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Could you build a temporary barrier around the ship and the section of the canal, bring in some massive pumps, and temporarily raise the water level around the
by 01100011 6y ago
Could you build a temporary barrier around the ship and the section of the canal, bring in some massive pumps, and temporarily raise the water level around the ship?
Edit: Something like this https://www.hydrologicalsolutions.com/aqua-barrier-cofferdam/ https://www.hydrologicalsolutions.com/aqua-barrier-cofferdam...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rblatz 6y agoI'm not at all qualified on these matters, but that's one of the better ideas I've read.
- brown9-2 6y agothe land around the canal looks pretty flat, those would have to be very strong barriers
- fileeditview 6y agoI've had the exact same idea but the canal bank is very shallow.. so you would have to build around the whole ship (as you said). This also seems like a major undertaking. I am excited to see how they will solve the problem though!
- wongarsu 6y agoIf the bank is very shallow and mostly sand, maybe instead of building a damn all around the ship it would be easier to just dredge a new passage that goes around the stuck ship. After all the real problem isn't that the ship is run aground, it's that the canal is blocked for everyone else.
- TylerE 6y agoIf would be a very long diversion. The turning radius of large ships is, well, astronomical, we're talking miles. The canal itself is MASSIVE - 79ft deep and 700ft wide - and if you're turning you'd need to be wider still. We're talking about removing absolutely massive amounts of material.
- Aeolun 6y agoWell, they did it before, and without the help of the massive diggers we have currently, so it can’t be that hard, relatively speaking. Besides, my newspaper said that the economic losses of the stuckness amount to like 400M per hour. That is a looot of money you can throw at a problem.
- nostrademons 6y agoThe Suez Canal took 10 years to build, with > 30,000 people working on it at any given time and over 1.5M total laborers, thousands of whom died. I don't think we want to be waiting for 10 years. Cheaper to blow up the ship and its cargo than to re-build a whole new canal.
- TylerE 6y agoBlowing it up isn't really a solution either, that still leaves the canal blocked, as it was for 8 years after the 6 day war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_Fleet
- nostrademons 6y agoI was being semi-facetious, but now I see that a bunch of people seem to be suggesting that in all seriousness. Poe's Law strikes again.
- ReflectedImage 6y agoActually with a well placed nuclear warhead placed directly under the ship, it could be thrown out of the canal and into the nearby desert clearing the canal route /s
- tomatotomato37 6y agoFun fact: the ship is larger than the fireball of a peacekeeper warhead would be (~320 meters)
- Alupis 6y agoDredge a new passage? These ships do not turn on a dime, it would have to be started way before this blockage, and end way after the blockage so that the entry and exit are shallow enough of an angle for even the largest ships to handle with easy. You're basically asking why can't they just make a whole new canal in less than a week?
- Johnny555 6y agoI'd think that rather than dredge enough sand/dirt to create a completely new channel, it'd be easier to dredge out enough next to the ship to free it. They should only need to dredge out the bow and stern, the middle of the ship is already in deeper water.
- jacquesm 6y agoYou might end up getting it stuck higher. Then what?
- greymalik 6y agoBuild a taller barrier!
- aaron-santos 6y agoIf it keeps getting stuck higher and higher at some point it will be out of the canal thus solving the problem, no?
- tillinghast 6y agoPlus: free bridge!
- imperfectcats 6y agoThen that is tomorrow me's problem! I honestly think a lot of thinking works that way, where we'll let tomorrow me worry about it. To be fair, a lot of the time it makes sense. The problems a solution creates are things we need to accept when alternative is worse (think global warming vs starvation circa 1770).
- jacquesm 6y agoI honestly think that if you are involved in an operation like this and you bring this attitude to work that you'll be fired before the day is out. This is the kind of job you want to get right the first time.
- Quarrelsome 6y agoif we keep going then the other ships can just duck.
- failwhaleshark 6y agoSubmarine container ships or an underpass would be cool.
- souprock 6y agoNo, just change the density. The oil industry uses cesium formate. It's relatively non-toxic. The brine can have density of 19.2 pounds per gallon. (2.3 grams/mL) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium#Petroleum_exploration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesium#Petroleum_exploration
- rapnie 6y agoIn the middle parts of the ship it is probably not grounded, so you might have ropes below the hull with large inflatable balloons on both sides below water level, to give the ship extra lift. Then on a high tide, with oil & water removed, maybe some dredging on the sides where it needs to rotate to, and.. go!
- wongarsu 6y agoMaybe something like those air/water tanks they attached to the side of the Costa Concordia to float it [1]. But you would have to take great care to prevent it from rolling over, so you probably can't lift it up too far. 1: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28288823 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28288823
- OldHand2018 6y agoJust so everyone is clear: The company that handled the salvaging of the Costa Concordia is the company that is handling the salvaging of this ship. Same exact people! You can bet that they are going to be doing the best thing that can be done.
- pasttense01 6y agoYes, but remember how long the Costa Concordia salvage took: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salvage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia_disaster#Salva...
- D2187645 6y agowow 15 months
- fallingknife 6y agoAnd if you want to know more about the Costa Concordia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9KBwqGxTI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9KBwqGxTI
- 6y ago
- nhoughto 6y agoImagine the pressures on the temporary barrier too, and what a failure would mean. Even bigger disaster.
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoThe pressure on the hypothetical levee wouldn't be much since we're only talking about a couple dozen feet of water depth. (Yes, some jerk is going to come along and calculate out that that's an impressive amount of total force and act like that's a big deal but it's not really that impressive when you've got a huge amount of material to spread it out over). Digging out around the ship is going to be much less work because of the amount of material you'll need to move and how far you'll need to move it.
- bbarnett 6y agoHey, that's an incredible amount of force, it's too risky, not to mention it will impact the local ecosystem, and uh, stuff!
- throwaway0a5e 6y agoRegardless, removing cargo and/or dredging around the ship is gonna be tons (literally) less work (literally).
- bbarnett 6y agoA dual approach might be to dig around, but just place the dirt in preparation for a temporary levy scenario. So much cash burned per hour, a fallback wouldn't hurt, and secondary backhoes could be used, so the primaries don't slow down in their primary task, dredging. Of course, I bet someone is, even now, trying to reduce costs, not caring that even an hour or two will wipe out all savings.
- engineer_22 6y agoThat is an engineer's job, of course, to match project outcomes to schedule and cost. An atom bomb would certainly clear the canal, but what of the cost?
- m4rtink 6y agoWow that link - well thats a clever system! I would have never come up with something like that yet it's so simple in hindsight!
- failwhaleshark 6y agoThat would take weeks-to-months. It's faster to dredge around it with a mobile barge.
- mig39 6y agoCoincidence ... my town is actually installing these in anticipation of a Spring flood. Here's a drone video I took today! https://youtu.be/JRe2a-zHDbg https://youtu.be/JRe2a-zHDbg I didn't realize they were water-filled!
- Baeocystin 6y agoNice video, thanks for sharing. We shall defeat the water, with water! :D
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- reader_x 6y agoCould the containers themselves be used to help create such a temporary barrier?