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Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome
destinyland writes "A Vermont city once proposed a one-mile dome over its 7,000 residents. (They paid $4 million a year in heating bills, and HUD seriously considered funding their proposal.) The city's architectural concept included supporting the Dome with air pressure slightly above atmospheric pressure. (Buckminster Fuller warned their biggest challenge would be keeping it from floating away...) There would be no more heating bills, fly-fishing all year, and no more snow shoveling. And to this day, the former city planner insists that 'Economically it's a slam dunk.'"
A couple of buildings in the Beijing olympic park (Bird's nest, water cube) uses ETFE as roof and/or wall covering. It's pretty much as they state, very light, very clear (if you want it to) and it shrinks in close proximity of severe heat, like fires, so it'll retreat itself away from a flame, so it doesn't light up in a fire.
Manuals are your last resort only
Absent the proper climate controls, under the right conditions: it can rain inside a huge dome like that, as water vapor collects near the roof.
It'd be nasty rain though, polluted no doubt.
The Eden project in Cornwall, England contains the world's largest greenhouse (panorama), and it's made in a buckminsterfullerene-like way with ETFE.
It's definitely worth seeing if you're in south west England (relative to the rest of England it's quite remote area).
I live in west central Minnesota, which is much colder than VT. In the winter here it is 90 Fahrenheit degrees co;der outside than it is inside.
and thats not counting the wind chill.
There are towns north of here that are even colder.
(north of the border the temperature difference is less because they have bigger degrees.
I know that they've been around for so long that the mistake is easily made - but you are aware that the Simpsons is only a cartoon?
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Alongside other problems (air exchange, summer disassembly, wind loads) Bucky's problem is real -- think hot air balloons.
Back of the envelope, if there's a 20'F difference on a 1 mi dia hemisphere, there's 16,000 lb lift per peripheral foot. That's not easy to anchor (10 x 10 ft foundation cross section.) And you definitely will need lots of steel or kevlar if you want the bottom wall be be under 1/4 inch.
Vermont really does get a lot of summer.
I live in VT and you don't know how badly I really do wish this were true. Most years we have snow on the ground from mid-Nov through early May. It isn't unusual for frosts occur in June and August.
This dome would also end up trapping in a lot of pollution unless they would prohibit cars and trucks from driving inside.
Alex, I'll take keybindings not used by Emacs for $400....
There is a similar idea which actually carries some currency, though; put a greenhouse below a house and vent it into the house, then vent the exhaust from the house through a chimney. [...]
Pot growers have been already been testing this for decades. You use HPS for overheads and fluorescents on the side. Solar panels on the roof. See, this certain crop isn't exactly "legal" in most states yet.
It would work on Mars, because you can reasonably outlaw combustible gases.
But, wouldn't you want to test it out on earth first before you built one on mars?
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In much of New England, "city" versus "town" is a matter of the type of colonial charter that was used to found the place. In New Hampshire and Vermont (I grew up on the border) which term is used is largely a matter of historical happenstance.
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There's a cool book out by Bill Fawcett called "It Looked Good On Paper" that gives a lot of good (and generally unpublicized) information on Biodome II. Some of the issues:
- Failing air supply (almost immediate). Some outside air had to be pumped in. The levels reached 14% 02 enough to cause brain damage.
- Food shortages.
- Animal extinction: 19 of the 25 vertebrae species became extinct in the BDII.
- Infighting among the crew.
According to Fawcett, the scientists "acknowledged making 10,000 mistakes."
You should check out the book. It's a highly entertaining read that covers disastrous designs from a wide number of areas.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
A real "nerd" would recognize that the distinction between city and town is essentially a nebulous one, and do more research to determine what the distinction would be before calling something an "elementary mistake" or labeling people they don't know a "sensationalist manipulator".
For example, in the US, the designation of "city" is controlled by state laws, and as such is determined by any of a number of factors, such as type of government or incorporation status of the community. Vermont has nine cities, the smallest of which has fewer than 3000 people.
Absolutely not true. Here in Quebec, the roof of the Olympic Stadium is a similar deal, and huge hot-air guns are needed to try to melt the snow - and when it's not fast enough, it has to be removed mechanically, or the roof fails (and then they have to get out these huge mechanical "clothespins" to hold the edges together until it can be fixed.
Go by any ice rink in the summer and look at the pile of snow outside from the Zamboni ... snow just doesn't melt as fast as you think, even in 80 degree heat. Also, snow's a half-decent insulator (trapped air), so good luck melting a foot of snow.
In that same article:
"Another key use of ETFE is for the covering of electrical wiring used in high stress, low fume toxicity and high reliability situations. Aircraft wiring is a primary example."
So it's probably not that toxic if a film that thin starts to burn in (what is then) open air.
Manuals are your last resort only
Actually, you missed the bit from the Discovery Channel episode which made it clear the Houston Dome would never happen: they said that the foundation ring would require so much concrete it would be equal to the entire production of all US concrete plants for 10 full years. So before you can even start on the dome part, you have to sink billions of dollars into the project for 10 years; enough billions that you outbid everybody else in the entire country who wants some concrete. Unless Congress passes a law stating that nobody else in the USA can have any concrete until the Houston Dome is finished, the only way to lock up the entire supply is to outbid everybody else put together.
If I lived in Houston, and somebody said "your tax rates are going up 1000% for the next 10 years, so that 25 years from now maybe you can live under a dome if you still live here", I'm moving somewhere else. And since 99% of the country does not live in Houston, the political will to say "everybody else has to give up all construction jobs for the next 10 years" isn't going to be found in Congress.
All the pollinating insects and most vertebrate species died. That's pretty grave.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Not on your life my Hindu friend.
The City of Winooski, VT (the subject of the article) would like to differ with you. "City" has nothing to do with population, but rather of charter and government organizational structure.
I was thinking the same thing - but from TFA, apparently the plastic composite glass is "self cleaning".
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein