Materials and resources

[xnsSubscriber]

Corsiar, we have a small 15ft powerboat for moving between the floating farm and the mainland but that’s about it. I might be buying a 60ft trimaran sometime in 2012 but that’s a long ways off.

I feel the need to point out though, that quicklime sounds like a much MUCH cheaper and lower-tech alternative to seacrete. We get about 1 metric ton of barnacles growing on our 1500m² farm every month, it’d be a simple thing to burn it all in dried algae and then use it for construction material.

King Shannon of the Constitutional Monarchy of Logos.

[CrosiarCMSubscriber]

xnsdvd wrote:

I feel the need to point out though, that quicklime sounds like a much MUCH cheaper and lower-tech alternative to seacrete. We get about 1 metric ton of barnacles growing on our 1500m

²

farm every month, it’d be a simple thing to burn it all in dried algae and then use it for construction material.

Yes, but I think you are looking at this wrong. Everyone has been thinking of Seacrete as the main product. If you look at what I am saying closely, you will see that what we are really doing is producing H₂ with a byproduct of Seacrete. Going to a factory production model for this material opens entirely new possibilities. Further, while ferro-cement and quicklime are likely cheaper in the beginning, I’m not so sure now that this would still be true once mass production begins on the high seas. And if the power source is solar, we will need to find a way to level our power needs for nighttime. Hydrogen generation offers this possibility. Hydrogen is also useful for many other chemical processes.

Look, all I’m saying is, let’s explore the idea further and see where it takes us.

– You may get what you want, but will you want what you get?

[J.L.-FrushaSubscriber]

Basically, you’re talking about keeping the CO3 from attatching to the electrode. An old-fashioned, ‘Grandma’ method of keeping scaling out of kettles is to add glass marbles. In kettles, the boiling water moves them, but a rotating drum is adding the necessary motion.

As for concentrating the brine, solar de-salination does the same thing… Use the ‘left-over’ water as your freshwater supply and the brine is your by-product…

In marine aquaculture, bio-fouling is a significant problem and could also be used for quick-lime. The problem with algal growth mixed in with the “quick-lime’ is the ash content and the salt content. Ash and salt are common pottery glaze components… Glass-like substances will reduce the quality of the lime, although it may be removable with filtering a mixture of the burned product and freshwater, then evaporate the water, to get the lime…? Just an educated guess, but maybe that’s a step in the right direction…

Later,

J.L..F.

If you can’t swim with the big fish, stick to the reef

[xnsSubscriber]

Corsair, my apologies for not properly reading your post. Now that you mention it, H₂ does have several very useful applications… I suppose now it’s just a matter of getting the numbers right. How much Hydrogen and Calcium Carbonate do we get per watt/hour. From there you can see if it’s economical as it is or if it needs further refining.

Let me know if you’d like to get involved in some joint- research work. We’ve got some facilities, and other seasteaders are always welcome, as long as they can make it to Singapore.

King Shannon of the Constitutional Monarchy of Logos.

[JackSubscriber]

You would be better buying a Quarry, from a financial stand point, then exporting the rocks, as a non profit foundation to avoid tax (if the nation your in respects foundations TAX status)

wow you guys are smart..(sorry the best i could do was a quarry idea)

[TerraformerSubscriber]

So far, this thread has mainly been a discussion about building materials. That’s great, but they take a secondary significance to other materials. In the list of importance of things we need to produce, I would say it’s like this:

1. Fresh water
2. Food
3. Fuel
4. Toiletries (Soap, Toilet Paper, shampoo etc)
5. Cloth (for clothing, sails, bedding, and other such goods)

I’m thinking that ducks might be a good animal to farm in enclosures, since they produce eggs, meat, and feathers (useful to make pillows).

____________________________________________________________________________

Seasteading is to Boat Living what Traction Cities are to Vandwelling – simply a matter of scale.

[JackSubscriber]

Terraformer wrote:

1. Fresh water
2. Food
3. Fuel
4. Toiletries (Soap, Toilet Paper, shampoo etc)
5. Cloth (for clothing, sails, bedding, and other such goods)

I’m thinking that ducks might be a good animal to farm in enclosures, since they produce eggs, meat, and feathers (useful to make pillows).

I second that!

Small critters way to go. Poillows.. Screw that man YOU have NEVER lived if you aint tried a full duck fileld blacket & mattress, its like sinking into pleasure, & then an air like blanket just rests on top, ooohmg it was the best sleep of my life.

[TerraformerSubscriber]

That’s if we can get enough feathers. If we can, great. It depends on how big the herd? of ducks is, and how often they get killed.

____________________________________________________________________________

Seasteading is to Boat Living what Traction Cities are to Vandwelling – simply a matter of scale.

[Ken4g64Subscriber]

one thing to keep in mind with the seacrete is, although there is significant hydrogen produced, the other electrode produces a combination of chlorine gas(from the salt NaCl) and oxygen

initially this may look like a problem(as we do not want to vent chlorine gas into the atmosphere) Cl is an oxidizer just like oxygen, but when it is reduced in the presence of H we get hydrogen chloride HCl which in the presence of water H2O(or humid air) produces hydrochloric acid H3O+Cl-

while chlorine is going through this crazy process, sodium Na bumps off one of the H atoms and steals the other OH to produce NaOH (sodium hydroxide) which acts like a conductor within the water

these are both industrial chemicals and i believe they can be a source of income for the city or if the city doesn’t want to go through the trouble of the chemicals, they can be combined to NaOH + H3O+Cl- = NaCl + 2H2O

just more food for thought

best regards

ken

[Author]

Posts