polder won't come that cheaply. Multiply by ten for a billion dollar polder and you are looking at Manhattanesque property prices--in a place nobody nobody even lives in (yet), and where there is no economy to justify it. Of course the company that pumps out the polder could simply lease property--but the rents would have to be correspondingly high. I don't think even with high intensity farming or hydroponics it would be profitable to grow food at either price--a farmer has to pay a huge mortgage or be willing to pay lots of money up front for farm land then live on a lesser income from it.
I start to think this may be physically possible but economically infeasible--unless a hundred thousand people want to go there to live in Hong Kong-esque crowding, and we start doing hydroponics in a skyscraper with artificial lighting on each floor (and then we need a lot of electricity, but that's yet another issue).
Which is a damned shame, because it looked like this idea solved a lot of other problems, such as "how to stay out from under from some group of asshats claiming to be a government".
Steve, I understand your points but I was thinking that your vision of the polder was based on the Dutch model. Which is to say, a large earthen dam which is never really intended to be water proof, only water resistant.
ReplyDeleteThe polder I'm imagining is sunk right into the bedrock of the seamount and made water proof. Not earth but cement and Basalt panels or whatever works.
I'm not an engineer but I think it is possible to water proof such a structure. Although it will increase the cost initially, barring some natural calamity (very large earthquake) or manmade disaster (nuclear attack) it should last for a long long time.
Of course there will be maintenance issues and costs but I don't see how that eventuality would be handled any differently than the need to provide fire services or the like. Voluntary contributions to maintenance funds and private companies looking after the work should work.
hi guys,
ReplyDeleteI'm reviewing the blogs I've got on my list and came upon this thread. These days I'm thinking that truly the only way forward is to found a new country. Even though Canada is doing relatively well at the moment, her political leaders are all wedded to the same tried & true b.s. that is sinking other countries. The USA is not only infected with religion, but decades of government-run schools have rendered many in the general population incapable of comprehending rational thought. So - it may be that devising a Seamount kind of project will be a necessity not a luxury.
What do you think?