"The use of electrodeposited calcareous deposits (solidified calcium carbonate and magnesium hydroxide) for the corrosion protection of metals immersed in sea water has been researched for over a half century. In 1974 Wolf H. Hilbertz professor of architecture first researched using thick electrodeposited calcareous deposits as a marine construction material. This sea water derived electroaccreted construction material is commonly referred to as 'seament' or seacrete.'"Intrigued? You should be.
How much of the earth is covered with sea water? How much with land? How much of our known life is based upon land living? What is a natural defense against hurricanes reaching landfall? What could slow down or disrupt a tsunami? As cargo ships get bigger and ports grow to handle them where does our precious oceanfront property disappear to? What happens to wildlife habitats along developed coastlines?
What if you could answer how to restore shoreline, create more areas for crowded cities to grow, move heavy port traffic slightly off shore to free up shoreline, create shallow water habitats, rebuild barrier islands and marshes and find a way to use the ocean's suspended materials to build and power off shore communities?
I don't know if all the answers are there, but this collection of Wolf Hibertz and other's research into extracting materials and energy from the ocean sure raises some good questions.
Found on the Material Explorer newsletter and all said and done without a single "Kevin Costner with gills" joke.
Sounds really interesting. The link to Hilbertz's work on the Stanford server doesn't seem to work, any ideas?
ReplyDeleteThere is an IEEE abstract:
ReplyDeleteIEEE abstract and an interesting article (pdf) from the International Offshore and Polar Engineering Conference. I believe the Stanford article may have been removed due to an erroneous calculation in the original model. Hopefully further investigation is warrented.