The Null Device

2010/7/22

What do you do with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the vast vortex of plastic and other junk that, in the lifetimes of people living today, has grown from nothing to twice the size of Texas and is still growing and leaching toxins into the food chain? One idea is to turn it into an artificial island, initially as a base for recycling efforts but eventually as a resort and/or habitable land:

Electricity would come from renewable resources like solar, wave, and wind energies. Seaweed farms would serve two main purposes: habitat and food for fish; and as “’nutrient sinks’ that would take up inorganic nutrients (ammonia, nitrate, phosphate) from the water column.” The seaweed can also be used for other things like people food, biofuel, CO2 capture and medicine.

environment geoengineering 1

The (perennial) next thing: luxury passenger airships, this time from a bunch of people in London:

It straddles the concepts of a cruise ship and a hotel floating 12,000 feet in the air, with 50 rooms, including a penthouse and four duplex apartments. "There is a three-level cocktail bar at the bottom of the ship, with a thing that we call a Moon Pool - effectively it's a transparent floor - so on sunset you can sit there with your chums, sip a cocktail and look at the earth passing by underneath you, like [you're] a goddess," Mr Talbot said.
Mind you, the Aircruise is still only a concept, and it is not clear whether anything like it will actually get built. (For one, there would need to be advances in materials to make it possible.)

(via Infrastructurist) air travel airships dirigibles 0