Considering how easily plastic floats, how long it takes to break down, and how durable it can be, why havn’t I seen it considered in the Seasteading Beta Book (or elsewhere) as a serious contender for material? I mean the Great Pacific Gyre, by some estimates, is twice the size of the continental US, stretching from 500 nm off the CA coast almost to Japan, so its not as if plastic would be an expensive building material.
And that seems to be the primary cost, here. I mean, the ocean has a lot of space, but not a lot of land. So you want to maximize the surface area you have for livability, and with something super-cheap like plastic, that seems possible. I mean, most people who read about Seasteading arn’t millionares, they are likely to be average people who want to give it a go. And since you can buy a used barge for about 25-50k, it might be possible with 100-150k to get something set up. But considering how much cheaper even 55 polypropylene drums would be then an equivalent amount of metal…even if they leak, considering the total number of them it wouldn’t be that hard to replace one, and I’ve seen people build really low-brow barges from them on the internet.
Drums as ballasted spars have been discussed here before… I know I’ve personally commented on at least one string, and brought up the idea seperately myself. I really do like the concept to start (my original thoughts included adding mangrove trees as stability – akin to Spiral Island), but in any wave action more than a couple feet, it would be like a rolling earthquake across the entire platform.
I’d like to think,however, that your idea has merit, especially since I’ve already thought of it.
There is no fate but what we make for ourselves. Each to his fate.
I was originally thinking of using plastic to construct a -really large boat-, but….
Spiral Island is pretty neat. Large floating Islands in general would be a neat way to go, especially if there was a way to tether them to a cheap used barge or something and maintain structural stability. The modular nature of such islands would make adding onto them easy. Unfortunately Spiral Island itself isn’t a good idea…since it was destroyed in a hurricane. Ideally, you’d want some sort of …a way to solve the wave action issues.
Considering how easily plastic floats, how long it takes to break down, and how durable it can be, why havn’t I seen it considered in the Seasteading Beta Book (or elsewhere) as a serious contender for material?
as we know it, wont take the big wave action out in the open ocean. But, for the protected areas (bays, for example) will do good.
I like the Magic Float. http://magicfloat.timesfirst.com/products-list/400008.html. An artificial island can be constructed using this cubes, and they are really cheap, about $ 9000 for a container (about 500 per 40′ container). They will take up to 5′-6′ waves since the whole structure is pretty elastic .Check out some vids form a similar product, candock (more expensive than the chinese one,…) http://candock.com/videos.php?tZ=1276426684&. Maybe a structure built out of those and then ferrocemented might take the open ocean….