The Plan to Build an Island Using Only Electricity
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ก.ย. 2024
- We've learned about the Saya de Malha bank a number of times on this channel, but a shocking amount of our information regarding this isolated seabed comes from a single expedition carried out there in 2002. Today I'm diving deeper into the story behind this fateful voyage, and the true motivation behind it all.
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Sources / Further Reading
www.wolfhilbert...
www.wolfhilbert...
www.wolfhilbert...
www.wolfhilbert...
www.wolfhilbert...
lighthouse-fou...
• The Jetlagged - Bioroc...
• Biorock 2010: 6 years ...
• Coral Restoration: Bio...
• Biorock - saving the r...
www.greenpeace...
web.archive.or...
www.lostinausti...
www.rexresearch...
www.wired.co.u...
biorock.net/
royalsocietypu...
pubs.geoscienc...
web.archive.or...
www.unleashmyps...
globalcoral.or...
globalcoral.or...
books.google.c...
patents.google...
www.mare.de/ar...
earthobservato...
www.lostinausti...
onlinelibrary....
www.researchga...
globalcoral.or...
www.intcdc.uni...
issuu.com/rich...
globalcoral.or...
www.calamara.c...
I'm guessing that the accretion stopping after a very thin layer has formed is because the accreted layer insulates the cathode.
Yeah, i was thinking that the whole time, though maybe using a mesh instead of a solid block of metal might yield better results?
@@davidtitanium22 Or better yet, a series of fine meshes.
As someone who did a lot of research in high efficiency ice making system, this is absolutely true. Once a layer of ice is formed over the copper tubes, the process slows down tremendously. Same can be said for electrolysis, a layer of CaCO2 will insulate and prevent further electrolysis or at least slow down. Same happens with rust
But from that point, the living corals take over and do the heavy lifting
It's not hard to imagine some kind of ultra sonic vibration that would clean the accreted layer off, keeping the cathode operating more efficiently. Of course, you lose the accretion, so why would we want to do that? Well, if it fell into deeper water so it wouldn't be pulverized by wave action to nothing, that calcium carbonate would sequester C02. In reality, I think that's not the most practical way to sequester C02. To make a real impact maybe it would take far too many of these floating platforms. Just a thought. It would be kind of neat if all Hilbertz' research was fruitless in terms of his objectives, but bore fruit for another purpose.
I’m so glad you’ve made this video. If it weren’t for you, this guy and his dream may have been forgotten by history.
People who dream big and imagine something new often meet that fate, and imo that’s a damn shame. Whether what he imagined is possible or not, ya gotta admit, it’s pretty cool.
There is something romantic about it, isn't there. Especially with the end credits showing the pictures he took.
RIP Prof. Wolf, he dared to dream.
"If it weren't for you, this guy and his dream may have been forgotten by history". As interesting as this episode is, maybe it would have been better not to bring this story back to life 🤔 I mean - what if it spreads and some corporation eventually do continue prof. Hilberts' work but this time with success. I'm aware usually that kind of projects don't start after watching a YT video, but you never know.. Butterfly effect.. Chaos theory ; )
I even think it has a place in applied tech, these islands could help ease the housing market issues without destroying more ecosystems on land and allowing the reclamation of marshes and what not that we now deal with as well as being a way to help corals and provide better storm protection without using fossil fuels like concrete does
It needs to just have substantial ecological restrictions on locations/activities and they need to be tied to a government and not be autonomous they could even make things like free floating fish farming better
The tech itself is great but the idea he had was... not so great
@@JayPixx
Yes, how awful would it be if while trying to make money, corporations were to stop ocean acidification and remove tons of carbon dioxide from the biosphere.
@@markkelly6259 Exactly, and that's a point I think a lot of people miss nowadays -- if we want to save the planet, we need to give companies a way to profit from it. I mean, there are a lot of companies that make profit on perpetuating human suffering. Let's find ways to make companies profit on lessening it.
Then, of course, there comes the issue of what we do when that lessening has worked and the companies have no more incentive.
The world building inspiration this just gave me, oh my gosh.
Man, just gave me an Idea of Marinepunk 2077
@@reymichaelzornosa7561
Kind of reminds me of the early 90’s sci-fi series SeaQuest.
@@reymichaelzornosa7561solar punk 2077
@@mridlon1634 back when tech was a boring topic and things were intended to work, sci-fi seemed like something actually doable😊
now we have celebrity billionaire tech bros imploding inside a cheaped out sub 😮💨
As a kid we would leave rusty metal rods shaped in the First letter of our names
Forced into gaps in the Sea wall. (Scottish east coast)
Over the summer holidays,
When you came back to it it was twice as thick with white minerals.
That crumbled off like cement on rebar
Without using electricity.???
Great to see they have worked on this
They took the quote "Water and Electricity don't mix" to a whole new level.
😂 nice pulls but the quote is “water and electric don’t mix”.
You dont know about eletric shower kkkkk
@@tacticlolit's electricity
@tacticlol you don't speak English very well do you bud because electric makes no sense while electricity is not only the actual quote. It actually makes grammatical sense
Actually, pure water and "electricity" are fine, as pure water is a VERY good insulator. Seawater is far from that. Seawater is an excellent conductor and the various anodization processes should be explored. As a result of anodization and deposition, hydrogen is produced, which is handy as hell.
I wonder why he never chose to try the “coral ark” experiment in an easily accessible coastal area. Like sure, you won’t convince any governments to let you build a full blown island. But some metal struts and a solar panel for a science project? I don’t think anyone would stop you as long as you found a relatively isolated spot to do it
The beginning of the video discusses how his initial plan was near the coast of Tunisia & Italy. And governments likely wouldn't trust him after he'd already stated his larger ambitions.
@@clownpendotfart see that what I was referencing, like his first attempt was trying to do something crazy just outside of the technical jurisdiction of these countries. He wanted to build an island right from the get go and he wanted to do it in international waters.
I don’t see why he didnt just go to some coastal town in America or Europe and go “hey is it okay if I put a big metal thing a mile or so off one of your beaches? It’s a coral growth experiment” just as a proof of concept that his idea worked so he could start attracting investors like he wanted
After all, that was all his goal really was anyway when he went out into the middle of the ocean. Drop some metal struts and a solar panel and leave.
I think the "electric-aided coral protection" thing is done in multiple places.
@@tommykarrick9130I think he was afraid of not having enought time in his life.
That's because it's delusional bullshit. These projects fail because they are stupid money pits not because "they" won't allow ill-conceived pipe dreams to threat the status quo. We build shit and do business in the ocean plenty, oil platforms are only one example. Most likely he just lacked the competence or patience or funding to go through regulations, if he even tried that. Man doesn't understand EEZs and thinks an island would somehow magically be out of reach of *the Navy* has more then enough red flags to say don't waste your money on him.
Former architect reconverted into computer science and graphics here:
We don't call it "cybertecture" but the concept is used in architecture, and in computer graphics we have developed evolutionary algorithms that produce biological-like structures for many applications (mostly 3D printing with plastic, metal, and concrete)
"we no longer combine biology with technology - instead technology stole another thing from biology and threw actual nature out"
:/
You should have kept watching.
@@KeithZim yeah the first definition he gives is ambiguous, but in the end it's clearer
@@busimagen so what you mean is that beehives are basically our first success at cybertecture, in principle?
I remember seeing a documentary about that a few years ago. The biological-like designs, I mean.
Fun fact! Saya de Malha comes from the portuguese "Saia de Malha" which literally just means mesh skirt, with "malha" being mesh and "saia" being skirt.
I remember reading that article back in the 70's as a kid. I've been fascinated about the idea of creating artificial reefs with the idea of the possibility of creating undersea habitats.
it could probably done.. but not like this. And the reality is it is probably far far cheaper to simply produce concrete forms and dump them in the ocean.
@@charlesreid9337 If I remember right there was a show on Al jazeera called Earthrise that had talked about doing this. Cremet blocks would be put into the ocean in key places to regrow coral and then they would run electricity through some parts to speed up the process like cybertecture.
How would you do it? Why don't you pursue it? What skills and experiences do you have that would be applicable to such an endeavor? How do you feel about non-coral undersea habitats? Is it the coral aspect, or the undersea habitat that interested you?
@dfsfsdfd build a shell and a tethered float. Yake the shell where you want to place it, sink it, attach solar panels and a wind generator to the surface float. And allow it to grow. If I had the funds and the resources, I would try it myself.
@@greylocke100 Hey Mark, it's not the lack of funding or resources, it is the lack of a team. I had the same lone wolf mentality for a while, but now I am part of a group of nobodies pooling our respective skills together to create our work. It started with one old dude who started working on his dream, managed to get some results to put together a presentation for a convention in our sphere (not actually hard to present at conventions, they'll take anyone who has something related at the smaller ones), I saw it on TH-cam and reached out, then another guy from TH-cam comments found our group and joined, and then another member who was a specialist impressed that our group was actually doing something (you'll find many groups just talk big but don't have any meat or taters) and he joined, then another, etc. Now we have a core group of systems specialists, myself included as the AI guy, building the core tech, then people doing the logos and all that public facing garbage, networkers, etc. As a group of nobodies we are going to be presenting our work to several conferences this month, and grant applications are being filed by those in our group who know about that stuff.
You can do it, you just need determination, direction, tangible systems, and a good team. I'm not sure what the KTD project is, I saw you demonstrate some stuff but have no idea what it actually is or is meant to do, but it is apparent you have technical skills so designing and working on a particular subsystem of the project I don't doubt you can do. Our main guy outlined his vision, then set about working on one sub-system of it while presenting the entire vision plus what work he has done. Even if you are capable of doing everything, reality doesn't give enough time, so if you are willing to present your vision (important, like wtf is KTD??? Doing more digging than the average person and I don't know, gotta make the vision crystal clear or people won't care), work at it, show results, and accept others into your project as collaborators to build the other sub-systems needed to make your whole system I fully believe you can do it.
Check out the Seasteading Institute, those are the type of organizations/people you want to reach out too for exposure/funding.
Who knows, maybe someday the Band-Maid will play in one of your underwater structures?
BRB wriiting a SCI-FI novel about how the wold would look in 2037, if the weather had been perfectly cooperative.
All it would've taken was one sunny day to change the world....
I'd love to read a scifi novel out from this concept of ocean cities. Prof. Wolf Hilbertz expedition actually made me think of Captain Nemo from Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the seas. 😃
This might be very viable on rocky exoplanets with lots of shallow oceans and very few islands. Because an abiotic rocky Earth analogue would have lots of banded iron formations, it's downright viable, you could rapidly build up entire continents with relatively small amounts of rebar, as compared to the land area created.
Wolfi may well be lauded as a visionary on some distant exosolar planetary body!
True, but it would have to be fully made of accretion, since there's no telling if corals can grow there
Oooh, this video so fresh its still warm in the middle...
Cybersyn vibes
Like a cookie!
ur mum
@@J3dstar your two dads...
Hope it's not doughy in the middle though ❤
Their biggest mistake was heading out during storm season because that delayed them at the start and then sent them packing early. March in the Southwest Indian Ocean sounds like the equivalent to September for the North Atlantic Hurricane Season.
the biggest mistake was the plan. It has about 50 holes in it and relies on a theoretical bottomless money supply
I was thinking that heading out during a storm and not having to have any actual results was part of the plan.
The thought of being in one of these cities during a storm is so terrifying
Unless the foundational structure fails, at least there's no danger of sinking. How these mineral columns hold up over time would be key. Do they crack and fall apart, or do they become permanent solid rock? But there are low-lying inhabited island all over the world that endure their local storm seasons, so it can't be that difficult a problem. Probably the biggest long term danger is rogue waves and tsunamis.
Heard about MAT years ago regarding coral reef restoration. But never did I imagine the whole story behind it. Wow!
So it's about 5 times now that you talked about this place, that's pretty decent, let's see if we could get to 10. Man, I've never been this early to your video before.
I also talked about it briefly in my last video, as well as in my video on why dodo's went extinct, so I believe this brings us up to 7 times!
@@AtlasPro1 So you're almost there! Just 3 more videos to go. And once this goal is reach, let's play it safe for now and just go for 15. Assuming you haven't run out of stuff to talk about before then.
Atlas pro never disappoints
as an architecture graduate, this would have been a great concept. i especially love that the process of how nature works being applied to how the buildings function, but knowing all the implications it may have it might been the right thing that this didnt continue.
scroll up to my comment. IT relates to an architecture prize to provide homes for the poor and it outlines the problem with this project.
I wonder what happened to the installation afterwards. How long did the solar raft lasted and how much growth did it managed to produce.
Definitely interested whether his research partner will carry on experiments in the future, with the predicted rise in sea levels the idea might be used to potentially keep certain countries like Tuvalu above water, also interesting is whether it could be used as a way to facilitate making a strong base for dykes
Sadly as I understand there's a definite possibility in the near future for the oceans to acidise too much for the structure to hold together properly. It has already been observed in several areas that marine life has had trouble growing their shells
@@houndofculann1793that's the beauty of using electricity, as far as i understand it.
It changes the local chemistry enough to make it much easier for life to mineralize stuff.
As i understand it, this could be the thing that saves some marine life from acidification.
I we added active shade, it might even protect them from overheating water. (keep away some sun, let the heat radiate during the night)
@@nos9784 easier to mineralise perhaps, but what happens when the electricity use stops? I thought the point was to use this to build but there was no mention of maintentance in the video, and if that is ever in tended to not have constant energy usage then acidification is a serious potential problem for that too.
@@houndofculann1793 if the electricity stops, yes, it will be as soluble as any similar material.
The whole thing bets on people doing maintenance. And maybe you are right, this might be less viable in a 420+ ppm co2 world.
I hope that well- established corral at that point would be more resilient anyway,
And that humans who stop maintaining their solar panels don't need their structures any longer.
Concerning maintenance, almost anything needs maintenance- supplying a low current is pretty cheap, compared to other forms of maintenance. Building for eternity and no maintenance has higher upfront cost, and might not be (economically or at all) possible.
@saifors This research needs to continue as I am sure about one thing… The future will definitely have more dykes!
It's interesting to think of what could've happened if this was a real thing, even if it probably wouldn't have ended well.
they tried it in Dubai, which is already a testament to human hubris, lol.... it just sank, and was worthless.
destroying marine habitats for no gain
This isn't the first seasteading grift, and it won't be the last.
The main issue is one of purpose; why the hell would you want to go live on a manmade island in the middle of the ocean with no infrastructure or fresh water? The answer to that question is nearly always something stupid, most often involving a bunch of rich weirdos trying to avoid paying taxes.
@@a.p.2356 Islands already exist, and normal people live on them, heck some of those islands have an active volcano that explodes every year, and people still live on them. It's not infeasible that a large ever growing island, with infrastructure already built into the design of the island to become a living location for decently sized populations of humans.
Red flags go up to me when his barrier that no nations would let him stopped him? Why would he not just get a nation to sponsor his project as a proof of concept and just let it remain in the jurisdiction of a mother country but as a "special economic zone" territory? If the option had legs and seemed realistic then finding a location would not be that hard if he involved investors from said mother country. He was shopping for the right level of not too smart but not too dumb to fall for his investment idea when the money really went God only knows. The offshore oil rights alone would salivate countries to invest in this. (Build island that you claim as your own for a green energy self sustaining city project in the middle of the ocean where large oil reserves happen to be. Then claim 13 miles out from that island and boom free billions of dollars of oil. The project does not even have to be real it just needs to seem real.)
An ambitious man who didn't listen to the No's but kept trying for the sake of humans and nature to live symbiotically. Sad that how us humans always gravitate to tendencies of colonisation and as a result, exploitation and defiling of nature for ill gained profits.
Beautiful video!!! And love the tribute at the end!
We are nature
Sad? Those arethe reasobs we are still alive
@@filip9564 ah yes, the colonised peoples of the world were famously struggling to live when the gracious white man arrived to show them the errors of their ways
@@TAP7aI think he means broadly in the sense of humanity colonizing the entirety of the earth, dipass
This mineral acretion is really cool, I heared in Denmark they throw pipes in the water so corals grow.
Hopefully this brings new ways for us to battle climate change!
I don't think there would be a significant impact on the climate itself, sure It helps the environment but I don't see how it would reduce pollution on the ocean or make the climate more stable
Climate has been changing since the beginning of time. Sahara was a savanna until humans turned it into a desert 5000 years ago lmao
@@chucknorris277And people died on mass everytime that happen.
Let's not be dumb
@@chucknorris277 How did humans change it to desert 5000 years ago?
@@emceeboogieboots1608not that many, but hearding grazing animals killed the grass that helped absorb the rainwater and keep the air tolerably warm.
Well, now that we've dredged up the wild dreams of this man from an obscure report and put it forth the masses, who's gonna be the first billionaire to decide to fund the next expedition to making their own nation in the Indian Ocean?
You know it would be someone who wants to form a cult where they do unspeakable things to women and children. Just sayin
I will.
@@skeetsmcgrew3282Is this a reference to something or?
Its a reference toward Jeff the Epstein
As a mineral processor, I take exception to the premise that mineral extraction cannot be done in a benign way. Much of the abyssal plains are lifeless deserts. Making an extraction technology function safely in a place largely devoid of life is not impossible.
I worry about the large- scale implications.
What happens when we remove minerals from the oceans? How big is the ocean, would we ever realistically do it on a harmful scale?
Does it release co2? (propably not, if it kickstart coral growth and therefore biomass growth)
I hope this gets more research, because i hope it might replace quite a bit of pre-fab concrete, aside from seastading and helping marine ecosystems.
@@nos9784 "Does it release co2?"
I'm no expert, but I think that the formation of calcium carbonate actually absorbs CO2 from the water, so at industrial scale it might help to sequester CO2 and reduce ocean acidification (some research suggests that currently the oceans are buffering CO2 rise in the atmosphere at the cost of increasing acidification of the water). It would take an awful lot of limestone formation (and huge amounts of energy) to have an impact though.
I don't have any references, but the last I'd heard this type of accretion is impractical due to the insulating effect of the built-up layers. I'm also skeptical that the structure would age well due to the embedded metal which may tend to corrode and expand, fracturing the brittle shell. A great deal more research and development would be necessary to turn it into a practical industrial-scale building technique.
I think I read about this in the 90's but then it dropped off my radar and couldn't find it again. Always wondered what happened to it. Nations like Tuvalu could desperately use this technology.
From an environmental perspective I think the crowd that believes in protecting nature by isolating it from humans will end up failing, in part, because they tend to be the part of human demographics that are not having kids. That leaves protecting nature through interaction. Through cultivation and gardening. Done correctly it can actually increase biodiversity and density and provide for the humans involved with the effort.
😂😂 what? 'protecting nature by isolating it from human intervention will fail because the people who believe that tend to not have kids'? that doesn't even make the slightest sense. and ehy then would that leave us with no choice but the other one?
yes protecting through interaction could work. indigenous communities around the world have done that for ages. but therein lies the problem, the typical rural/suburban idea of connecting with nature is not it, and is even worse than just living in a city. unless you can make millions of people entirely change their lifestyle similar to that of indigenous communities, the 'protection by interacting' will only destroy nature even further.
i do agree though that this idea might be very useful for coastal nations, instead of trying to prop it up in the middle of nowhere
having kids is probably the least effective means of passing on ideas to later generations lol
Colonizing the ocean will cause severe damage in the short term, but i think it will benefit sealife in the long term. You yourself have stated that deep oceans are like deserts. If we colonize the ocean in floating cities, I believe it will create a new ecosystem that animals surviving the initial devastation will adapt to and thrive. Whenever we have a gap caused by extinction, new animals tend to adapt and fill that gap eventually. By turning the empty ocean into something livable, it will open them up to not just humans but also animals.
Colonized oceans are inevitable so I don't think people need to sweat the destruction too much. Better think about how to make the structure more eco friendly than to delay them.
This also highlights the difference between the science of what's possible with the real-life engineering challenges of actualizing a useful result. Naive science is a good thing filled with hope and possibilities. Engineering on larger scales requires a different skillet more engineering related. Plus, a lot of money to realize. If a random billionaire wanted to create his/her/its' own island nation, this would be a good place to start. Then of course you have to defend it from nation-states with much more $$$ and war capabilities.
This would be a great video game :)
The Cody’s Lab crossover completely made my day.
I'm not sure how this technique was supposed to create any structures above the water level, but it seems like a good way to kickstart large-scale coral reef construction. Has anybody continued looking into it, or did it die with him?
I suppose they would've drowned the structures underwater and then brought them above.
Electrified reefs are very much a thing that's still being done. Turns out that the coral growing on them is a lot more resistant to bleaching.
Yeah, I don't really see the concept being feasible. Not only is it limited to working underwater, it was only successful in creating the initial layer of substrate. Relying on natural coral to grow would take decades and then there is the question of what happens to the coral once it finally does reach a suitable size.
I saw a video on how researchers were propagating reefs using this technique so that aspect of his work is still going strong. It didn't mention anything about how it originated as an idea for a construction project though, so I found this particularly interesting.
On a somewhat related topic, there is an archeological site called Nan Madol in Micronesia that was built on a coral reef. It's a very unusual megalithic construction, as it's built with columnar basalt - similar to a log cabin, but the logs are made of rock. There are many unanswered questions about how, when and why it was constructed. A fascinating subject in its own right, but definitely supports the idea of coral serving as the base of island formation.
@@Shin_Lona you're definitely the part of the "i want it now" generations. This isnt factory or mass production. And it has been done for multiple purposes. The idea is you place a low cost form underwater and provide it somehow with small amounts of electricity over a very longtime to allow it to grow. Years. Not days or months.
Pumping up water and let in run over the pipes. This shouldn't even aquire electricity if a pipe system with variable diameters is using the waves kinetic energy. Not fast, maybe not efficient, just in pace with everything else in this idea.
*unique, rich biodiversity exists*
Greedy, high-ego humans: I shall build a mining city right there.
Great video by the way, its awesome to have people like you that bring all of these older ideas and experiments to the digital world for us people to interact with... Im not sure what you dedicate your time in but it would be interesting to watch more of your videos regarding other topics.
(how about artificial reefs anchored to the sea floor floating just below ships propellers to fight erosion from rising sealevels on coral islands )
Not sure if I am right to think this way, but assuming growing corals was successful, could the coral potentially outcompete the seagrass and cause an ecologically disaster on the seamount?
Yeah, seems like they should do it in a degraded environment instead.
Wolf Hilbertz what a fantastic guy! It is strange to look at his ideas 40 years later, and see how they were so promising in some aspects but got completely wrong the pragmatic side of the story.
Artificial reefs are nowadays considered a great solution for reducing erosion of coastlines, to protect them from ever-increasing extreme weather.
Artificial islands are all the rage now, and they are being built around the world for tourist / real-state development reasons (see Palm tree islands), for installing infrastructure (see all the "energy islands" being built in the North Sea) and for encroaching on waters that according to international law actually belong to your neighbors (China I am looking at you). These constructions are a marvel of engineering, and a lot of ingenuity has gone into the technology used to build them, but they use the much more boring approach of using sand and concrete.
Another fun fact, we have been building "islands" fixed on the sea bottom by means of steel structures in order to extract mineral resources from under the seabed, for almost a hundred years now. They are called oil rigs, and the process of building them does not look very different from what Professor Hilbertz was trying to erect on Saya de Malha.
Scientifically a triumph of marine discovery.
From an Engineering standpoint, slapdash and crudly improvised.
Personally i dont see any reason why anyone would want to do this but...
If you wanted to grow an artificial reef island like this it would be much easier to construct if you prefabricate a modular frame designed for rapid deployment, ditched the experimental electro-plating and instead sprayed it with a formulated ceramic coating and sequentially deployed and anchored each section on to the mount before seeding it with coral.
Deploying an initial concrete foundation probably wouldnt hurt construction either.
For most projects requiring a semi perminant outpost a see however, it would likely be cheaper, easier, lower risk and more legally viable to just recycle, repurpose and deploy an old oil rig.
Not very romantic, but it will get the job done.
It might even have a less devastating impact on the local ecology to.
0 points for inovative architectural merit though 🤔
He envisioned this project on a very big scale. It wasn't just an artificial reef. He wanted to build entire cities on top of it. Your approach may be faster, but the costs will explode pretty fast as soon as we scale things up. Mass-producing arks, deploying them in shallow water and let them build reefs for 10-20 years seems pretty cheap and predictable. On the other hand, I'm not sure how developed his concepts actually are. I would guess that there are many unknowns that have not been thoroughly thought through.
A probably relevant follow-up is _Thermal, moisture and mechanical properties of Seacrete: A sustainable sea-grown building material_ from the Construction and Building Materials journal. The article came out in January 2021 and deals with the exact same method of construction: "artificial electrolytically precipitated calcium carbonate around a steel-frame cathode in which electrical current flows and that is submerged in seawater" which "[p]revious studies showed [...] is ideal for the restoration of coral reefs and marine ecosystems".
It's a more practical analysis of the material, rates of production, and its structural qualities. A free short version of the article is available online.
Great video! I remember reading about this 20+ years ago and every few years wondering what was up with it, since the guy basically invented a way to permanently sequester CO2 directly from the ocean. I always thought it might be more viable to accrete a single brick or tile, and sell that as a permanently sequestered x# of grams of CO2 per brick/tile. Gives rich westerners bragging rights "I permanently sequestered 100 kgs of CO2 in my 100k kitchen renovation by using seacrete tiles!" If scaled up & efficient, it could become a mainstream building material replacing some percentage of concrete and brick with sequestered CO2.
Eh, the problem would be filming. Once the anodes have a thin coating they become vastly less electroconductive. Scaling only compounds that issue. There's a bunch of repurpose/sequestration carbon capture projects that have bootstrapped over the past few years, but they're being actively starved of attention marketshare & passively starved of support by the enviromentalist movement for political reasons, I presume. They're married to their one reduction solution & grudge match with big oil.
Your channel always has such high quality content! ❤
How do you not have more subscribers?
Yes, also seen by the links/sources he's used (in description)
It’s the backward world we live in 👎🏻. People would rather watch fake pranks etc
Was not expecting a wild Cody's lab shoutout! He's a good guy.
This video reminded me of a book I found and read years ago, called The Millenium Project: Collonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy steps (1992). In the book they proposed doing something like this, using retired Naval vessels which could double as a base of operations and power source to build an OTEC facility which could then be used to power the rest of the process. I always found it a fascinating concept and was surprised no one had tried it, but I hadn't heard of this expidition to do something similair until well this video.
I remember reading that article from 1997 in my senior year of high school. I've thought about that article a few times since, but didn't find much on it. Thanks for the this video so now I know what happened with it.
This was one of your most entertaining videos. I like terraforming or humanity attempting to build where it shouldnt. You should run with that theme. How different terraforming projects would effect the map.
I will watch after work, just had to comment and like this video by one of my absolute favorite channels. Happy Saturday
This was a fascinating story! I'm glad you addressed the fact that it would have caused more damages in the long run because that was my first thought once you explained what exactly he was trying to accomplish. 😂 Using the technology for reef recovery is amazing, though.
You have no idea where this would lead. If you don't try.
I wonder if you wold be willing to invest in a plot to build a hotel in the middle if the ocean?
The mining and stuff was only there to convince investors I'm pretty sure, lots of scientists and researchers do it, they think of something that could be helpful, but they need money to research it so they have to make it appealing to rich people.
This is more of a problem with the way society supports science as a whole tbh.
This is insanely fascinating.
And yes, that seemed like a Bond-villain trying to build his island-layer.
For power starting with a generator on top of a hydrothermal vent, you can get the metal structure from the black smokers.
Might not have those close to this reef though. Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion should work here though just fine. Aquaculture farms carefully deployed off shore and the effluent water disposed of at depth and down current so you don't damage the pristine reef. Care for the environment and there might be room for people. Keep the reef for tourists and common enjoyment and build out to sea.
@@Davineff1 Mineral extraction can also be done by parking a filtration facility next to the deepwater upwell. The dissolved mineral load is extremely high in such flows.
This whole thing has big Bioshock energy
As a civil engineer this kind of stuff is pretty interesting. For the economics the problem of exploitation is explained by the adoption of private property. Read Anatomy of the State (Rothbard), The Law (Bastiat), Defending the Undefendable (Walter Block). Cheers.
I read about this technology in Mother Earth News in the 80's. Apparently someone read an article about how the Nazis had tried to harvest gold from the sea. The problem was the it was too expensive to remove the gold from the accretion. The technology was too be used to produce underwater power generation off the currents. Didn't work out. However, MAT technology has been used to create underwater art installations. His ideas are sound. I have often thought of how this technology could be used to create underwater research stations or hotels that would be connected to the surface through a tower. Imagine staying in a hotel that is inside of a coral reef.
I introduced this technology into my thesis design in my last year of college about ten years ago.
I design a weaving/building/growing method that allows the structure to continue growing while pushing the completed part out of the water on its own, and I design a suitable architectural form accordingly.
However, during small-scale testing, it was discovered that this technology has many problems. For example, too many factors will affect the location, thickness, density and strength of calcium carbonate.
In addition, it will produce hydrochloric acid locally, and seawater will need to supplement calcium ions and carbonate ions from other places.
It may not have much impact on a small scale, but on a large scale, it's uncertain what these changes in seawater composition will cause to be eroded.
In addition, electrolysis of seawater will also generate chlorine gas.
Love your videos sooooo much 💙🇵🇭🌏
Years ago a guy named Marshall Savage wrote a book titled "THE MILLENIUM PROJECT: How to Colonize the Galaxy in Seven Easy Steps" and one of the early steps involved building floating cities in the oceans with OTEC units incorporated into them (i.e. Oceanic Thermal Energy Converters), where various fish could be bred and raised for food, etc. For some reason, this Saya de Malha project reminded me of that book's OTEC floating city phase. Maybe the undersides of floating structures could incorporate this coral-producing system, and by not rooting it to the seabed they could avoid the ecological damage you mention would probably have resulted (despite his intentions) had his project gone forward.
The A.M. club 😎
Super neat to see someone with a huge platform like this stumble across the original research behind biomineralization! A note: the concept is still being used today in the world to help maintain or repair reefs in places like Hawaii and the Secheleyes.
His dream was much, MUCH more expansive than what you presented here though. If you look the novel The Millenium Project, Wolf and Savage outline pretty much everything he aspired towards in detail. Quite a fascinating read, especially when placed in the context of Wolf's real scientific work.
Thanks for showcasing his work on your platform. He was a brilliant scientist and, like so many, has gone unsung by the world until now.
Funny enough here in Denmark we are building an artificiel island, that will serve as an energy hub for all the off-shore windmills that are too far from the shore. 10 GW of electricity.
My mind aligted upon to y'alls doggerland reclamation ambitions. You could use this to form anchorpoints, if not the seawall itself.
I came across this video at random. I found it fascinating for several reasons. I can see this type of architecture and building actually working. I would think that this method could work well with cables pulled tight just below low tide.
It is also fascinating to me because I have spent many years studying underwater hydro turbines to produce electricity. It is much more powerful than solar panels and works 24/7 in ocean currents and flowing bodies of water. This could be an alternative electricity source. A better underwater source.
I spent several years studying where the best ocean currents around South Florida are located. What I discovered was a place hardly ever heard of called Cay Sal Bank. It is an atoll consisting of around 99 islands and islets. It is located in-between Florida, The Bahamas and Cuba. It belongs to The Bahamas but is patrolled by the US Coast Guard. The USCG patrols it because Cubans accidentally land there thinking it's Florida.
Anyway, there are very strong currents that flow on two sides of the bank. I found one survey done years ago that showed the base is igneous rock. So I guess the whole Cay Sal Bank atoll was a giant extinct volcano. There is a very large shark mating area just off the coast of the largest island of Cay Sal. Might be an interesting place to do a video on. I think there is a dive boat that visits there. I just found it fascinating it is so close to Florida and nobody ever heard of it. Also, how it relates to this video.
Great video. Thank you. I hit the subscribe button.
A part of me thinks that if it was used for fisheries instead of mining and all of it was heavily regulated, it would be fine. The other part says humans would mess it up all the same.
There is a section on creating and using this material at smaller scales in Johan van Lengen's book "The Barefoot Architect" using salvaged and repurposed materials, in that case a windmill powering a reclaimed car alternator.
I don't live close enough to a coast with free access, but I always wondered if it was feasible, even just for small home-sized pieces.
Couldn’t this technology be used to save islands from sinking into the ocean? Somewhere like Tuvalu could have coral barriers built up. Everything would be easier because you’re working from land. There would be electricity, no solar panels needed. You could still use them. Welding on land is easier. I just think he misapplied the idea because of greed.
I’m gonna be honest I’ve seen many of ur vids but nothing about this place , blame the algorithm for not suggesting those ones
I kept thinking when seeing the 'tower' design is that it would have been a better goal to grow pylons in semi-shallow sea water for road construction or piers. It would have been modest enough to accomplish in a shorter time frame plus may have generated enough interest for use in area where concrete construction (or maintenance ) was impractical. Small steps to attract industry and investment would be the stepping stones to something greater. (We didn't start out with concrete immediately building skyscrapers)
the material is weak. The description that stuck gave me the idea it's strength was something like rotted standstone. It isnt strong enough for any sort of construction
once you notice how this guy ends every sentence with the same inflection, you can never unhear it.
This whole experiment is fascinating, beginning to end. I would have loved for it to have succeeded. And it makes me wonder how the Chinese atolls were constructed with all of their artificial islands. Hopefully, his story is only the beginning.
The chinese atolls were build with stolen dredged sand, afaik.
+ propably lots of steel and concrete.
China operates the largest fleet of dredging ships.
They're scraped up from the seabed. It's very destructive. Use explosives to break up proximate rock & reef material, then use dredges to scrape the material together forming a mound that crests above the waterline. Ship in heavy equipment to compact & grade. They're also degrading a much greater rate than anyone anticipated. Looks like they can only expect to get around a dozen year life expectancy. Give or take.
That little photo epilogue really elevated the story telling. Excellent work!
As soon as i clicked on this video i was thinking about how hydrogen generations cause mineral build up on a cathode. The concept is interesting and plausible!
The Earth is too small and we've already destroyed too much. Anything we've still yet to touch should stay that way, pure and uncorrupted.
Besides, its only a matter of time until the oceanic ecosystem collapses, and when it does, we'll need as many places like Saya de Malha as we can get, because they'd probably be some of the only places where ecosystems are able to survive.
Fun fact: If we designated just 10% of our oceans as protected breeding areas for fish, fishing productivity would not only go up in the area around the protected zone, but globally.
So yeh. I think we should leave this place alone. We need more fish, not more islands.
If electrolysis could safely gather building materials in bulk, this would be a great way for cities with expensive or stagnant real estate to expand into the oceans. Live corals and their attendant ecosystems would be more of a justification than a goal.
problem is the timescales involved & the brittle uneveness of it's final result.
I read about this technology many years ago and immediately saw the potential for it to build artificial islands with it. I read somewhere that the accretion layer grows 5 centimeters a year.
I see concerns about the accretion insulating the iron structures and stopping, but look at those pictures of cross sections of metal rebar with mineral accretion layers built up around them: Those are some very thick layers, 15 to even 30 centimeters thick. It doesn't look like the minerals stop accreting on the metal once a thin layer is accreted on it. There is lots of iron in sea water, so I guess many tiny iron particals become embedded in the mineral accretion layer, ensuring that it continues to be conductive and attrack more minerals from the sea water.
Another way to ensure continuous accretion and growth of mineral layers would be to not merely use skeletal structures made of iron rebar, but to fill in the empty spaces within those iron structures with layers of iron chickenwire.
The best way to go about this would be to build a skeletal iron structure of walls following a hexagonal, honeycomb grid pattern, tall enough so that the top reaches right up to the surface of the water. The structure should have a floor too. Once it has grown into a mineral structure, you have your foundation. Then you would have to build a wall around the outer perimeter of the foundation that extends about a meter or 2 above the waterline:
You could do this with a series of loose wall-sections grown underwater from minerals ine xactly the same way as the foudnational structure was built. Now you have what is essentially a large crate/box/container/pot on the seafloor, it's walls sticking out above the waterline:
Water can be pumped out of the hexagonal spaces in that structure and sand, grit and rocks can be pumped and loaded into them. On top of that you dump a layer of fertile soil until the whole "box" is filled to the brim. Perhaps you should also grow some mineral pillars and erect them vertically in the foundation here and there, extending up into the soil layer to stabilize it, to keep the soil together and prevent landslides. You plant vegetation, vegetation dies and becomes more soil. Roots of trees and bushes will further help keep the soil together and prevent landslides.
Some areas of the foundation of hexagonal, sand/grit/rock-filled "boxes" could extend beyond the hightened outer wall that serves as dunes to keep the sea water in the sea and the soil on the island and covered in a layer of rocks and sand to create beaches. Presto: Artificially made island.
It would still be a massive undertaking, but that would probably be the best, most efficient way of doing it.
Don't let Elon Musk see this video. We don't want him to actually building his own island and conducting all kinds of shananigans.
Yes we do.
If the technology could be used to help the Maldives, for instance, islands being slowly covered by water through no fault of their own, and done without environmental or economic harm, I'd be very happy. Wonderful video, thank you. Very deeply researched, thought out, and wonderfully presented, obviously.
Hate to admit it but I would consider W. Hilbertz's life research a massive success for future generations. Many contemporary architects who need to find sustainable solutions for changing climates, such as myself, have relied on this process to design near-coast infrastructure for mariculture and housing. (Not fully self-sufficient/fully electric, but that's probably for the best.) In fact, a company is even working with the South Korean Government to build the first housing project utilizing this technology somewhere off the coast of southeast SK.
However, had it been a success for Hilbertz, then he would have built an Atlantis so he could colonize the ocean with impunity. So, it's a tough balance for us 21st-century architects😅
My understanding is that these days, new land always belongs to the closest existing country. Which leads to the question why China is the only country exploiting this rule.
Land belongs to whatever country has the military power to seize and hold it. That's why Britain still has the Falklands, and why China has de facto military control of the South China Sea even if it isn't recognised internationally, and routinely takes action to forcefully expel fishing vessels introducing in 'their' water. All the diplomatic niceties are just a formal recognition of the real rule: Might makes Right.
@@vylbird8014first you need to explain why Argentina should own a piece of land situated a few hundred km from their borders, that is a land they never owned, and is populated by English speaking people! let me guess, because military junta that rule Argentina in the past believe that was easy, and they cannot lose? They were wrong, and so are you!
@@theOrionsarms I never said I supported it. I gave the reason.
The UK has reasons to claim the islands.
Argentina has reasons to claim the islands.
Why are the islands owned by the UK? Because the UK defeated Argentina in a military conflict over them, and has the military superiority to ensure Argentina doesn't try again. That's all that matters. All else is worthless, because your moral indignation doesn't make a speck of difference when the other side is arguing with bullets.
@@vylbird8014 the moral reasoning that makes UK to hold that land was that ,they putted colonists on those islands when where was nobody there, and the descendants of those people that where English cytzens supposed to become the second class cytzens in Argentina, only because those islands were more closer from Argentina than England is(did it matter if is 500 miles or 5000?),why this is matter? Falkland was never part of Argentina,or populated by Spanish speaking people!As you said either is the power of who can't, that would be English,or if it' is a claim of a higher moral ground, should be the most justified ones, also the British like I said , so make your mind, either is the right of the powerful, and British win or of the ones that holds that land for the beginning, also the British, so Argentina have no excuse to invade that place in the first time.
@@theOrionsarms I don't think you get the point I'm making. You replied with a lot of good justifications for Britain to retain control of the islands. They are good justifications. But they are not the reason Britain controls the islands today. The real world is not an ideal world, where reason will win the day. It's a world where the only counterargument to violence is more violence.
Argentina tried to take the islands by force. Britain defended them with more force. Britain won the war, so it has the islands. That's all there is to it. You can't present logical, rational debate in the face of international territorial disputes because you can't argue with a warship carrying a fuckton of missiles.
Awesome. So interesting. Thanks for sharing this!
6:50 Perfect portrait of the founder of Jurassic Park too! I’m amazed with the creativity of humans to play with ecosystems.
Love the video! Love the channel so many good ones to watch! Very interesting thank you! Hope you have a great day!!!
We need more people like Professor Hilbertz.
I love that the universe worked everything out in the end; his dreams were self-limiting, and we still got invaluable data out of the whole expedition.
I don't think sea-floor mining is a viable sustainable economic model, but you know what an aquatic colony like this would be ideal for? Electricity generation. You've got plenty of empty space to soak up solar power, the constant movement of the ocean to power hydrodynamic generators, and vast swathes of open sky to harvest wind power. Couple that with artificial reefs and sustainable farming practices to maximize fish farming and you've got an artificial island that can sell seafood and power to the mainland pretty much indefinitely.
I first became aware of this area from a blog post identifying the shallow areas outside of territorial waters best capable of building artificial islands, so I found it interesting that someone had actually pursued such a vision in this very spot and unwittingly illustrated the challenges of developing an independent sovereignty while giving you a platform to challenge the concept/idea for it's inherent destruction of sensitive ecologies. Glad I found the video.
I was immediately reminded of The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps by Marshall T. Savage. I read the book while on my first deployment, and the first step detailed how to grow cities upon the ocean using a thermal generator (pulling cold, deeper ocean water up to the warmer surface water) to utilize the current to accrete the structure.
The Millenial Project turned into the LUF (Living Universe Foundation), but AFAIK never really gained the financial backing to take off.
Ran into this concept back in the 80's via First Millennial Foundation (now: Living Universe Foundation) who promoted it heavily... Many attempts were made to make it work, but it turns out the neither the timescales nor available resources (including the required concentrations of minerals dissolved in sea water) were feasible for at scale production. Small artificial reefs over multiple decades is about all it can manage.
Ages ago I read a book that used this exact plan to build what they were calling seasteads as the first step toward space colonies -- a way to like figure out self contained living and recycling and power generation and food production and such, without also having to deal with vacuum and zero g and launching into space. Their economic plan was to have kelp farms and fisheries rather than mines tho...
Likely "The Millennial Project: Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage, 1992, 1994.
@@dave7038 YES that's the one!
Perhaps the reason it is difficult to proceed is the factors humans need to live in it (drinking water, food supply, polluted water treatment method) rather than the way it is built.
By the way, It will give me good inspiration. Thanks for letting us know. I wanted to see a design that lives assimilated with nature because I see so many dystopian concept designs with cold designs these days.
It may not work out in the middle of nowhere, but I could see using this as a way to build sea walls, harbors or even adding small inhabitable peninsulas to coastlines.
Coolness factor alone makes it worth it to build them.
This is fascinating. I wonder if his experiment is still out there?
While his original concept was pretty exploitative... there ARE a lot of island nations under existential threat right now due to climate change. If his cybertecture/biorock could be used to help recover/protect those EXISTING lands from the ocean, that would be a very positive outcome indeed.
There are multiple papers out there now about 3D printing with calcium carbonate powders... it would be amazing if there were a way to combine these two ideas.
I love the way you present information. I was a geography major and graduate TA, but I focused on human geography.
So great. Another awesome video dude
That was amazing, thank you
Very good documentary
Well done. That was a very interesting half hour.
So, AtlasPro now should carry this torch and restart project!
Also, I see very good product of this project. Hydrogen.
You could do the production of hydrogen bit with water and solar cells anywhere - for instance on land.
@@latheofheaven1017 yeah, but here you dont need to transport water. And you produces hydrogen anyway, so why not use this?
Incredible 😮 ...I want to build an island now 😁
Biomimicry is an excellent guide. Very good point on how the entire ecosystem must be considered and balanced since EVERYTHING affects everything else. On the practical side, I'm a bit surprised they didn't simply construct steel platforms on land and float them into place to be quickly sunk. Thanks for the presentation!
What an interesting story. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. (Randomly browsing into this channel.)
If you read The Millennial Project by Marshall T. Savage, it is a great read that dives into the complexities of building a structure like this, also the political and economic problems as well.
Cybertecture sounds great. Someone should carry on the work to settle the seas and get rich in the process.
32:58 This is what happened in the 90’s sci-fi TV series seaQuest DSV. The scary thing is I could see China & even Russia trying something like this.
Russia's out of the game when it comes to sea warmwater dominance. They're entirely focused on domination of the opening arctic sealanes in any case, where due to the climate and lack of shallowater geography this wouldn't be viable.China's timeline wouldn't allow for the long timescale investment required. They have to have what they need laid by the end of the decade for reasons too numerous to detail here to be useful to them. What's funny is the escarpment islands Beijing laid those escarpments to the tune of tens of billions of dollars are already eroding away at a pace NOBODY anticipated. Looks like at best they'll get about 12-14 years of use out of each.
First time here. Gotta say 10/10 for including sources in the description!
I think we can’t be quick to judge resource extraction while all of us are currently taking advantage of resource extraction in one form or another. Progress like this may lead to more breakthroughs and solve other problems we haven’t perceived.