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Wave Gliders: http://www.liquid-robotics.com http://www.liquid-robotics.com It's a wave-powered, autonomous sensor platform built for longevity at sea. We do t

by tezzer 11y ago

Wave Gliders: http://www.liquid-robotics.com http://www.liquid-robotics.com It's a wave-powered, autonomous sensor platform built for longevity at sea. We do things like monitor salinity in the arctic, circle oil platforms looking for leaks, track tagged mammals on migration, and do coordinated fleet maneuvers for ocean floor mapping and exploration.

ChuckMcM 11y ago
Those are pretty cool. I suggested an idea to James Gosling that about 25,000 of them could be used to greatly remediate the Pacific Gyre[1] of its plastic. Sure the initial cost would be high but they would work autonomously day in and day out gathering and compacting plastic and dropping it off at a central collection unit where it could be decomposed into carbon with a solar powered incinerator. Sadly not something you could kickstart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch
- tezzer 11y ago
  The initial cost of 25K gliders would be 7.5 Billion dollars, and unfortunately, most of the plastic in the gyre isn't of a size you could pick up with anything more porous than a coffee filter. 25K gliders pulling nets would be amusing, but that's a lot of money for a partial solution!
  - ChuckMcM 11y ago
    Expensive yes, although I have it on good authority that I could get a discount on that quantity :-) Also in discussing this briefly with some folks the entrapment systems would be more complex than nets or coffee filters. But lets say your investment was, all in $10B over 10 years and you remediated 60 - 70% of the problem. Would that be, in your opinion, a waste of money? Understand the alternative is to live with existing fish stocks absorbing material as they feed in the area and to have the problem get worse. Seems like, if nothing else, it would make for a good NSF grant to understand the question better.
    - tezzer 11y ago
      It definitely merits study, but I imagine the best ideas are going to be in plastic-digesting microbes, and measures to reduce the amount of new plastic that gets into the system. I'm afraid we're going to have a layer of microscopic plastic sediment on our crust, just as we have a layer of radioactive soil from atomic testing in the 50s and 60s. It will be one of the geological landmarks of our era.
brobinson 11y ago
Wow, your ASW platform is great. I'm assuming it's passive sonar? People definitely do not appreciate the fact that a single boomer sub could effectively end a country on 30 minutes notice.
- tezzer 11y ago
  We're researching a number of different ideas in that space, with a couple of different high profile customers, so I can't say much in public at the moment!

by tezzer 11y ago

ChuckMcM 11y ago

Those are pretty cool. I suggested an idea to James Gosling that about 25,000 of them could be used to greatly remediate the Pacific Gyre[1] of its plastic. Sure the initial cost would be high but they would work autonomously day in and day out gathering and compacting plastic and dropping it off at a central collection unit where it could be decomposed into carbon with a solar powered incinerator. Sadly not something you could kickstart. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch

tezzer 11y ago
The initial cost of 25K gliders would be 7.5 Billion dollars, and unfortunately, most of the plastic in the gyre isn't of a size you could pick up with anything more porous than a coffee filter. 25K gliders pulling nets would be amusing, but that's a lot of money for a partial solution!
- ChuckMcM 11y ago
  Expensive yes, although I have it on good authority that I could get a discount on that quantity :-) Also in discussing this briefly with some folks the entrapment systems would be more complex than nets or coffee filters. But lets say your investment was, all in $10B over 10 years and you remediated 60 - 70% of the problem. Would that be, in your opinion, a waste of money? Understand the alternative is to live with existing fish stocks absorbing material as they feed in the area and to have the problem get worse. Seems like, if nothing else, it would make for a good NSF grant to understand the question better.
  - tezzer 11y ago
    It definitely merits study, but I imagine the best ideas are going to be in plastic-digesting microbes, and measures to reduce the amount of new plastic that gets into the system. I'm afraid we're going to have a layer of microscopic plastic sediment on our crust, just as we have a layer of radioactive soil from atomic testing in the 50s and 60s. It will be one of the geological landmarks of our era.

brobinson 11y ago

Wow, your ASW platform is great. I'm assuming it's passive sonar? People definitely do not appreciate the fact that a single boomer sub could effectively end a country on 30 minutes notice.

tezzer 11y ago
We're researching a number of different ideas in that space, with a couple of different high profile customers, so I can't say much in public at the moment!