Better Tomorrow Challenges

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Fishing: First to develop an ocean pump that can pull water up from at least 200 meters, have...

...at least a 10-meter diameter, and, as peer-reviewed computer simulations show, it can survive in the open ocean for at least ten years without failing. The ocean pump must only use the mechanical power of ocean waves to pump up the deep water by way of a flap valve at the bottom of the pump's cylinder. The bottom flap valves must be designed in such a way that they enable deep sea life to escape or prevent them from entering the mouth of the cylinder, such as placing a screen over the end and moving the flap valve a little further up into the cylinder so it doesn't hit and damage the screen. [Why this is an agricultural challenge is because deep sea water is rich in nutrients and can thus feed solar-powered algae at the surface, which small plankton then feed upon. Krill then feed on the plankton ... and then small fish (e.g., sardines) feed on the krill ... and then bigger fish (e.g, cod) feed on small fish ... and then still bigger fish (e.g., tuna) feed on the larger fish. And then fishermen catch all of these fishes for our dinner plates. Given this, think of ocean pumps as fertilizer machines of the sea. The more they pump up deep sea water, the more fish there will be to harvest.

A side benefit of such ocean pumps will be how it cools the surface temperature of the ocean and thus can also reduce the frequency and intensity of hurricanes and typhoons (they are both the same thing but simply different words used by different parts of the world ... hurricanes happen in the Caribbean and typhoons happen in the Pacific). The ocean pumps can even reduce the intensity of an approaching hurricane by way of it encountering the ocean pump's cooler surface water and thus Caribbean islands would benefit from ocean pumps if they only put them off their eastern coastlines. And once they start adding such pumps offshore, they then naturally start putting them further and further east of their island as the closer locations are filled up and this will help weaken future hurricanes that come their way. In fact, don't be surprised if Caribbean nations require all ocean pumps in their territorial waters to be first put on their eastern side before any other side for just this reason. And for those Caribbean islands whose ocean currents flow westward, an added benefit of this "east side first" policy is the increase in fishing within the rest of their territorial waters, which such ocean pumps will cause. So such "east side first" ocean pumps will be good for both reducing the intensity of oncoming hurricanes AND increasing fishing in their waters.]

To win this challenge, the ocean pump must be designed to be a low-tech mechanism that low-skill labor can make. Its manufacturing process must use old tires and/or recycled plastics for the base material of its main cylinder structure. The process must also be of an assembly line fashion for relatively high-volume production (at least 80 ocean pumps made in an eight-hour workday). The transport ships must be able to EACH take on an entire eight-hour day's production on board their ships. [This way in the initial stages two ships can handle the factory's production. One being loaded and the other transporting them to their sea destination and planting them there. Eventually as distances between the factory and available ocean space for the ocean pumps becomes further apart, more ships will be needed so one ship is always being loaded and the others are transporting ocean pumps to their sea destinations.]

The factories must also have a robotic submersible which they use to do regular inspections of all the ocean pumps they have put out to sea. [The robo-sub would be dropped into the top of the ocean pump and then sink to its bottom.] It must be equipped with powerful lights to illuminate its descent so its human operators can do a visual inspection of the ocean pump's entire length. The robo-sub must be able to do all common "easy" repairs. All unusual and/or "hard" repairs will result in the ocean pump being pulled up out of the sea and either repaired on the ship, taken to the factory for repair, or recycled. If an ocean pump is taken into the factory or recycled, the inspection ship has a replacement ocean pump of the same length which it will put in place of the one it is removing. If the ocean pump can be repaired, it will then be loaded onto one of the transport ships for new ocean pumps and planted by it with the other new pumps in a different location than its original one.

Future Challenges: Solely funded with membership dues (and not any government funding), first fishermen's association in the following regions to fund a continuous factory of ocean pumps in a port in their region with at least two ships loading and transporting the ocean pumps to destinations in their region which are outside of sea lanes:

1) Caribbean Sea.

2) West coast of Africa. [This is where Caribbean hurricanes are born for which the ocean pumps can eliminate or at least reduce their intensity.]

3) Northwest Pacific Basin. [The birthplace of Pacific typhoons that hit the Philippines, Japan, and China.]

First continuous ocean pump factory to:

4) Operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.

First continuous ocean pump factory to regularly produce and place in the ocean everyday:

5) 160 ocean pumps.

6) 320 ocean pumps.

7) 640 ocean pumps.

8) 1,000 ocean pumps.

9) 2,000 ocean pumps.

10) 5,000 ocean pumps.

11) 10,000 ocean pumps.

First continuous ocean pump factory to regularly produce and place in the ocean everyday ocean pumps which pull up water from:

12) 500 meters. [The deeper the ocean pumps pull up water, the more nutrient rich the waters they will pull up ... and thus the more algae will be spurred to grow ... and thus the more plankton will feed on the algae and reproduce ... and thus the more krill will feed on the plankton and reproduce ... and thus the more small fish will feed on the krill and reproduce ... and the more bigger fish will feed on the smaller fish and reproduce ... and thus the more fish fishermen can harvest. Also the colder the water will be and thus the more these deeper ocean pumps will cool the surface water.]

13) 750 meters. [Another aspect to keep in mind is that these deeper ocean pumps will follow the shallower ocean pumps because the shallower ocean pumps (being shorter in length) will be cheaper to produce and can be located nearer coastlines, which are usually shallower in depth than the ocean bottoms of "open sea" waters. Thus as an ocean pump factory fills up all the locations near coastlines with ocean pumps, they should increase the length of their ocean pumps to take advantage of the deeper waters that the further-out sea locations for future ocean pumps can tap.]

14) 1,000 meters.

15) 2,000 meters.

16) 3,000 meters.

17) 4,000 meters.

18) 5,000 meters.

19) 6,000 meters.

20) 7,000 meters.

21) 8,000 meters. [These ocean pumps can then reach down into the Puerto Rico Trench, which is the deepest part of the Atlantic Ocean.]

First Caribbean radio talk show host to champion this challenge and get their island nation to build an ocean pump factory and then, off of their island nation's east coast, get their island to be the first to install:

22) ONE ocean pump (as outlined in the original challenge).

23) 10 ocean pumps.

24) 100 ocean pumps.

25) 1,000 ocean pumps.

26) 10,000 ocean pumps.

First Caribbean talk show host to:

27) Ride in a submarine all the way down an ocean pump that is off their country's east coast and come back up outside of the pump. To win this future challenge, at least one camera operator must film the host within the sub and a second submarine must carry at least another camera operator who can clearly visually record the host's submarine and its entire descent and surfacing. The descent in real time must be uploaded to YouTube from when at least when the host steps off the ship and onto the submarine to when the host steps off of the submarine and onto the ship. The submarine used must have a glass observation bubble where the host sits and can be clearly seen and recorded by the camera operator in the other sub. The host's sub must be hooked up to a trailing wire to be able to communicate with the ship on the surface and to do the entire dive live over their radio station and the Internet. A separate wire sunk on the outside of the ocean pump can be used to connect the host's sub to the ship so there is no problem of towing the first wire around the bottom of the ocean pump. The flap valve on the bottom of the ocean pump must be disabled for the entire dive so the subs are not pushed around as they descend and can exit the bottom. However, the flap valve must be enabled once the subs are out and be video recorded working again before the host's sub can begin resurfacing.

28) Dive off of a helicopter into the mouth of an ocean pump from a height of at least 50 feet. The dive must be filmed both from the helicopter, from a boat next to the mouth of the ocean pump, and by an underwater camera operator who is lower than the host is likely to dive into the water. The two above-surface videos must be shown on a split screen as the host makes the dive and then once he hits the water a third split screen is added to show the host plunging deep into the water and surfacing. To win this future challenge, the host must do the dive live on her/his radio station ... talking on the radio from at least the moment the helicopter takes off to a sound tech recording her/his voice as the host jumps out of the helicopter to the rescue boat recording her/him talking as it approaches her/him in the water ... and then the entire video must be then uploaded to YouTube. The flap valve on the bottom of the ocean pump cannot be disabled for the dive.

Discussion:
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