Hi Thomas, Welcome to the Sargasso Sea Farming club! Let's see if I understand your concept correctly, it would be a stationary sargassum farm, which would be tended to, and whose perimeter would be defined by, vertical wind turbine powered, dynamically moored, "factory ships", right? Any fencing, floating nets maybe?
What kind of growing surface area would this be? Also, what fuel would you convert the weeds to? How advanced is this business plan you mention? Michel ----- Original Message ----- From: "thomas malloy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <vortex-l@eskimo.com> Sent: Sunday, April 20, 2008 9:20 PM Subject: [Vo]:Harvesting the Sargassum Sea > Michel Jullian wrote: > >>Indeed Vorts we can do better than this: zero ship time! >> >>We already found how to seed/fertilize directly from land (e.g. from the >>Azores, cf quoted post below). >> >>But _even harvesting_ could be done without any ship: we could install a >>fixed harvesting robot, or cluster of harvesting robots, at the Eye (where >>the crop converges automagically by vortical effect, remember?), connected to >>an underwater Sea Line (not necessarily resting on the deep ocean bottom: >>with an ad hoc anchoring scheme it could be arranged to float in midwater say >>at 100m depth to save on total length) which would convey the harvest, >>whether raw or pre-processed of fully processed to biofuel, to the nearest >>land (e.g. Bermuda). >> > I'm working on a business plan for harvesting sea weeds and processing > it into fuel. Any input would be appreciated. BTW, we're looking for > people with experience to be a part of the team. > > I'm wondering about fertilizing and tending the crop of sea weed. My > farming experience tells me that the yield of crop is dramatically > increased by fertilizing and planting improved seed. > > I'm also wondering about ships built like buoys. With a vertical axis > turbine sticking up. They would position themselves by GPS and maintain > their positions around the perimeter of the "farm." They would spread > fertilizer which could be acquired, at least in part, by dropping a hose > into the deep ocean. I'm wondering if a support is required, OTOH, the > sea weeds seem to be doing perfectly well in the open ocean. > > One of the buoys could have the factory on it. It could open up during > normal weather and close up during storms. I assume that the refinery > will produce lots of toxic gas, not as much as a petroleum refinery, but > it will be necessary to vent it. > > I suppose that we will have to get a legal adviser with expertise in > maritime law to advise us on the intricacies of doing commercial > operations on the high seas. > > I like the idea of a robot factory, OTOH, at $125 per barrel oil, a ship > load of oil, with only robots defending it, would be a prize for > pirates. I think that there will be plenty of maintenance work, in > addition to guard duties. > > > > --- Get FREE High Speed Internet from USFamily.Net! -- > http://www.usfamily.net/mkt-freepromo.html --- >
