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.'"
Exhaust? (Score:1, Insightful)
What do they do about car exhaust? And the other source of fumes - cooking, etc.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't do this without outlawing combustion. While it's a nice theory to say that you'll be able to blow enough air through it, in practice the airflow in a dome is not like the airflow without a dome. And anyone who has been to Houston knows just how bad the air quality is, in fact, it is some of the worst in the USA [nasa.gov]. If you could remove Chinese pollution from the Jet Stream, it probably WOULD be the worst. Then again, if you put a dome over it, the city's residents could just gas each other to death, which would effectively stop them from polluting.
I dunno, man. Snow is heavy (Score:3, Insightful)
A couple of years ago [scenesofvermont.com] Burlington, VT received 25.7 inches (0.65 m) of snow in 24 hours. I don't know what the density of snow is (I imagine it varies wildly), but that seems like a lot of weight.
OK, maybe the warm air can support that... but if that were the case, then on days when there wasn't 89 grillion kg of snow on top, there would be some pretty huge upward forces on the tent-pegs.
OK, well, then, there are vents, to let our some of the hot air. But then you waste all that energy heating air that you're venting.
But maybe it all works out somehow.
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
i think it's not so much about the need to heat the whole dome, but rather the fact that the dome would trap all the heat (and pollutants) inside the dome. The lack of air exchange would trap alot of the heat, pretty much exactly how a greenhouse works.
Frankly, I encourage these people to complete their dome. It'll reveal insight into how bad (or maybe good too?) the idea is and what can go wrong with them.
Also, it'll be good practice for when/if we decide to colonize extra-terran bodies. I don't think anyone has tried a larger-scale enclose ecosystem like this before (yes I know it won't be entirely enclosed.. but gotta start somewhere).
If you want to make little science, occasionally you have to break some beakers.
Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure that going from heating a few thousand little boxes to heating one giant dome really qualifies as "no heating bills".
Study up on the square-cube law and get back to us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square-cube_law [wikipedia.org]
Similarly, while shoveling snow off your driveway kind of sucks, it sure beats having snow build up on your habidome until the whole mess comes crashing down.
If the outside surface temperature never drops below freezing, due to above square-cube law... Also it seems no great challenge at all, to design buildings, even domes, that don't collapse under heavy snow loads.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually the dome would have less surface area than the town. Take all the surface area of all the buildings and add it up. You will find that at makes a pretty good heat exchanger compared to a nice smooth dome.
Rain water? What a great resource. You would catch it falling all the dome and and use it. I could even be used for the drinking water. Same for the snow melt from the dome. If nothing else it could be used for irrigation.
Air Quality? Yes you would should ban cars from inside the city as well as fire places. You might not need to but it would probably be for the best if you did. For the dome to work you would want to have some pretty powerful air blowers to keep it pumped up. That should provide enough airflow for the air quality to be as good as a none domed town. Us air to air heat exchangers to allow for even more air flow when needed.
The one huge danger I see is fire. What is a building catches on fire? Is the dome fire proof? That risk could be reduced but if you are doing to dome an existing town you would have a lot of older buildings that may not be as fire safe as you would like.
Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? (Score:4, Insightful)
large cisterns collecting water runoff at the perimeter would solve the issue of sourcing the water. piping it into the dome could be gravity feed. Then all you need pumps for is the lift to the sprinklers.
Insects could be brought in as needed. Birds could be supported as well. Migratory birds would be excluded; or, simply stay as they do here in south-east Virginia now that they've found the artificially warmed climate to be to their liking. (plenty of Ducks and Geese can't be bothered to fly south here)
Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the dome is thin enough, and the ambient temperature is above freezing, snow would not collect. it would merely melt and run off.
The snow would melt, in that case, by transferring heat out of the dome. This negates the energy benefit, and will result in a giant ring of ice surrounding the dome. It also assumes that the snow will melt faster than it falls. VT can get a lot of snow all at once, a blizzard would still encase the dome, melted and refrozen ice on the bottom, snow on top.
The bigger problem, I think, is still getting water (for plants) and air into the dome, and pollutants from combustion out. Even if it is structurally possible, the additional logistical costs will outweigh the benefits enough that there is no net gain to a dome.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
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. [...]
I don't really know but it seems to me that if you put a greenhouse underneath another building then not much sunlight would make it into the greenhouse.
There are actually some serious issues with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
Given that I actually live about 5 miles from where the whole Winooski Dome was planned to go this is all pretty well trodden territory here in this part of Vermont. The real killer problems are twofold. One is just that nobody has ever done it before and who wants to be first? In theory its a great idea, but its always the problem you didn't consider that bites you in the end. The second and more practical problem was always snow load. As anyone that has lived in Vermont can tell you, we get plenty of snow. Now pile it up a few feet deep on top of that dome, it adds up real fast. Nobody was ever sure exactly what would happen with all that snow or how long it would stay up there, etc. Roofs regularly collapse around here from snow load. You REALLY don't want to have that happen to your dome. That brings up what was the real final issue. What happens if something goes wrong? Its not just like you wasted a bunch of money. Having that dome come down on top of a whole town? That would be a big mess indeed...
Basically if the concept is ever going anywhere someone needs to build one way out in the middle of nowhere and figure out the basic problems first. Winooski residents wisely decided that being guinea pigs maybe isn't such a great idea.
Re:No rain (Score:3, Insightful)
Birds would likely still live within the dome, and they would be able to perch ANYWHERE, so you wouldn't just be able to avoid parking under trees or lights.
I love this idea, but it's STOOOOOOPID (Score:3, Insightful)
-One punk with a gun decides to piss on everybody's day.
-Even if you manage to deal with the weight of snow issue, how does everybody feel about living under artificial lighting for a couple of months each year?
-The expenses of building such a thing would be astronomical. Before even taking into account the dome itself, just building an air-tight wall around the city would pose ridiculously complex (and expensive) engineering challenges. Just managing water, waste and air control for an entire square mile contained environment would require exotic technologies, or billions of dollars worth of scaled up existing technologies. I've seen cities fly billions of dollars over budget trying to do relatively simple things like bury an ugly highway running through the city, or prepare to host the Olympic games. (Or *cough* build domed stadiums.) And then you've got your yearly maintenance costs. Parts wear out and you'd need a dedicated staff whose job it is to manage this thing. I wonder if that would be comparable to a heating bill?
-And in the Summer time. . . Well, guess what? That nice greenhouse effect (if you solved the snow cover problem) which kept you warm all Winter doesn't go away. How did the inventors plan on keeping all the residents from baking?
No doubt, it's a super-awesome idea and every single one of these problems could be cleverly solved and even turned to advantage with brilliant engineering. But it wouldn't be cheap, and frankly, unless the exterior environment was downright toxic or otherwise horrible, it doesn't seem like a particularly necessary idea. If all you're worried about is the cold, then that can be dealt with by spending a fraction of the same budget on the admittedly un-sexy idea of retrofitting buildings with improved insulation and more efficient heating solutions.
And don't forget. . . With the state of corruption in the country, if the energy companies felt that a source of revenue was threatened, domed cities would be, if not outlawed, killed with red tape and bought-off votes. You know it's true.
But I have to admit, the child sci-fi geek in me would certainly love to see at least one domed city of Utopian wonder constructed in my lifetime!
-FL
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
At just one percent of glass, ETFE is described as 99 percent nothing.
Then why didn't they name it "Congress"?
Because unlike Congress ETFE is transparent.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:3, Insightful)
I still don't understand how this is considered to be a slam dunk when people will essentially be polluting in a closed space upon themselves.
Not to mention that issues of runoff + rain will affect other areas.
I don't get why people think they can live in a vacuum.
Cheaper solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Just cover all the streets with linear roofs
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
Your comment Gothmolly is ambiguous. So I should reply to both. As I am exactly the kind of engineer this sort of task requires.
On the surface it's good advice. Don't build something that can suffocate everyone who lives underneath it without some serious engineering.
On the other hand it's terrible advice. As an engineer, I want people who will share data (like the link from the poster) for everything they related thing they can find. I WANT them to share all their worries. As an engineer it's my job to prepare a list, and address each of them. There are lives at stake in these designs, and these worries should be addressed with math, not hubris.
The early history of powered flight is littered with the corpses of the brave. Perhaps some of them were uninterested in comments too...
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Rain? Insects? Birds? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:5, Insightful)
True. And it's the most obvious problem with a fairly simple solution. It's the not so obvious problems, like the effect of sealing in plants that are dependant upon migratory pollenators and sealing out predators that feast on insects. What's going to happen to the ladybug population, for example?
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:4, Insightful)
Precisely. The Town of Gilbert, in Arizona, has nearly 200,000 people. Some think the name is quaint, but the real reason it is still a town is that towns have different government structures than cities. Basically, it allows a small group of mostly Mormons to control the entire "city" without facing the same election process as a city.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:2, Insightful)
enough billions that you outbid everybody else in the entire country who wants some concrete.
Or, you know, concrete producers would respond to the increase in demand/prices by producing more concrete.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:3, Insightful)
Culturally, I'd put Cornwall and London much further apart than NY and Seattle. Then again, there's still truth in that old chestnut:
"In England 50 miles is a long way just as in America 50 years is a long time."
Re:Lessons From Biosphere II (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds like a very good experiment with useful results.
Re:Houston Has Similar Plans (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite remote area ? If you're in NY then Seattle is quite remote too.
And if you're in the South Shetland Isles then you're a long way from Vostok. But I don't live in Antarctica.
Cornwall is only about 300 miles from the English capital
Time for a day trip! You are welcome to be one of the many Americans who visit this country (or, indeed, Europe) every year and severely misjudge just how much stuff there is in a small area, and how long it will take you to travel between it. Allow 6 hours for driving from London to the middle of Cornwall.
Pretty much the only bit of England more than 300 miles from London is the west half of Cornwall (if my estimate from Google Maps is accurate). 50 million English people (plus millions of Welsh, French, Belgian and Dutch) live closer to London than the Cornish people. Doesn't that make Cornwall remote?
The rest of England has motorways (blue on the map [google.co.uk]). Cornwall doesn't.
Even more importantly, it's a long way from other population centres (not just London). Take a look at a population density map of England and Wales [geographyalltheway.com]. The nearest large settlements to Cornwall are Plymouth and Exeter. The other remote areas in the UK are in the north and East Anglia, but they all have large settlements not so far away (they're low density, whereas Cornwall is a long way away).