Ocean colonization

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ocean colonization is the theoretical practice of building structures to allow humans to live permanently in areas of Earth covered in water; whether floating on the surface of the ocean, secured to the ocean floor, or somewhere in between.

1 Purposes
2 Economy
3 Food
4 Power
5 Existing communities
6 Millennial project
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Purposes

The immediate practical advantage of this idea is you can have ocean front space with lots of fresh air and sunshine without having to buy land or pay taxes. Longer term it might lessen the effects of overpopulation by expanding the sustainable living space many times over, and the possibility of forming micronations.

Many lessons learned from ocean colonization will likely prove applicable to space colonization. Colonies on the ocean will be easier than colonies in space, so probably come first. In particular the issue of Sovereignty will be very similar for ocean and space colonies.

[edit] Economy

The main obstacle to such a plan is the economics. To be more than a novel experiment the colony must be able to support itself financially. While it can save the cost of land, building a floating structure that survives in the open ocean is very expensive. So how can it make enough money to justify the expense? Ocean front land can be very valuable, especially in countries with no income taxes, so it is possible that building space and selling it to rich people could be done at a profit. Tourists like to go to warm places during the winter. Tourism drives the economies of many small islands. Depending on what all was done, ecotourism might be a possibility. An ocean colony in the right location could also have an economy based on tourism. The colony might also be competitive as an Offshore Financial Centre.

[edit] Food

While importing food and fishing are most probable, other interesting possibilities include hydroponics and open-ocean aquaculture.

[edit] Power

Such settlements or cities would probably import diesel and run conventional power plants as small islands everywhere do. However, other interesting possibilities include solar power, geothermal vents, or tidal energy, nuclear plants, deep-sea oil deposits, and developing/farming a species of seaweed or algae for vegetable oil.

[edit] Existing communities

Similar communities already exist in the form of hotels, research stations, houseboats, houses on stilts, land below sea level behind dikes, vacation cruise ships, ocean oil rigs, etc.

Further, humans spreading to small islands throughout the world has already occurred and is continuing to occur. Using current technology to create artificial islands is just an incremental step in continuing the spread of humanity.

[edit] Millennial project

In his book, "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps", Marshall Savage puts forth one of the most comprehensive plans for ocean colonization (as one of eight steps toward colonizing the entire galaxy.) The proposal described plans for obtaining colony materials, food, shelter, water and power from the ocean. In brief:

Power is fundamental, and would be provided by ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC). Power storage would be as hydrogen.
Colony structures would be hexagonal lilypads anchored within one degree of the equator, a region without violent storms. The lilypads would start as magnesium mesh, a metal obtainable from seawater extraction. Thick salt crusts would be grown and maintained on the mesh with electrical salt deposition. The result is a material somewhat resembling a shell of reinforced concrete and is called seacrete. Unfortunately, the information in the book about how much energy it takes to make seacrete is low by a factor of 42 ^[1]. So essentially all the cost/time estimates are low by a factor of 42.
Water would be produced abundantly as a side-effect of the open-cycle ocean thermal energy conversion.
Food would be obtained by aquaculture, and intensive hydroponics, including fresh-water aquaculture performed in plastic pools. The needed water would be from the open-cycle OTEC plants.
Exports would be fresh food, light manufactured goods, power in the form of hydrogen and intellectual property.

An internet mailing list formed to attempt to organize it. The group incorporated as the "Living Universe Foundation." The list was still in existence as of 2006.^[2]