Ice Privateers of the Arctic.
Andre Willers
8 May 2013
Privateers only ! This is high risk .
Synopsis :
Cheap water quickly .
Discussion :
1.Using old jet engines and cheap gas , a disc of pack ice 1 000
m in diameter and 30 m thick (worth about $100 million) can be easily and
quickly transported using hovercraft principles .
2.Park the jet engines(at least five for redundancy) in the
center of the disk . The exhaust points downward . The hot gases blow through
the ice and form the hover layer underneath .
Like all hovercraft , the bigger the better .
3.Fracture the outer rim with small , separated explosive
charges . Then tear along the dotted line .
3.Steering ? What is that ?
Vary pressures .
The whole mass is in a controlled fall . Expect about 40
km/h for mass of 100 million tons .
4.Melting : Surprisingly little . Like fuel use . The ratio
of circumference(where heat and air escapes) to area is 2(pi)r/(pi)r^2 = 2/r .
This 1/500 in metric units here .
At 40 km/h , 1000 km will take 25 hours .
5. I expect something like 1/9 would have melted , leaving
about 90 million tonnes of water worth $90 m .
6.Fuel consumption : only the outer 10 meters of the ice
disk is under continuous accellaration . This gives about the fuel consumption of 1.5
Boeing 747’s .
Cost would be about $1 million .
7.Cost of engines : Surprise ! These can be 3D printed See http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2012/11/additive-manufacturing
.
But a privateer will just buy a lot of them at scrap prices
. They need only last 30 hours . And many ensures redundancy . 5 Engines second
hand engines should cost about $300 000
8. So , for an outlay of about $1,3 m , our privateer will
make at least $90 m .
9.Ports : that will be needed beforehand .
10. Right-of-way : nobody is going to argue with a floating
iceberg . Though notification would be nice .
11. Ice Letters of
Marque
Water starved states will issue Ice Letters of Marque ,
especially since most of the pack ice on the planet is not in national territories
.
“Cruising for prizes with a letter of marque was
considered an honorable calling combining patriotism and profit,”
12.Real pirates will try to hijack these valuable cargoes .
This will then involve outfits like "Blackriver",
"Red River", "Blackthorne", and "Starkwood" in
self-defence .
14. Of course , everything would be much simpler if they
simply desalinated seawater . But would it be cheaper ?
Besides , it would not nearly be as much fun .
“Beware of low-flying icebergs !”
Andre
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
No comments:
Post a Comment