[ExI] 10 mega construction projects that could save the environment and the economy

[Anders Sandberg]

I love megaproject. I have dreamed of them ever since I was a kid. But 
most are stillborn because they require huge investments.

Looking at the megaprojects that have been achieved, like interstate 
highways, the Internet, and the Netherlands, most of them were done 
piecemal. A highway here, a new connection there, a few more dikes - not 
a gigantic investment, and rewards come in after a short while. Then you 
or somebody else can build another part.

Transatlantic cables were perhaps the exception: big investment, big 
reward, single structure. But the first one or two attempts also failed. 
You want to be able to afford to fail your megaproject.

And of course, sketching a megaproject ignores all those messy human 
details. Sometimes that is accurate, but often ignoring them leads to 
embarassing problems.

Going through the list:

Renewable energy: this one handles the above criteria most of the time - 
there are plenty of different approaches, you can do things piecemal, 
you can fail, and they have to take humans into account. Which of course 
makes everything slower and messier than we would like.

Masdar: Can be built in pieces, the UAE can afford a failure, but who 
would want to go and live there? Many ideal city projects have been 
total flops because they didn't figure out how to get people to live in 
them - both to go there and to behave consistent with the ideas. Usually 
such plans are assuming people are the little architect's clip art 
people rather than beings with their own goals, taking shortcuts and 
changing their environment to suit them.

Desert aquanet: Big investment, risk for truly embarassing failure. 
Soverignty isn't the problem (Libya, say, could build their own 
aquanet), but an obvious problem is getting rid of the salt that would 
accumulate in the lakes. Could easily become environmental disaster 
zones. Still, maybe we want to have a few high-albedo salt flats to cool 
the planet?

Amfora: Big investment, cannot afford failure, likely problems with 
humans. Amsterdam is a city that works; doing big digs in the centre is 
costly and interferes a lot. Space isn't an obvious problem given good 
communications to the outlying areas.

Geothermal plants: not that expensive compared to most stuff on the 
list, failures are manageable, people are little involved. Good idea 
with the lithium, might be worth exploring for other minerals. However, 
only works in certain limited areas.

Megacity pyramids: again, big and brittle business idea that if built 
will likely flounder on how people actually decide to live their lives. 
In my rpg module on transhuman cities I suggested that the target 
demographic for arcologies would be the elderly. I suspect the young and 
mobile might not be interested in a regimented and enclosed city.

Seasteading arcologies: seasteading has the usual problem of attracting 
people, and arcologies has problems mentioned above. A near-shore 
arcology might have less problem getting people because there might 
actually be work and something to do outside, but it is essentially an 
architect's way of saying we should reclaim some land from the sea. 
Build snazzy skyscrapers there instead!

Coral Venice: I believe this when I see Rachel get her protocells to do 
something on demand rather than ooze suggestively. I love them, but not 
as engineering tools. I can totally see biotech solutions for improving 
cities or even growing materials (in my rpg module I had a rhizome 
system bioengineered by the Dutch that helps keep Venice afloat).

Space elevator: This is what we ought to start working on the minute we 
have figured out fullerene cabling. But it is one of those high 
threshold projects with pretty annoying failure modes.

Lunar ring: Let's do this once we have the space elevator in place. And 
a treaty that ensures that nobody uses the moon as a phased array maser.

-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University