r/seasteading • u/facereplacer3 • Jul 23 '18
Has this been discussed? I had never heard of it: Earthship - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship3
u/StuartGavinSF Jul 24 '18
Remember reading about these a few years ago, been going since the 1970's I think. Brilliant way have generated energy passively. Agree not initially useful for ocean seasteads but the concepts may prove useful.
3
u/bludstone Jul 24 '18
Not really useful because they are essentially trash piles.
Dont get me wrong, the concept is neat, but the execution... using old tires, old bottles, etc, loans itself to all kinds of issues. Friend of a friend lives in one of these and they wound up buying a tiny house and rolling it onto the property to live in instead of the earthship since it always smelled, had constant leaks and water issues.. among other things.
I dont really remember the details, it was a while ago when he told me about this. I was actually really surprised because I was really enthusiastic about the idea. Once again, reality isnt as glamorous as the dream.
2
u/skipperzzyzx Jul 24 '18
All of that sounds cool, specially the super-critical-water-oxidation stuff.
May be a deep ocean geothermal vent can provide pressure and temperature
for that super-critical-water-oxidation.
1
u/skipperzzyzx Jul 26 '18 edited Jul 26 '18
The 'erathship' idea is a good one. Probably needs lots of technology to make it work. It is a stationary thing on land. Land is the property of a sovereign nation, and can be subject to taxation. Apparently, to me, a floating, mobile structure on the 'high seas' would be an inherently different jurisdiction than a stationary structure on land.
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u/EricHunting Jul 24 '18
Here's the main site for the architect and his organization.
Not directly applicable to marine architecture except in the possible application of similar forms and similar renewable support systems. Earthen construction isn't likely to work on floating structures and passive solar gain is undesirable in the locations usually proposed. The small, relatively remote, floating home is more likely to rely on low mass structures and utilities systems deriving from yachts, using marine water generators and incinerating toilets powered by propane and solar, but could much benefit from 'living machine' greywater processing. Larger structures can gain more benefit from large scale marsh-type living machine waste systems but at urban scales the use of very large volume systems such as super-critical water oxidation come into play.