[humour] We should set up a community

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  • I wouldn't worry about fire. That's easy each room is a compartment so it won't travel. Vents have dampers to shut on fire so it will get suffocated before it even gets strong enough to spread. The person inside will probably die but the base is safe.
  • Oh and explosives is easy lets just say you have explosives if you hunt or do shooting sports.

    Please don't get mad fed gov ;)
  • @Menderpaul
    Its called triternite right? You know that stuff some people shoot at then it goes KA-BOOM.

    I like the idea of using plasma to melt the rock away. If we do carve it out of granite we could sell the granite as counter tops or make it easier on us and sell it as a slab. Maybe even turn a profit. You said just get rid of it you didn't say how....
  • Close tannerite. That or just gunpowder/black powder/smokes less it really doesn't matter add pressure and a contain=boom again go away Feds :)
  • "again go away Feds :)" I wrote a entire rant about that. (In your favour) but do to past events in my life I am a little scared to post it.=P

    So how would we get water from a desert cave bunker base and how to power the lights at night? For the sake of bringing this thread back on topic.

    Sincerely,
    John Doe
  • bit of gunpowder to toy around or blast some tree trunks is one thing, getting hands on truckloads of that stuff to actually make granite unhappy is a whole different story. Building a carbon-arc plasma torch on the other hand is pretty darn easy. A hydrogen-flame would work too, even tho it can be a bit risky to handle that safely.

    Guess desert caves are mostly dry, so you won't get water from the cave.
    Option one: cool some objects down to -15°C, the air in contact will cool down, the water will condense and you'll get ice on the surface. For extreme death-valley conditions about 1 gram of ice per m³ air. Of course, this requires a lot of energy and a lot of expensive industrial cooling equipment.
    Option two: (i repeat myself here), gently blow air through containers filled with zeolite 3A. The water molecules will be physically bound inside the material. Numbers range from 10 to 25% of the zeolite's weight (and it is cheap!). Once you got enough water bound in the zeolite, you bring it up to 250°C for like, 4 hours or so. The water will evaporate and you can use desert-air-temperatures to condense it.
    Even if your yield is not quite the 20% of zeolite's maximum capability due to going with shorter than optimum cycles, you can still get out alot of water per cycle per ton. Even for crazy low 2%, that's still 20 liter/ton. Since it's a physical process it's fully reversible and the materials do not wear. No harmful chemical, no mechanically challenging parts, and can be all solar powered. Just pumping cold air through your granulate, and after that, a lot of hot air.

    About powering: Daytime: solar powered steam turbine (or regular steam engine) / solar panels (altho expensive). Maybe some vertical axis wind turbines for aux power just for fun (and easy to build). For just lighting the current demands are rather low. A good bank of cycle-proof lead batteries will do a great job. My 7 Watt Led lamp runs all night on a lead battery weighting less than 3kg (which I got off ebay for cheap).
    Few old car/truck batteries should serve well. If you get some old car batteries you can run a laptop and lights for days. A high-performance PC under full load will require a tad more, but nothing that wouldn't fit under your bed.
    The energy yard with all the mirrors and wind turbines hacked together should look pretty darn sweet.
  • I would vote for a geothermal plant heating and cooling, and power if someone has a cool million to spare. Geothermal is 24 hour reliable power with almost no maintenance.
  • Geothermal requires you to drill deep, depending on your location, pretty deep and if you aim for high power output, really quite deep. With tons of tubing, pumps, liquid systems it does require quite some maintainance to operate reliably. Sure it's 24/7 power output. But we'r talking about desert atm, you can't complain about a lack of sunshine most of the time. Geothermal on a budget would be a cool project tho. Like some sort of rock-smashing self-digging mechanism which doesn't require a drill rig.
    Btw, about heating and cooling, you get that for free with zeolite. For heating just sprinkle water over the dried zeolite and it'll release a lot of heat, for cooling have a water vessel next to it, water will rapidly evaporate and cool down (if you pump out the air first you can freeze the water almost instantly)
  • A lot of deserts have some form or another of underground water like sinotes (Myan water wells) depending on how large of a cave your looking at whether it's going deep or not will not be dry most have water or at least condensation. They are actually humid in them and a lot either had or have had water running through them. Perhaps finding an underground river could be useful for underground water turbine.

    @thomasegi how'd you know I'd use it on tree trunks and such lol.
  • True about the underground water systems. Point is you have to find them. While running your own water-from-air system will work anywhere, no search, no digging. Just deploy the solar oven and get going.
    So water can be done with a few thousand bucks for zeolite and steel containers to cook it.
    Next up: building material. We'll probably have sand and water available, given we don't get super lucky to sit on sandstone/granite for a cave. I have seen people using giant fresnel lenses to melt glas into sand sculptures. I sort of doubt this is will work out to build structurally sound buildings. Alternatives would be stacking bags of sand (with some cement mixed in?). http://www.earthhomesnow.com/sandbag-houses.htm seems to be quite a good idea. Bags shouldn't be horribly expensive. Thick walls should help against the heat. So if the walls are strong enough, it may be a good idea to just put a lot of sand over it. Sand-iglu , sort of.
  • You may not even need to make the structures you could carve/cut each unit to fit. The only thing you would need to do it make doors. This is assuming you place in a cave surrounded by solid stone.

    Give a quick Google search of: Cappadocia Underground Cities

    A large cavern would be the only way to really make the sand-igloos.
  • Yeah those are world famous. But I was planning to be rather resource independent for the desert thing. Caves require solid rocks which aren't available everywhere and may require digging through sand/sediments first.
  • How feasible would mud bricks be? Depending on the desert we go to (assuming an unspoken agreement on the SoCal, other thoughts?), that would seem quite nice. Just need quite a bit of water initally. Perhaps sand bags first and then bricks, work our way up?
  • I was using those caves as an example of compartments to be made. Caverns would be the only way to accomplish the building using blocks or bags. Do you if you want to stay underground you will need ribbing and ways to secure everything which will end up being quite dependent for resources be it concrete or wood (preferably concrete). Your best bet woul be the looking for ledge and granit because it creates walls that require less securing to use but the turn around would be harder to work.

    At that point a silo would be the best bet. It's already got multiple sections and goes deep. That might also be a good way to at least start so you are already at depth.

    What about getting a large 100ft hole dug and cleared build a solid foundation with multiple levels and just fill in over then build the internals ounces it's been finished being filled? Basicly just bunker style.
  • Possible but expensive compared to sandbags. We are onshore because we are on a budget. To escape the extreme temperatures going just a few meters underground is completely enough. No need to increase problems by digging deep down unless you have to.
  • Why not buy a Alaskan island? That's is about as far from society as we can possibly get.
    http://www.privateislandsonline.com/areas/alaska?page=1 It comes out to about the same after you figure transport of materials and equipment and as needed labor. Plus we will fit in a strange way....
  • Bonus points for pretty nature at summer and ice-skating at winter. Unless we have a good plan to get plenty of energy on such a smallish island that's a no-go. No use sitting somewhere in a lake with no heating, light, etc.
  • edited December 2015
    Gasifier for energy plenty of wood for fuel same with heat wood stoves work EXTREMELY well.

    Wind power too you have some good wind speeds up there
  • edited December 2015
    I think it is worth mentioning that we are reaching a ethical/self presentation point here, everyone remember Johnstown? While I know that no one here will flip out if the world views them as crazy, I for one don't want to have fed trouble because they think that were going crazy. We know were not crazy the question is how do we show them (feds) were not? I think we should try and make it look like were not there or like were doing some sort of isolation research or something that people look at for a second and move on.

    Sincerely,
    John Doe
  • I'm not sold on burning a forest. It'd work for a small number of people but not a bigger group. At least not without significant impact on your environment. Wind isn't exactly reliable (both in terms of availability and reliability of the equipment in the given conditions. Ice on the turbines can be quite a problem, and a danger). With access to a river and thus hydro-power, that'd make things a lot easier to work with. Even if there are issues at low temperatures and freezing stuff. Unless you go hunting you'll need a lot of electricity for hydro-culturing.
  • Jonestown was fine until they started indoctrinating people. We wouldn't be some reclusive cult, we'd just be a retreat where we could avoid the public and scrutiny.

    Also wasn't the sea-base suggested to avoid laws about medical practices or something?
  • edited December 2015
    Yea I think so.... I have been reading about DIY boat building. That would be interesting once you consider the fact I am land locked.... I would most likely fly it ware ever wanted to put her down with hot air balloons. However that must wait till we start finalizing things. I see your point but out side of here I am surrounded by idiots. I know for a fact they would flip out.

    Also could a sterling engine be used to generate power? Maybe some solar heaters?
  • Food to me isn't too difficult as I do hunt but I see the point with it. My problem with hydro up there is its some of the biggest tides so anything you set on river or the ocean has a chance of not being underwater any more. And in this case I do agree with @johndoe because it is one of the highest suicide locations due to the winter/lack of "getting away".

    I truly think we need to go someplace where there isn't as severe cold. Or severe heat like a desert need to find a medium.
  • edited December 2015
    http://www.privateislandsonline.com/islands?forsale_start=1&forsale_end=2
    Here are some around the world. The Caribbean sounds oddly nice, but if we look at other parts of the world lets factor in security. I know the horn of Africa has a bit of a pirate problem.
    Some off shore oil rigs I found for sale on line. I suspect over 1 million for a rig, hence no prices.

    I wonder even more if being static is our best option. I know not enough about naval architecture for me to be to to knowledgeable on this. What if we were to take two or more cargo ships and make a giant catamaran boat. Just on a much larger scale.LINK
    Here we go:
    image

    Yet another idea I didn't think of:LINK
     
    Sincerely,
    John Doe
  • @Meanderpaul anything inbetween ice and desert is pretty much populated and expensive and full of regulations. With enough artificial daylight and enough projects to work on, no suicide dangers from my end. Unless you are in a coast region a river will be a good choice. A floating hydro power station won't care about tides (especially in a river).

    @JohnDoe you'll want less than an oil rig. It'd be still expensive. That's why the discussion drifted onshore. Sterling motors work, but they are rather complicated machines compared to turbines. Not much sun in the north during winter.

    So far, i like desert best because other than some tons of zeolite and some steel containers to store it, very little is required. Supply chain is reasonable too. Unlike expensive islands or 300million ships, desert is quite the budget-thing. A few thousand bucks and you have property and materials.
  • edited December 2015
    I don't agree there is still plenty of unpopulated areas between ice and desert. Even if you were to argue regulation on the in between you still on on land owned by a government if your on ice or desert so that a moot point. The only way to truly get away of that is to go into international waters or make some agreement that doesn't effect their areas such as their land.

    Empty wood areas:
    wilderness Maine USA largest undeveloped woods in the country
    Much of Washington state USA
    Georgia has a lot of vast woods and mountains
    obviously more difficult but you have the rainforest.

    I don't think believe a desert is the best choice unless you plan on going deep underground for the temp and water which means you definitely can rely on sandbagged roofs as that will not hold any sort of top soil. It's not structurally sound.
  • On a side note an old mountain mine would make a good location just would have to reinforce the tunnels
  • @Meanderpaul to get stable temps, digging like less than 10 Meters is enough. Very thick walls will do the same trick. Water can be extracted from the air, like, easily. About old mines, not sure. They tend to be build in not quite so solid rock so reinforcement can become quite expensive.
  • Trust me you do not want a coal or gold mine, nor anything that runs in thin seams or anything not developed in the last 30 years.

    Those suck to be in and would suck even more to live in.
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