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this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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The concept is fascinating, but what I'm most curious about is how they achieve that longevity in seawater. Benthic life really loves to settle and build on hard surfaces.
Every time I see these “We’ll do X in/around the ocean” projects I think, “These people have not spent a lot of time near the ocean.”
There are 2000 year old Roman concrete piers that are still just hanging out in sea water. So it's possible if you find the right mix.
The concrete isn’t the problem. Like mentioned above, the sealife growth is. Also, metal and moving mechanicals are savaged by seawater (and the sealife growth). Keeping things working on the surface of the water is difficult and expensive. Water pressure makes that even worse. Maintenance requires divers which are likewise very expensive.
Really good points. I was only thinking of the structure of the concrete... Sea life growth is a whole other ball game!
Benthic Life needs to be band/album/movie title.
Unfortunately, you can't see BENTHIC live.
They don't have a tour planned.
https://lifeforcerecords.com/archives/artists/benthic/
Of course they’re not touring. They’re sessile.
💀
Narrated by Sir Attenborough.
I think the sea has a huge potential of energy production that is totally untapped because of that.
There are tons of ways to produce energy with sea water but as soon as you put any moving parts in water it gets corroded and covered with benthic life (I've learned a word today). Every project of ocean energy production dies because of that.
Would it particularly affect the performance if the sphere ends up covered in barnacles or coral? It's what's inside that matters (it's just a big hollow tank).
If you fill and empty with raw seawater on the regular then you will have plenty of opportunity for growth on the inside and a constant supply of new water with fresh nutrients meaning everything is going to want to grow into the water inlet and clog it.
Maybe they will sink a giant bladder of sterile water together with the hollow sphere, and then figure out a way to make the bladder not fail for 20 years?
I envision issues with turbulent flow over surfaces that work best with laminar flow. It sounds like a turbine or pump system is used for these spheres.
Decoy spheres.
I would imagine it wouldn't matter how many barnacles and stuff are on it. That's the outside. Everything important is inside, I'm assuming the intake water will be screened or filtered in some way.
Most benthic life (by number) start as tiny, motile creatures. Screens would reduce head pressure and require maintenance. Barnacles of all kinds, as an example critter, settle on everything to which they can adhere. I'm guessing the engineers considered these complications since there have been past power project failures because of sea life. I wish the article went into those mitigations. If it's somehow a non-issue by nature of the design, my curiosity is even more piqued.