Antarctic colony (loveable bunch of eccentrics method), revised.

Dorozhand

Banned
In September, 1976, an American multi-millionaire adventurer with experience exploring the polar regions and climbing in the Himalayas, along with a group of other male and female like-minded adventurers and explorers, and some refugees volunteering to tag along (totalling about 60 people), sets out from Argentina on a large private ship, bound for Antarctica.

The group of colonists anchor the ship on a low-ice portion of the coast near the Ross Ice Shelf and treks inland, with the help of pack-animals, the supplies of the colony. They arrive at the Onyx River, about midway between Wright Galcier and Lake Vanda. Carrying:

-The ingrediants for making bricks of concrete, to be poured with insulating hemp fibers, and tools for increasing the supply of materials by carving the local stone into bricks.
-The ingredients for mortar.
-Large supplies of insulating clothing.
-Food supplies to last for one year.
-Sheep and goats to provide food, milk and (from the sheep) wool to make more insulation and warm clothing.
-A large supply of seeds, and the materials with which to build several greenhouses.
-Fuel (mostly Natural Gas and Kerosene) to last for one year.
-Vertical Axis Wind Turbines to be attached to the sides of buildings and supplement power supply.
-Photovoltaic Cells to be affixed to the roofs of buildings.
-Stirling Engines for use in Concentrated Solar Power, and power generation in winter, fueled by biomass specially grown in the greenhouses, human and animal waste, and algal blooms harvested from the Onyx River in the summer.
-Materials for building a small dam on the Onyx.
-Cold water crabs and fish to experiment with filling the reservoir created by the dam.
-Batteries for storage of elecricity during winter.
-Sunlamps with which to grow some plants during winter to supplement livestock feed.
-Large stores of medical supplies to last for an indefinate time.

Could this kind of preparation have a shot at establishing a self-sustaining colony?
 
Stirling Engine development in the '70s had no commercial success but laid basis for later development. Too soon for integration with solar power systems.
Battery tech available would be lead-zinc with limited number of charge cycles and poor energy density by contemporary standards.
Heavy, bulky suckers, too.
I'll relent a little in my skepticism of antarctic windmills:
http://cfurse.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/windmills-in-antarctica-and-other-assorted-gadgets/
Perhaps your multi-millionaire sugar daddy could lay out the infrastructure for a colony over a period of years prior to colonization. Maybe he initiates small-scale coal production over the same period of time.
 
It's more realistic than your 1948 proposal.

But... if one major system dies during winter then they're in big trouble. Two and they're doomed. And they're in one of the toughest environments on earth.
 
Yeppers I did. They have oodles of supplies, but no long term prospects. Essentially, it will take more 'man hours' to maintain their hypothetical settlement than there are people to do it. So the colony starts to degenerate to subsistence impoverishment and from there the writing is on the wall.

You've got ample scope for 'lord of the flies' type scenarios. A minority, for instance, monopolizing the weapons and working the others to death to build them a sustainable micro-colony. Or maybe some truly apocolyptic forms of degeneration.

PS: I'm sorry I've peed in your corn flakes.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Mr. Multi-millionaire and his cohort make year-to-year trips to the Onyx to set up all the buildings and power-supply mechanisms.
Photovotaic Cells on the roofs, VAWT's on the sides of buildings and small anemometer-esque devices connected to small electromagnets at close intervals on the edges of the roofs, covered in metal casings until necessary.
They survey the Olympus mountains and find coal deposits. They map out routes to the major ones, and small horizontal shafts are blasted into the sides of the mountains with explosives for use in small-scale coal mining during the summer months with the aid of pack-animals and motor vehicles. Small checkpoints along the routes are built, to be powered by wind and solar. Over the course of a few years, they build up a sizable stockpile of coal at the colony site.
They make plans to collect a small population of penguins for use as food and, more importantly, for fat and oil to be used as fuel. As well as a few seals to fill the dammed Onyx's reservoir for the same purpose.
This, along with the hyrdroelectric and solar in summer, and biomass (waste, specially grown plants, algal blooms) might be able to bring in a sufficiant power supply in winter.
 
You'd need a freaking huge ship, and it needs to make the trip at least a dozen times. Also, of course, you need to employ hundreds of workers... Forget PV-cells. Antarctica is windy, but wind power is never reliable on its own.

Geothermal power is the only option, barring nuclear.
Growing food under lamps take a colossal amount of energy, perhaps ten kilowatts per person, so the power requirements are huge.

A billionaire might afford it, but it is nothing a lovable bunch of eccentrics can do.
 

Dorozhand

Banned
Yeppers I did. They have oodles of supplies, but no long term prospects. Essentially, it will take more 'man hours' to maintain their hypothetical settlement than there are people to do it. So the colony starts to degenerate to subsistence impoverishment and from there the writing is on the wall.

You've got ample scope for 'lord of the flies' type scenarios. A minority, for instance, monopolizing the weapons and working the others to death to build them a sustainable micro-colony. Or maybe some truly apocolyptic forms of degeneration.

PS: I'm sorry I've peed in your corn flakes.

That's a good point. I think, however, that, given time to coast on some of the initial resources to buffer from early mistakes, and time to build up the planned infrastructure of local resource gathering, they could get it so that the whole thing is a well-oiled machine by the time those resources did run out.
Wind would require only light maintainance, photovoltaic practically none. Greenhouse harvesting is a straightforward and easily-planned process
that can be applied to aid a myriad of other problems by stockpiling livestock feed for the winter.
Livestock would require work, but not something that 60 people couldn't handle, and its benefits are numerous, from food and milk production (eggs too, in the cases of chicken and penguins), to biomass fuel, and not to mention its self-regeneration.
The rest of the work would be involved in building the dam and mining coal. These things can also be easily planned.
 
As a amateur historian of Antarctic studies , Id say this one is a dead end in most scenarios. Lets go through this one at a time.

Lets start with energy. Various options have been explored here ranging from Stirling engines to coal powered generators. Regardless of their efficiency given 70s technology (which pretty much kicks out Wind , solar and Stirling power) , all will suffer due to the weather , isolation and overall small size of the colony. Coal is a bulk fuel , and electricity production is notoriously inefficient on a small scale. Even if your millionaire friend was willing to open up a open cast mine to dig for it , you'd need trucks , explosives , and a large workforce to obtain it on the needed scale. None of these are available in Antarctica. Even if they were , pitch darkness and temperatures of -50 would stop mining for most of the year. Hydroelectricity is out (The onyx river is too small , and freezes solid in winter) , and geothermal would require a multi-million dollar plant and a convenient hot spring , neither of which are likely to be conveniently close. Bottom line? The colony has no realistic hope of being energy independent unless they get a nuclear reactor , and even then a constant stream of crucial parts would be needed on a yearly basis. Still , several Arctic communities in Russia and Alaska were equipped with small scale nukes designed for minimal maintainance , and as well as supplying power they provided copious amounts of hot water and steam for heating.

Next up , food. In the initial post you suggested bringing livestock and heated greenhouses for cereal crops. Lets start with the stock. What do livestock eat? Grasses of course. What grasses exist in Antarctica? answer: practically none. What scrabbley ground cover does exist is exceptionally fragile and takes centuries to re-grow. Livestock would destroy it in days , and then starve. Even if by some miracle they survived the summer weeks (and the season is a matter of weeks) they would need to be brought inside for 10-11 months of the year due to the freezing temperatures outside , and fed using stored grain. Talking of grain , to sustain an average human requires more than an acre of crop. To sustain a population of 60 would need a considerable hinterland , several dozen acres. Unless our beneficent sponsor is willing to bring in hundreds of workers to blast large scale underground chambers , and then heat them with steam , cereal crops are out. If the settlers were to switch to a largely vegetable-based diet then hydroponic farming could potentially be used , but this would still be very energy intensive and rely on regular supplies of complicated equipment only available from the outside.

Lastly , finance. As we've already found survival in this environment is expensive ,and long term settlement is reliant on continued patronage from the outside. Though we can assume that our Millionaire is willing to pay for the start up costs (though , given the scale of construction , this is looking more like the preserve of the Billionaire) , the future of the settlement will be dependent upon finding a product that it can sell. In terms of traditional goods there is damm near nothing. Though Antarctica potentially hosts large deposits of valuable minerals , there are none that cannot be found elsewhere and exploited at a fraction of the cost of building mines and infrastructure in this frigid land. The cost of extracting even gold , oil or Uranium is vastly outweighed by the cost of getting it to a market. That leaves artificial markets. As the good people at Space X will tell you , wherever man goes there are people there to steal their wallet. The very remoteness and isolation of this colony could be a potential asset. In an age of rising costs many nations are looking to shed their expensive scientific outposts in Antarctica , perhaps the colonists could sub-contract bench space to the scientists in return for government money. Eco-Tourism too is an increasingly lucrative business and tens of thousands of people a year skirt the edges of the frozen continent for a glimpse of its beauty. Many would pay handsomely to take a short stay in solitude and quiet. Finally , there are always some people who seek the forgotten corners of the world to either hide their persons or their activities. Uniquely, the Antarctic Treaty holds sovereignty claims in Abeyance , meaning that the rule of law here is unclear. If one was willing to turn the other cheek then this legal grey zone could be used to house quasi-legal activities for profit. The simplest would be to rent out banks of servers (which could be operated very cheaply in such a cool environment) to organisations engaging in nefarious on-line activities. Gambling , political activism , porn rings , that sort of thing.

So, summary. To set up this colony would require an insane amount of money and far more effort than previously imagined. It is certainly far more than a a couple of dozen folks with wagons and pack mules could manage. Theyd freeze to death within weeks. Even if the back could afford to shell out for a nuclear reactor , underground cities and hydroponic farms they would need to find a way to pay for the constant stream of supplies needed to keep the enterprise afloat. And this is how Megadownload.com came to own Antarctica :D
 
What about the Antarctic Treaty System? Under its terms, if I understand them correctly, signatory nations will post no new claims and are required to discourage others from doing so. That's going to be a serious issue for sixty "colonists" and their crackpot leader. Well, "eccentric" leader at least. :)
 
Just spitballing here, but what about if some sort of resource (Oil, Rare Materials, Gems), etc, are found in Antarctica?

There's got to be a tipping point in which building a town sized base in spite of maintenance costs has to be worthwhile. So, maybe the original idea needs to be reflavored into some sort of private enterprise that has quietly discovered a trove of material wealth, and plans to finance operations by selling this resource at market prices.

There is a treaty banning exploration, sure, but suppose that said corporation is able to make a deal with the Argentine government.

So perhaps its possible to build an Antarctic Dawson City; Like Dawson City, its probably going nearly disappear when the resources are gone, but perhaps it could survive for a few decades.
 
What about the Antarctic Treaty System? Under its terms, if I understand them correctly, signatory nations will post no new claims and are required to discourage others from doing so. That's going to be a serious issue for sixty "colonists" and their crackpot leader. Well, "eccentric" leader at least. :)

this Treaty is only for Nation (so far i know), not for private "multi-millionaire" adventurer

back to major problem for this Colony, next to energy there also another thing: Export
you need something in Antarctic what you could exploit and sell to world market
if they find a hole in Antarctic Treaty, they could exploit Antarctic recourses like coal, oil or gas. if Antarctic Treaty is solid, then only exploit the sea: Fishing for fish, whale, krill
and there is a renewable raw material, who some countries would pay it weight in gold: FRESH WATER in ice form aka Ice berg!

in 1970s were allot ideas to transport icebergs from Antarctica to countries like Saudi Arabia or to city of Los Angeles, New York, Tokio to solve there need for water.
(it seem that icebergs from Antarctica are more stable as Greenland or Alaska icebergs, who have tendency to keel over)
some crazy ideas like warping the iceberg in styrofoam and tug it by boats or even install jet engine on iceberg.
links:
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2011/05/moving-ice.cfm
http://phys.org/news/2011-08-simulation-iceberg-drought-areas.html
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2012/finalwebsite/solution/glaciers.shtml
 
this Treaty is only for Nation (so far i know), not for private "multi-millionaire" adventurer

But the treaty system doesn't just require signatory nations to make no claims, it requires them to oppose claims made by anyone, nation or individual. And even if, as I believe it does, the treaty bans military activity, all the signatories have to to is blockade the colony and freeze (no pun intended) any of its overseas assets. Colony withers and dies.
 
Here Articles of the Antarctic Treaty:
1 – The area to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
2 – Freedom of scientific investigations and cooperation shall continue;
3 – Free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
6 – Includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves but not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
7 – Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations,
and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
8 – Allows for jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
9 – Frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
10 – All treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
11 – All disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;
12, 13, 14 – Deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations.

on Article 5. there allot radioactive waste left in Antarctic, by allot of expedition and in abandon base :rolleyes:

on Loop holes in the Treaty
not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south,
so Fishing and transport of Icebergs are legal
Japan (who sign the Treaty) whalers ignore this on illegal whale hunting

only 50 nation have sign the Antarctic Treaty, other not like: Indonesia, Ireland, Island, Libya, Mexico, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, sri Lanka, Thailand.
so in those counties our private "multi-millionaire" adventurer could be born or made it fortune, here Island would be ideal.
 
Kind of shows just how difficult long duration spaceflight and colonizing marginal other worlds will prove to be...

Oh yes. In the planetary science community Mars is sometimes referred to (Jokingly) as "Antarctica without air". Even the relatively benign conditions found there (marginal temperatures , air pressure and gravity) , Human colonisation is going to be extremely difficult. At the same time it has been suggested that space exploration is slightly easier in the sense that , having had to travel through the interplanetary vacume you will arrive at the destination with a vehicle capable of providing long term shelter and power. Doest make it any more economic unfortunately , unless you happen to figure out a cheap form of asteroid mining.

Just spitballing here, but what about if some sort of resource (Oil, Rare Materials, Gems), etc, are found in Antarctica?

As I pointed out in my previous post , that logic is very difficult to apply to Antarctica due to logistics. Though the price of commodities change ,the costs of operating in Antarctica are likely to remain astronomical for the near future , meaning that the resulting product will be uneconomic compared to similar goods sourced from more equitable climates. Simply put , one has to pay more for Antarctic gold than it is actually worth.

this Treaty is only for Nation (so far i know), not for private "multi-millionaire" adventurer

back to major problem for this Colony, next to energy there also another thing: Export
you need something in Antarctic what you could exploit and sell to world market
if they find a hole in Antarctic Treaty, they could exploit Antarctic recourses like coal, oil or gas. if Antarctic Treaty is solid, then only exploit the sea: Fishing for fish, whale, krill
and there is a renewable raw material, who some countries would pay it weight in gold: FRESH WATER in ice form aka Ice berg!

in 1970s were allot ideas to transport icebergs from Antarctica to countries like Saudi Arabia or to city of Los Angeles, New York, Tokio to solve there need for water.
(it seem that icebergs from Antarctica are more stable as Greenland or Alaska icebergs, who have tendency to keel over)
some crazy ideas like warping the iceberg in styrofoam and tug it by boats or even install jet engine on iceberg.
links:
http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2011/05/moving-ice.cfm
http://phys.org/news/2011-08-simulation-iceberg-drought-areas.html
http://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2012/finalwebsite/solution/glaciers.shtml

Interesting links , but do you see the common factor in them? They were all pants-droppingly crazy and nobody with even a shred of common sense (or a dollar to their name) would go near these schemes. Lets look at these resources one at a time.

1. Coal: Coal is by far the most abundant fossil fuel known to man. Conservative estimates suggest that proven sources (ie. those already being exploited) are sufficient for more than 150 years of continued use at reasonable rates of growth. Even then new discoveries are made each year and it is extremely unlikely that we will ever get to the point at which the value of coal reaches a point at which Antarctic exploitation becomes profitable. It is more likely that coal-fueled global warming will melt the ice-cap first , which is a paradox that is making my head spin a little here so ill move on.

2. Oil & Gas: Since the 1970s the cost of Oil has risen gradually each year , and its reputation as "Black gold" is well deserved. However even though we are currently faced with a global peak in Oil production it is still not a viable option to drill in Antarctica. Experience of production in Alaska and the Siberian Arctic has shown that though possible Cold-conditions make it far more expensive to extract and heavily reliant on extensive infrastructure networks. The Barrow field for example is only made viable by the presence of the Trans-Alaska highway and pipeline that transfers the crude to a warm-water port. There is no such infrastructure available in Antarctica , and it is highly debatable as to whether one is even feasible. Either way it remains more profitable to exploit known reserves in difficult but predictable locations (Such as deep sea Drilling) , or to explore alternative energy sources (Such as bio-fuels , Shale oil or renewable energy)

3.Whale , Krill & fishing in General: As Japan has shown , you really don't actually need to be based in Antarctica to take advantage of the Continents fish stocks. Indeed , given that most potential harbours would be frozen for much of the year the advantage really is with northern fishing fleets. Moreover the market for the fish (which is clearly a perishable product) is...in the north. There is no logic to colonising Antarctica for its fish.

4. Water & Ice: Dubai never took up the scheme to tow Iceburgs for drinking water. Know what they did instead? They got a desalanisation plant. Other cities and water-starved areas also chose to either exploit new sources at considerable cost or to install new technologies to improve efficiency. Fact of the matter is , water (especially in ice form) is an exceptionally bulk cargo and even an iceberg doesn't contain that much water when compared to the needs of a city like New York. Its end value certainly doesn't compare to the shipping cost when you realise they'd need one a week. Besides , any growing city knows that the true value of a good water supply is security. If the difference between prosperity and drought is whether this weeks shipment is late I suspect a lot of people would go elsewhere

Also , icebergs with wings. Lol. I swear I saw that in a cartoon once.

But the treaty system doesn't just require signatory nations to make no claims, it requires them to oppose claims made by anyone, nation or individual. And even if, as I believe it does, the treaty bans military activity, all the signatories have to to is blockade the colony and freeze (no pun intended) any of its overseas assets. Colony withers and dies.

Here Articles of the Antarctic Treaty:
1 – The area to be used for peaceful purposes only; military activity, such as weapons testing, is prohibited but military personnel and equipment may be used for scientific research or any other peaceful purpose;
2 – Freedom of scientific investigations and cooperation shall continue;
3 – Free exchange of information and personnel in cooperation with the United Nations and other international agencies;
4 – The treaty does not recognize, dispute, nor establish territorial sovereignty claims; no new claims shall be asserted while the treaty is in force;
5 – The treaty prohibits nuclear explosions or disposal of radioactive wastes;
6 – Includes under the treaty all land and ice shelves but not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south;
7 – Treaty-state observers have free access, including aerial observation, to any area and may inspect all stations, installations,
and equipment; advance notice of all activities and of the introduction of military personnel must be given;
8 – Allows for jurisdiction over observers and scientists by their own states;
9 – Frequent consultative meetings take place among member nations;
10 – All treaty states will discourage activities by any country in Antarctica that are contrary to the treaty;
11 – All disputes to be settled peacefully by the parties concerned or, ultimately, by the International Court of Justice;
12, 13, 14 – Deal with upholding, interpreting, and amending the treaty among involved nations.

on Article 5. there allot radioactive waste left in Antarctic, by allot of expedition and in abandon base :rolleyes:

on Loop holes in the Treaty
not the surrounding waters south of 60 degrees 00 minutes south,
so Fishing and transport of Icebergs are legal
Japan (who sign the Treaty) whalers ignore this on illegal whale hunting

only 50 nation have sign the Antarctic Treaty, other not like: Indonesia, Ireland, Island, Libya, Mexico, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, sri Lanka, Thailand.
so in those counties our private "multi-millionaire" adventurer could be born or made it fortune, here Island would be ideal.

You are correct to say that there are loop holes in the treaty , and it is even more accurate to point out that many nations have not signed it. But I think you are being overly optimistic here. The reason that every square inch of the Earths habitable surface is claimed and administered by states is because the human race has long since discovered that sovereignty equals power and money. The governments of the world and the Nation states that generate them are prone to compete for even the smallest source of income or advantage , and will only agree to dismiss said assets when it is recognised mutually that there is no possible way that anyone could benefit from them. It is for this reason that Antarctica and "Outer Space" are both considered stateless by treaty.

Antarctica inst "Free" because of idealism , its because the powers that be couldn't see a use for it.

Where does this interpretation fit into the idea of a colony? Well , the simple fact of the matter is that if any potential settlement/mine/corporation were to make a success of this endeavour despite all of the logical odds then it is extremely likely one state or another would move to obtain a piece of that action. If a company is registered in a non treaty country then it is even more likely that they would try to obtain taxes based on Antarctic resources. Those with pre-existing claims to the continent would likely call for an end to the treaty and seek to take their own share. Further extrapolating the situation one has to remember that all states are backed by the potential (real or illusionary) of force. There are very few people that can hope to Marshall the resources needed to fight the military power of a sovereign state , especially when said powers are likely to be the most influential on the planet. Once upon a time it was possible to escape this vicious circle by emigrating to a land beyond their reach , to a place that was uneconomic for the state to exploit. Thus , Ironicaly , if one were to flee government control and make Antarctica economic , it would merely attract their attention to the fact that somebody is try to cheat.
 
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