The Open Ocean Engineering Journal, 2010, 3, 1-11 1 Open Access Floating Cities on Ice Platform Alexander Bolonkin* C&R, 1310 Avenue R, #F-6, Brooklyn, NY 11229, USA Abstract: Many small countries are in real need of additional sovereign territory. Sometimes, they even build on rotting landfills and install various kinds of expensive artificial islands. The ocean covers 71% of our Earth’s surface. Those countries (or persons of wealth) starting the early colonization of the ocean may obtain advantages through additional ter- ritory or creating their own independent state. An old idea is building a big ship. The best solution to this problem, how- ever, is the provision of floating cities, islands, and states. The authors propose to employ floating cities, islands, and states as cheap floating platforms created from a natural ice field taken from the Arctic or Antarctic oceans. These plat- forms protected by air-film (bottom and sides) and a conventional insulating cover (top) and having a cooling system can exist for an almost unlimited period of time. They can be multiplied in number or increased size at any time, float even in warm-water subdivisions of the world-ocean, travel to different countries on continents and islands, serve as artificial air- ports, harbors and other marine improvements, as well as floating cities and industrial bases for virtually any use. Author has researched and computed the paramount parameters of these floating ice platforms, other methods of building such floating territory, compare them and show that the suggested method of realization is the least costly and most effi- cient means for sustainable ocean colonization by mobile humans. Keywords: Floating cities, ice floating platform, ocean colonization. INTRODUCTION Though generally recognized as several 'separate' oceans, these waters comprise one global, interconnected body of Short Information About Oceans, History Large Ship, salt water often referred to as the “world-ocean” or “global and Ice Fields ocean”. That includes: Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, the An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal Indian Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and the Arctic Ocean. component of our planet’s remarkable hydrosphere. Ocean colonization is the theory and practice of Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface (an area of 361 permanent human settlement of oceans. Such settlements million square kilometers) is covered by ocean, a continuous may float on the surface of the water, or be secured to the body of seawater that is customarily divided into several ocean floor, or exist in an intermediate position. “Marine principal named oceans and smaller named seas. More than city” is defined at length at http://parole.aporee.org and the half of this area is deeper than 3,000 meters. Average history of such facilities is briefly outlined in “Prototype oceanic salinity is around 35 parts per thousand (ppt) (3.5%), cities in the sea”, authored by Sandra Kaji-o’grady and Peter and nearly all seawater has a salinity in the range of 31 to 38 Raisbeck, for THE JOURNAL OF ARCHITECTURE 10: ppt. Interestingly, the place furthest from the world-ocean— 443-461 (September 2005). that is, the official “pole of inaccessibility” is in Asia (460 17’ North latitude by 860 40’ East longitude), according to One primary advantage of ocean colonization is the Daniel Garcia-Castellanos and Umberto Lombardo’s “Poles expansion of livable area. Additionally, it might offer of Inaccessibility: A calculation algorithm for the remotest various other possible benefits such as expanded resource places on Earth”, SCOTTISH GEOGRAPHICAL access, novel forms of governance (for instance mini- JOURNAL 123: 227-233 (September 2007). nations), and new recreational activities for athletic humans. The volume of Earth’s ocean is approximately 1.3 billion Many lessons learned from ocean colonization will likely cubic kilometers, and its average depth is 3,790 meters. The prove applicable to near-term future outer space and other- vast volume of the deep ocean (anything below 200 m) planet colonization efforts. The ocean may prove simpler to covers about 66% of our Earth's surface. colonize than interplanetary space and thus occur first, providing a proving ground for the latter. In particular, the The total mass of the planetary hydrosphere is about 1.4 21 issue of legal sovereignty may bear many similarities 10 kilograms, which is about 0.023% of the Earth's total between ocean and outer space colonization with space mass. Less than 2% is freshwater, the rest is saltwater, station settlements; adjustments to social life under harsher mostly in the ocean. extra-terrestrail circumstances would apply similarly to the world-ocean and to outer space; and many technologies may have uses in both environments (Figs. 1-3). *Address correspondence to this author at the C&R, 1310 Avenue R, #F-6, Brooklyn, NY 11229, USA, Tel: 718-339-4563; Fax: 718-339-4563; Economy of world-ocean. Central to any practical at- E-mails: [email protected], [email protected] tempt at ocean colonization will be the underlying global and 1874-835X/10 2010 Bentham Open 2 The Open Ocean Engineering Journal, 2010, Volume 3 Alexander Bolonkin Fig. (1). Typical project of conventional floating city. Fig. (2). Project of floating city. local economic reality. To become self-sustaining, the col- possibilities include hydroponics and open-ocean ony will aim to produce output of a kind which holds a aquaculture. Thus, an ocean settlement may be either a net comparative advantage by occurring on or in the ocean. importer or a net exporter of food products. While it can save the cost of acquiring land, building a float- Such settlements or cities would probably import diesel ing structure that survives in the turbulent open ocean has its and run conventional power plants as small islands own costs. Ocean-front land—say, land more than 100 meter everywhere do. However, other possibilities include solar from the coastline—can hold a very high value, especially in power, nuclear plants, deep-sea oil deposits, and countries with no income taxes, so building space and selling developing/farming a species of seaweed or algae for biofuel it may prove popular. Tourists often visit warm locales dur- and sea foot. ing the winter; indeed, tourism drives the economies of many small island nations. The colony might also compete as an Ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) is another offshore center for financial transactions. potential energy source. All that is required is tropical (warm) surface water and access to deep, very cold water. While importing food and fishing may compose the The difference in temperature is used to drive an electric majority of ocean settlement food consumption, other generator via a turbine. (There is an added benefit in that the Floating Cities on Ice Platform The Open Ocean Engineering Journal, 2010, Volume 3 3 Fig. (3). Conventional project. deep cold water usually is more fertile than surface water in probably, some 10,000 jobs at least. The islands should help the open ocean, and can support mariculture). with overcrowding in the coastal Israeli cities and might even be employed to do the same in Gaza. Similar communities already exist in the form of hotels, research stations, houseboats, houses on stilts, land below A well thought out macro-engineering project proposal sea level behind dikes, vacation cruise ships, ocean oil rigs, has also been presented in The Netherlands to create etc. artificial islands, perhaps in the shape of a tulip, in the North Sea. Furthermore, humans migrating to small islands throughout the world has already occurred and is ongoing. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Some wealthy persons have even bought private islands! Sea treaty (UNCLOS), artificial islands have little legal Using current technology to create artificial islands is just an recognition. Such islands are not considered harbor works incremental step in continuing the spread of humanity. (Article 11) and are under the jurisdiction of the nearest coastal state if within 200 nautical miles (370 km) (Article Millennial projects. An artificial island is an island that 56). Artificial islands are not considered islands for purposes has been constructed by humans rather than formed by natu- of having their own territorial waters or exclusive economic ral means. They are created by expanding existing islets, zones, and only the coastal state may authorize their construction on existing reefs, or amalgamating several natu- ral islets into a bigger island. construction (Article 60). However, on the high seas beyond national jurisdiction, any "state" may construct artificial An internet mailing list formed to attempt to organize it. islands (Article 87). The group incorporated as the "Living Universe Some attempts to create mini-nations have involved Foundation." The list was still in existence as of 2007. artificial islands such as Sealand and Republic of Rose Some contemporary projects are much more ambitious. Island. These were abject failures. In 1994, Kansai International Airport was the first general aviation commercial airport to be built completely on an Big Ship Macro-Projects artificial island, followed by Chbu Centrair International America World City (originally named Phoenix World Airport in 2005 and the New Kitakyushu Airport and Kobe City) is a concept for a floating city proposed by John Airport in 2006. Rogers of World City Corporation. It is conceived as the first Dubai is home to some of the largest artificial island of three such behemoths serving United States of America complexes in the world, including the three Palm Islands ports and flying the U. S. flag. Rogers died in October, 2005. macro-projects, The World and the Dubai Waterfront macro- Freedom Ship (Figs. 4, 5). Freedom Ship was a concept projects, the last of which will be the largest in geographical proposed by Norman Nixon.