From our bizarre ideas file comes the M/V Seadove or “Sustainable Energy and Desalination on Vessel” The ship is an Australian invention that hopes to cost-effectively solve coastal region water shortages around the world using “green marine technology”. The company tells us:

Seadov technology uses a combination of renewable energy and marine technology. Its reverse osmosis (RO) desalination plant is installed and powered by green energy produced on board the vessel, which is typically positioned 10 kilometres offshore. The potable water produced on the vessel is pumped to shore for final treatment before being injected into the local water grid or reservoir.
The project is a planned joint venture between Gold Coast-based technology developer Seadov Pty Ltd and a North American marine consortium.

Seadov chairman Peter Parker says the innovative project will provide a perfect addition to existing desalination plants stating; “The breakthrough with Seadov is the effective adaptation of renewable energy devices within a marine environment to cost-effectively produce potable water for coastal regions in most parts of the world.”

You can read more about Seadov and watch the company’s video by visiting their website at Seadove.com.

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So what does a semi-retired mega-billionaire philanthropist do with his spare time?

Fight some of the strongest forces mother nature has to produce, of course. NBC’s Today Show did a segment on Friday (clip above) explaining Bill Gates’ patent-pending idea to tame hurricanes before they make landfall.  The project will run on a system of barges planted into the paths of brewing hurricanes. Each barge will pump cold water up from the bottom of the ocean and warm water down from the surface.  In theory, this will cool the surface temperature of the ocean, thus reducing the intensity of the hurricane.

So what do you think? Could this actually work?  Join in on the conversation on the forum HERE or by commenting on this post.

Thanks to gCaptain member, weathersnm, for starting us off!

The Seasteading Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to creating permanent cities at sea as a way to experiment with building new societies without government intereference (as I understand it anyway), has just released the winners from their first 3-D Design Competition.  The winner was 27 year architectural graphic designer from Eger, Hungary named András Gyõrfi for his design called “The Swimming City”, geared toward “wellness,” sports, entertainment, and “whatever you can imagine,” according to a statement by its creator.

In a press release from The Seasteading Institute, they tell us;

We had a great level of participation, with 41 entries being submitted.  More importantly, the quality of the entries was generally very impressive and the competition was very close, as several of the winners won by the smallest margin possible. Participants succeeded indeed in capturing the pioneering spirit of seasteading and expressing a vibrant, lively feeling through beautiful architecture!

Check out this LINK for a full list of winners, including high-res images of the entrants, or take a look at the Seasteading Institutes website HERE for more information surrounding these communities at sea.

For this week’s pick of Bizarre Marine Technology we wanted to go with Glacier Blankets but, although they would likely be transported to the Artic on ships, the relationship to marine transport is thin. But don’t worry, we have an equally interesting technology for you today… ocean tubes. We’ll let Atomocean, the company developing this technology, explain:

Atmocean is developing its patents-pending wave-driven ocean upwelling system to cool the upper ocean and enhance natural biological processes to absorb CO2. When widely deployed across critical ocean regions, the Atmocean technology may help fight global warming by sequestering significant amounts of CO2 in the deep ocean, reduce hurricane intensity, help revive ocean fisheries, and mitigate coral reef bleaching.

Upwelling is the naturally-occurring mixing of deep, cold, nutrient-rich ocean into the upper sunlit ocean that is critical to growth of most marine species. As the upper oceans absorb more heat from the atmosphere due to the greenhouse effects of CO2 and other heat-trapping gases, they become more stratified, further risking the natural delivery of nutrients to the sunlit zone.

Atmocean believes our wave-driven upwelling technology can play a critical role in mitigating these deleterious effects of CO2-induced warming, in the years and decades ahead.

If your still with us the following video helps explain the technology further.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Also be sure to view the Discovery Channel Video and Popular Science Article featuring atomocean.

LG, the global manufacturer of electronic products and home appliances, has converted a 70-meter long push barge into a large, floating advertisement for the launch of their new eco-friendly refrigerator.  The football field sized vessel/refrigerator sailed up the Seine from Le Havre to Paris between June 22 and June 25.

The new refrigerator uses LG’s “Linear Compressor” technology requiring 20 percent less energy than conventional refrigerators.  While I have no idea exaclty what the new model is that LG is promoting with this unique marketing gimmick, here is a link to the LG’s refrigerator page just for their efforts and creativity. LINK

This week’s Bizzare Maritime Technology is Aquapod Fish Farms. After frustrations in the Maine salmon farming industry, Steve Page spent two years creating a galvanized steel wire structure aimed at growing the offshore aquaculture industry. Last month, his Maine-based company, Ocean Farm Technologies Inc., installed a new “AquaPod” steel-and-wire mesh net pen for Snapperfarm Inc. to raise cobia in deep water off Culebra, Puerto Rico.

Snapperfarm owner Brian O’Hanlon says he’s been pleased with the product, which he uses to raise juvenile cobia. “We expect the rigid framing will make it easier to install feed systems and to harvest efficiently,” he said. “The structure is completely submersible and normally is kept at least six meters below the surface.”

Page, former manager of Atlantic Salmon of Maine, said he invented the pen after seeing problems in the salmon aquaculture industry — attacks by ocean predators, fish escaping from pens, disease, and problems with waterfront landowners.

“I saw a need for a new containment system that’s easy and safe to operate,” Page said. The pen is suitable for strong offshore currents, helping to move aquaculture to deeper waters, he said. Construction makes it immune to shark attacks.

In the past six months, Page said he’s seen a lot of venture capital in offshore aquaculture. “The inevitable worldwide expansion of fish aquaculture will occur offshore, in deep water,” Page said. “This requires containment systems that will be affordable and also suitable to offshore conditions.”
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Aquapod Photos

Aquapod Drawings

Aquapod Video

You can find video and further information on Aquapod HERE.

In 1942 the U.S. Navy used submarines run the Japanese naval blockade and bring munitions and supplies to the beleaguered soldiers on Corregidor. Shortly after this event President Roosevelt ordered the Navy to begin developing plans for a cargo carrying submarine. Three WW1 era, V-class submarines were soon brought to Philadelphia and converted to carry military cargo (source).

Roosevelt’s Barracuda class submarines never saw action but the idea has been kept alive and was revisited by all the major participants of the cold war (source) and even included a plan to build Submarine LNG Tankers. Today the idea has been given new life by the Russian submarine design firm Rubin. They explain:

There are outlined engineering and design solutions for creation of a transport submarine on the basis of heavy nuclear submarine cruiser of Project 941 (“Typhoon”) that is able to take aboard and export the payload up to 15,000 tons from the Arctic areas of the Arctic Ocean all year round irrespective of weather and ice conditions. It is achieved due to forming the required submarine buoyancy by means of non-traditional technical solutions. These solutions provide for meeting active requirements to the submarine survivability, reliability and unsinkability as well as crew safety.

The firm has also worked though many of the obstacles of the past and have provided the following notes;

• Use a horizontal loading of the payload by means of port standard loaders.
• Creation of special loading hatches of 4.5 m diameter.
• Design of the submarine forward end structure that allowed cruising by breaking the ice.
• Speed 16-18 knots in submerged condition.
• Speed of about 2-3 knots in surface condition under conditions of solid ice cover up to 2.6 m.
• Optimum variant of transport cargo traffic to be obtained with the use of three converted nuclear submarines

You can find out more about this unusual ship design at Rubin’s website located HERE.

From the Anti-Hurricane Technology Fund in Slovakia comes this invention for mitigating the effects of cyclone damage. The invention is called “The Anti-Hurricane Technology Wheel” and (if they find funding to build it) would be towed out to sea to be left in the path of an approaching storm. Here are the details from the patent filing:

Said task is dealt with according to the present invention, the principle of which is to reduce the ascendant speed of a tropical cyclone by the sea water pumped on site from under the sea surface above the sea surface and dispersed in the wind at the bottom of such tropical cyclone in/near its eyewall and then drifted to the heights by the kinetic energy of this strong wind.

The weight of several hundred thousand or even million tons of sea water (depending on the number and output power of the facilities) acts continuously against the ascending air flows in/near the eyewall , thus reducing the speed of these flows which results in slowing down the tropical cyclone ‘ s development , the reduction of its maximum category, possibly even its attenuation to a tropical storm. What is happening there is a process of dispersed water droplet aggregation counteracting the above process , but at the same time due to very high speeds of turbulent flow there is also a process of larger drops breaking to smaller droplets , i . e . depending on the wind speed drops maintain a specific maximum size that still allowing them to be born by the usual ascending speed of a cyclone .

The tendency of the centrifugal force to “throw the drops away” eliminates the overall convergent air flow in this location.

Click here to view the embedded video.

What is not described is how the wheel itself would remain intact during the storm or where they are going to find mariners foolish brave enough to sail towards a storm with “The Wheel” in tow.

You can read more about this technology on their homepage LINK.

Is it just me, or does something seem out of place here?

Located in the middle of Hong Kong’s largest private housing estate, Whompoa Garden, this cruise ship is  actually a huge shopping center.  Within it is more than 200 shops and restaurants, making it one of Whompoa Garden’s premier shopping locations.

On a side note, Whompoa Garden, including the shopping mall, was built by Huchtinson Whompoa Property on the former site of Kowloon Dock, or Whompoa Dock for short, previously the Hong Kong and Whompoa Dock Company Limited.  According to their website:

The company was established in 1863 to acquire docks and repair yards at Whampoa, on the Canton River in China, and the then newly constructed dry docks at Aberdeen on Hong Kong Island. In 1866, the company became the holder of the first Hong Kong business registration certificate issued under the new Companies Ordinance.

The company ran one of the largest dry-docking, ship repair and shipbuilding operations in the Far East for over a century, survived two World Wars and, at its peak, handled an average of 25 vessels per week. In 1960, it was servicing the ships of no fewer than 23 nationalities and 9 navies.

Check out the rest of its interesting history HERE.

Via Gizmodo