Inverted skyscraper freezes the ocean
The Arctic ice pack is shrinking. According to NASA, it has shrunk 13.1% per decade since 1981. This melting speeds up global warming and makes climate change even worse. Chinese architects have suggested the idea of a floating underwater ‘skyscraper’ that freezes water to restore the world’s shrinking ice caps.
First the skyscraper would remove some of the salt in the ocean water. Salt lowers the freezing point of water – which is why roads are salted in the winter in cold countries. This works because water dissolves salt (NaCl) into sodium ions and chlorine ions, making it harder for the water molecules to form ice crystals. By lowering the salt content of the water via the process of osmosis, the ocean water will more easily freeze.
Then in a process of inverted osmosis, pressurised water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane that allows water molecules to pass, but not salts and organic substances. This process would require electricity, which could be provided by solar cells and a wind turbine on the surface near the skyscraper’s top.
The water is then frozen into hexagonal ice lumps and combined at the surface by underwater robots working to restore the Arctic ice caps.
Inverted osmosis plants already exist and are used on a large scale in desalination plants (including the plant in Sydney) to remove salt and impurities from ocean water to providing water for drinking or for agricultural irrigation in dry regions of the world.
Top includes control room and wind turbine 1
The skyscraper’s top rises 120 metres above the water and is equipped with a wind turbine. The glass of the dome over the control room is lined with solar cells. Under the water there are several floors with observatory and labs.
Freezing moulds produce 5-metre-thick ice floes
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The filtered and desalinated ocean water from the inverted osmosis plant is frozen into ice floes in hexagonal moulds. The floes are placed in 5-metre-thick layers and once completed, underwater robots combine them.
Long tentacles keep animals at bay
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Illuminated tentacles reach 500 metres down under the water to keep fish and other animals away. Via a long central tube, ocean water is sucked upwards in the skyscraper and filtered before it continues into the inverted osmosis plant.