Cleaning the Oceans of Plastic
I have begun a project intended to clear the oceans of the multiple 'Great Garbage Patches' in the East & West Pacific, North & South Atlantic, etc. I would like to get my fellow Gulcher's opinion on the merit and level of interest such a project might inspire.
The prolem of ocean plastic does seem quite remote to my life. This past weekend I made the mistake of watching a documentary which highlighted the plight of ocean animals unfortunate enough to occupy the stretches of ocean which humans have polluted.
Birds, mammals, fish, and the rest of the sea life are ingesting bits of this garbage, and it is becoming lodged in their guts. The animals are starving to death with their abdomens full of this indigestible material. It was disturbing to see.
More importantly, the plastics tend to leach numerous 'toxic' materials (I'll leave the issue of the actual toxicity out for now) which tend to concentrate in the higher animals as we move up the food chain, this is not new science, but long established fact.
Putting all emotional factors aside, I am interested in the general perception here of a project -- INDEPENDENTLY FUNDED -- (of course) which consists of building a fleet of 300 mechanical whales, whose sole purpose if to swim the oceans, eating the garbage.
Scientific reports and commercial observations put the mass of garbage in one of the Pacific gyres at 750,000 tons, spread out over an area the size of Texas 250,000 square miles.
Each of the 'whales' I propose constructing would cost in the range of $500k with a length of ~35 meters (115 ft). These behemoths would 'swim' slowly, just below the surface, constantly sucking in the top two meters of sea water, much like it's biological counterparts.
Putting the whole effort into perspective: Each mouthful of water would on average contain the food equivalent of 280kCal of 'nutrition' meaning the energy that this 'creature' needs to swim into the next mouthful of garbage.
Borrowing from nature, I have done several energy balance analyses. I concluded that the passive technique of filter feeding is the only possible way to make a self sustaining machine capable of processing even these tiny pockets of contaminated oceans.
And here is where the Objectivist in me needs opinions pro & con. These devices will not collect anything during their 15 year missions. they will swim, and they will eat. None of the plastic will be harvested for resale, reuse, recycling, etc, it will be pyrolyzed, and burned as fuel to power the machine.
So unless the benefits of a cleaner ocean can be monetized, this project lacks one of the key factors of an economically viable enterprise.
Of course there is money to be made by the shipworks that builds the fleet. So it's not a total giveaway.
I eagerly await comments from my fellow Gulchers. Either way. Regardless of the consensus of division reached here I will be starting a crowd-funding campaign to build a prototype in the coming days & weeks.
Thank you all.
The prolem of ocean plastic does seem quite remote to my life. This past weekend I made the mistake of watching a documentary which highlighted the plight of ocean animals unfortunate enough to occupy the stretches of ocean which humans have polluted.
Birds, mammals, fish, and the rest of the sea life are ingesting bits of this garbage, and it is becoming lodged in their guts. The animals are starving to death with their abdomens full of this indigestible material. It was disturbing to see.
More importantly, the plastics tend to leach numerous 'toxic' materials (I'll leave the issue of the actual toxicity out for now) which tend to concentrate in the higher animals as we move up the food chain, this is not new science, but long established fact.
Putting all emotional factors aside, I am interested in the general perception here of a project -- INDEPENDENTLY FUNDED -- (of course) which consists of building a fleet of 300 mechanical whales, whose sole purpose if to swim the oceans, eating the garbage.
Scientific reports and commercial observations put the mass of garbage in one of the Pacific gyres at 750,000 tons, spread out over an area the size of Texas 250,000 square miles.
Each of the 'whales' I propose constructing would cost in the range of $500k with a length of ~35 meters (115 ft). These behemoths would 'swim' slowly, just below the surface, constantly sucking in the top two meters of sea water, much like it's biological counterparts.
Putting the whole effort into perspective: Each mouthful of water would on average contain the food equivalent of 280kCal of 'nutrition' meaning the energy that this 'creature' needs to swim into the next mouthful of garbage.
Borrowing from nature, I have done several energy balance analyses. I concluded that the passive technique of filter feeding is the only possible way to make a self sustaining machine capable of processing even these tiny pockets of contaminated oceans.
And here is where the Objectivist in me needs opinions pro & con. These devices will not collect anything during their 15 year missions. they will swim, and they will eat. None of the plastic will be harvested for resale, reuse, recycling, etc, it will be pyrolyzed, and burned as fuel to power the machine.
So unless the benefits of a cleaner ocean can be monetized, this project lacks one of the key factors of an economically viable enterprise.
Of course there is money to be made by the shipworks that builds the fleet. So it's not a total giveaway.
I eagerly await comments from my fellow Gulchers. Either way. Regardless of the consensus of division reached here I will be starting a crowd-funding campaign to build a prototype in the coming days & weeks.
Thank you all.
