Vermont City Almost Encased In a 1-Mile Dome 456
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.'"
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No rain (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Informative)
The Eden project [wikipedia.org] in Cornwall, England contains the world's largest greenhouse (panorama) [wikipedia.org], 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).
Vermont isn't the coldest state (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:Dupe! (Score:2, Informative)
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?
Hot-air Lift is STRONG (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Informative)
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?
Wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lessons From Biosphere II (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:I dunno, man. Snow is heavy (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:it still burns (Score:3, Informative)
"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.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Lessons From Biosphere II (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Informative)
Not on your life my Hindu friend.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:3, Informative)
The City of Winooski, VT [onioncity.com] (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.
Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? (Score:2, Informative)
I was thinking the same thing - but from TFA, apparently the plastic composite glass is "self cleaning".
Re:Wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
For most of New England, perhaps. In New Hampshire, (from my High School civics 1982), City means there are elected officials running the government. Town have town meetings where *everyone* votes on the issues.
NH has 13 cities: Berlin, Claremont, Concord, Dover, Franklin, Keene, Laconia, Lebanon, Manchester, Nashua, Portsmouth, Rochester, Somersworth.
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_town#Cities [wikipedia.org] "Most cities are former towns that changed to a city form of government because they grew too large to be administered by a town meeting."
FWIW, I'm originally from Lebanon, NH which is on the border with Hartford, VT.