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I didn't understand that part. Sure, a conventional demolition, where debris is carted off to the landfill wouldn't work in this case. But surely onsite burning
by jacobr1 5y ago
I didn't understand that part. Sure, a conventional demolition, where debris is carted off to the landfill wouldn't work in this case. But surely onsite burning would do the trick?
- bell-cot 5y agoTermites can dig very deep. The final inspection went 30 meters down. Burning down 30m into the earth would require something far beyond what "onsite burning" usually involves. (Hence the "small subterranean fusion bomb" comment from kingcharles.)
- at_a_remove 5y agoI sometimes have very weird and destructive thoughts, but I have often wondered if it were possible to take thermite and pack it, make it stable and rigid somehow, enough that it could be made into a long rod, like rebar, suitable for pounding into the earth. Then you surround your nest or whatever with a bunch of rods, run one through the middle, set them alight and let them just burn down however many yards. Thirty meters, though ... whew.
- maxerickson 5y agoDrilling and filling would probably work better. I guess by the time you got enough thermite in the ground it wouldn't be very efficient.
- bell-cot 5y agoOutside of sci-fi and some very arid environments, rapid extreme heating of large quantities of soil will produce big steam explosions. Which might spread some relatively unheated, termite-laden clods of earth over a wide area. In a different context (limited quantities of soil with extremely heavy chemical contamination), I have seen serious proposals to drive heavy electrodes deep into the soil, gradually apply very large currents (avoiding steam explosions), and let the heat & electricity destroy the contaminants in-place.
- jhgb 5y agoHow about microwaves? If the soil is moist, perhaps microwaving the area could sterilize it thermally. Slower rate of heating should prevent explosions.
- jacobr1 5y agoWhat about pressure? Would it be possible to apply either a violent pressure wave, or some sort of compaction technology to basically crush everything 30m down?
- bell-cot 5y agoIf the termites could be living ~30m down...pressure at that depth, just from the weight of the overlying soil, is already about what you'd experience under a 300m-tall skyscraper. So suitable crushing equipment might be rather large and expensive. A violent-enough pressure wave would require a very large explosion...let's just say that senior political leaders would have to sign off, and those folks would smell too much potential for career-ending scandal and ridicule to do so.
- maxerickson 5y agoIsn't that 30 meters one of the dimensions of the surface area that was inspected? If they actually inspected 30m into the Earth, they'd have plenty of opportunity to kill everything in the way as they did it.
- jacobr1 5y agoIt wouldn't remove the termites, but it would remove the surface structure ... which should make it easier to do the subterranean work. Instead they wouldn't let the homeowners modify the house.
- aidenn0 5y agoThat would just remove the food-source. Removing the food source for a colony that you would rather have stay-put seems like it would be counterproductive.