UAE to build mountain to encourage rainfall

[Logwyn]

Stormwind (Blizzard) should learn from this, the goddam park is still not rebuilt after 6 years.

Well the park... actually.... hmmmm

Wouldn't it me cheaper, more dependable, and cost less to just make a number of desalination plants and pipe infrastructure and get the water from the ocean. And make it usable. Then pipe it to where you need it?

[Rasulis]

I don't think they're going to build it out of concrete at all. It won't be a hollow core as that would just be a huge engineering problem that would be almost impossible to fix. I'd expect it to be much more similar to the huge dump piles mines have as anything else isn't within the remotest realms of possibility now.

I don't think you're grasping how huge of a project this is. 44k days using the output of the largest excavation in the world to build one mountain, of which you'd need a range of to actually effect the weather substantively.

The weather study, planning, feasibility and cost study alone will probably take a decade or more. Assuming they are serious and not just shooting from the hip. Engineering and logistic another decade. Bidding and picking the right company that can do the project will take time also. I doubt they will do it in house. I would say even if they want to do it, it will be another 20 to 30 years before they can start.

[Ripster42]

The weather study, planning, feasibility and cost study alone will probably take a decade or more. Assuming they are serious and not just shooting from the hip. Engineering and logistic another decade. Bidding and picking the right company that can do the project will take time also. I doubt they will do it in house. I would say even if they want to do it, it will be another 20 to 30 years before they can start.

It would be such a huge project that there wouldn't be anyway to do it not in-house. Again, that's 130 years to build one mountain using the output of the largest excavation in the world. You're going to need more than one mountain.

[Rasulis]

It would be such a huge project that there wouldn't be anyway to do it not in-house. Again, that's 130 years to build one mountain using the output of the largest excavation in the world. You're going to need more than one mountain.

I assume that would be one of the factor that they will consider during the feasibility and cost analysis stage. Based on the news article, that is where they are right now. The results of the study may well be that it is impractical to do.

[Sky High]

think of all the "cough slave cough" labor it'll take to build.

[Jakisuaki]

i'd be super scared of trying to alter climate to that degree.

oh the irony, it's beautiful

[Vanyali]

oh the irony, it's beautiful

let me guess: you're going to scream about how this invalidates climate change?

I'm talking about climate patterns - causing rain to fall where it otherwise would not, which changes air temps, which means it may not rain in other areas / may rain more. Climate is *incredibly* complex.

If you just want to scream about how "humans can't change climate" for political hackery, not interested.

[Yvaelle]

I've worked as a mining truck operator when I was in my teens / early twenties (30-100T).
Depending on the length of the haul road, it could be 3-20 minutes per trip.
Loading/unloading time combined can be under a minute per trip. So 5 trips per day is a baffling estimate.

Even in developed countries, mining trucks are often run either 12 or 24 hours per day. I guarantee you the Arab states would run 24/7/365, since the limitation to doing so is simply labour cost (overtime pay, oh wait, that doesn't exist there). Given the country, there probably aren't breaks - they'll likely do 8/8/8 shifts, and expect workers to eat on the drive (it's a surprisingly tranquil job, given the sheer enormity of machine - once you're used to it all - it's a lot of driving back/forth along an empty road without traffic (all going the same way in ring convoys, too far apart for bumper/bumper issues - since the previous vehicle is always ~30-60 seconds behind you for loading time).

Since where they choose to build the mountain is not too important, they should be able to position it near a granite deposit or the like: and then just strip mine a negative mountain immediately adjacent to it - that means short hauls of 3-30 minutes as the mine gets deeper / further from the mountain. If they did this, it would likely be hundreds of mining trucks, pulling from different sections of the strip mine simultaneously.

So lets use some of these assumptions. 15 minute hauls on average over the course of the construction, 4 (per hour) * 24 (hours per day) * 365 (days per year) * 200 (trucks) = 7,000,000 loads per year, or about 10 years to build a mountain.

Labour costs might also be entirely eliminated, since self-driving mining trucks have been a thing for awhile now - and this size of project would strongly encourage further investment in this direction. 10 years really isn't a long time for such a project.


Now, the much bigger question is how - structurally - do you build a mountain. I think you don't, I think you can't - I think if you pile a bunch of loose shit up you'll have a sand castle and the rain you want, will ruin your hard work (if the mountain doesn't just crumple under its own weight, which is probably the even more likely issue).

Instead, you go old school - you build a Pyramid, via slave labour, like the Pharaohs of old. You exalt your self-deification on Earth by building a pyramid to reach the gods. Big ass blocks would work better than loose material, and then you can more easily coat the material so it doesn't disintegrate with time.

[Paranoid Android]

wonder how many slaves will die building that

Exactly. Sure as shit not their citizens building the damn thing.

[Gheld]

Or like I explained you build it mostly out of foam.

[Rasulis]

Or like I explained you build it mostly out of foam.

As far as I know, closed-cell foam materials that approach the theoretical limits of isotropic stiffness is still very much in research stage. Although, in another 20 to 30 years, that may be a viable option.

[Gheld]

As far as I know, closed-cell foam materials that approach the theoretical limits of isotropic stiffness is still very much in research stage. Although, in another 20 to 30 years, that may be a viable option.

Even with existing foam.

The foam boulders are made of a series of interlocking geometric shapes which consist of a rigid shell filled with foam, and have interlocking exterior framework. So the shell limits the movement of individual particles within the foam. The foam is there to limit shearing forces on the framework and the framework redirects and redistributes load throughout the entire structure. So force applied anywhere on the foam mountain really has nowhere to go but through the framework and into the ground. And then you bury the foam mountain.

It seems complicated, but the end result is that each individual foam boulder requires far less energy to install than if they were piling up something like stone or concrete. The foam boulders could literally be manufactured anywhere, and then shipped by any means. And once you have a manufacturing template for all of the required shapes they become easy to manufacture.

[Malachi256]

I don't think you're grasping how huge of a project this is. 44k days using the output of the largest excavation in the world to build one mountain, of which you'd need a range of to actually effect the weather substantively.

Yeah I really hope no one is taking this seriously. It's gotta be some sort of PR scheme.

[Rasulis]

Even with existing foam.

The foam boulders are made of a series of interlocking geometric shapes which consist of a rigid shell filled with foam, and have interlocking exterior framework. So the shell limits the movement of individual particles within the foam. The foam is there to limit shearing forces on the framework and the framework redirects and redistributes load throughout the entire structure. So force applied anywhere on the foam mountain really has nowhere to go but through the framework and into the ground. And then you bury the foam mountain.

It seems complicated, but the end result is that each individual foam boulder requires far less energy to install than if they were piling up something like stone or concrete. The foam boulders could literally be manufactured anywhere, and then shipped by any means. And once you have a manufacturing template for all of the required shapes they become easy to manufacture.

Have they done any major projects using this technology?

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah I really hope no one is taking this seriously. It's gotta be some sort of PR scheme.

A lot of the projects that we do today were considered impossible 40 to 50 years ago. Engineers can be very creative.

[Ripster42]

Even with existing foam.

The foam boulders are made of a series of interlocking geometric shapes which consist of a rigid shell filled with foam, and have interlocking exterior framework. So the shell limits the movement of individual particles within the foam. The foam is there to limit shearing forces on the framework and the framework redirects and redistributes load throughout the entire structure. So force applied anywhere on the foam mountain really has nowhere to go but through the framework and into the ground. And then you bury the foam mountain.

It seems complicated, but the end result is that each individual foam boulder requires far less energy to install than if they were piling up something like stone or concrete. The foam boulders could literally be manufactured anywhere, and then shipped by any means. And once you have a manufacturing template for all of the required shapes they become easy to manufacture.

Where are you getting all that material? Seriously, the thought that you can manufacture forms to build a mountain is just stupid. It would be the work of decades just building the plants you would need to manufacture them. Manufacturing them anywhere but on site means transportation costs higher than production costs.

Seriously, it's like people don't understand the size of the structure you would need to affect rain patterns. All this napkin math was about building one mountain. You're going to need a line of them to actually affect the weather. Remember, UAE is at sea level. You're going to need a several thousand foot tall mountain to seriously affect the weather there, however many miles long it's going to be. All of the construction humans have undertaken to this point in history is about what my guess would be for the amount of construction involved in this idea. Again, the largest excavation in human history would take 130 years to excavate enough material for one mountain.

[Gheld]

Where are you getting all that material? Seriously, the thought that you can manufacture forms to build a mountain is just stupid. It would be the work of decades just building the plants you would need to manufacture them. Manufacturing them anywhere but on site means transportation costs higher than production costs.

Seriously, it's like people don't understand the size of the structure you would need to affect rain patterns. All this napkin math was about building one mountain. You're going to need a line of them to actually affect the weather. Remember, UAE is at sea level. You're going to need a several thousand foot tall mountain to seriously affect the weather there, however many miles long it's going to be. All of the construction humans have undertaken to this point in history is about what my guess would be for the amount of construction involved in this idea. Again, the largest excavation in human history would take 130 years to excavate enough material for one mountain.

I know it's huge. I've acknowledged that given UAE's latitude it would probably have to be about 8000-9000 feet tall at a bare minimum, and hundreds of miles wide. But I don't think it's impossible. As crazy as it sounds, I think it's doable, and could potentially be done with less than a decade of work.

EDIT: And also because it's only there for the rainfall purposes, and not necessarily to carry the aesthetic of a natural mountain you can probably make it more wall-like than mountain-like.

[Rasulis]

Stop taking the discussion so seriously. Right now UAE is only asking for a proposal to do the feasibility study. Nothing more and nothing less. We are talking about very preliminary stage now.

[Ripster42]

I know it's huge. I've acknowledged that given UAE's latitude it would probably have to be about 8000-9000 feet tall at a bare minimum, and hundreds of miles wide. But I don't think it's impossible. As crazy as it sounds, I think it's doable, and could potentially be done with less than a decade of work.

EDIT: And also because it's only there for the rainfall purposes, and not necessarily to carry the aesthetic of a natural mountain you can probably make it more wall-like than mountain-like.

It's not impossible in the same sense that it's not technically impossible to, you know what, there is literally no comparison. I was going to say something like, build a colony on mars, but even that is way easier and way less expensive, even including all the money it took to develop rockets since their invention, and, frankly, all the money spent developing chemistry, biology, and physics (this might be hyperbole, but I wouldn't count on it). Saying you acknowledge something is huge doesn't mean you actually understand what a huge undertaking something is. You're literally talking about moving hundreds of cubic miles of earth.

[Gheld]

It's not impossible in the same sense that it's not technically impossible to, you know what, there is literally no comparison. I was going to say something like, build a colony on mars, but even that is way easier and way less expensive, even including all the money it took to develop rockets since their invention, and, frankly, all the money spent developing chemistry, biology, and physics (this might be hyperbole, but I wouldn't count on it). Saying you acknowledge something is huge doesn't mean you actually understand what a huge undertaking something is. You're literally talking about moving hundreds of cubic miles of earth.

Oh I know. Even with my crackpot foam core idea, it's going to take a lot of earth to bury it in the end to finalize the project. But don't forget, this is the UAE, which I'm pretty sure is the richest country on earth. They build islands, and have a 163 story building. All they gotta do is up their game by 2 orders of magnitude.

[Underverse]

This is actually really cool. I'm all for it. Most of that rain would probably be falling in the ocean anyway.