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i've been reading about seafloor mining for years.
much of the proposed commercial interest in mining centers
on the ocean floor collection of dispersed small spheres
called manganese nodules.
these nodules are dense concentrated highly valuable ore,
but dispersed over massive areas of ocean.
how do you collect these most efficiently with the smallest
expenditure of energy?
i propose a model where a 'mothership' sits on the ocean
floor and runs and 'elevator' conveyor belt to the surface to
pull up the aggregated collected nodules .
the issue here is , how do you collect all the nodules over
dispersed areas? you need highly efficient drones that scour
the sea floor, pick up the nodules and return them to the
mother base. the drones need power refilled when they run
out. instead of travelling a full mile or two straight up
through the water column, they can refuel themesleves
through a system at the mother base. the mother base
elevator cable also acts as a transmission mechanism for a
form of energy ( electricty or pressurized air or
electromagnetic energy or hydrocarbon fuel ) ----which
delivers the energy supply to the motherbase ( where it is
stored in an energy storage device, and converted from one
form of supplied energy to the form of stored energy ).
this model provides for a network of seafloor scouring drone
nodule scavengers that do not have to return to the surface
every time they are 'full' by hitting their weight limit of
modules, or every time they run out of energy.
the difficulty of scouring the coean floor requires extensive
AUTONOMOUS navigation and planning for energy supply
management. this supply management changes due to many
ambient conditions and travelling repeatedly up and down
the water column to some series of energy providing boat or
surface stations is not only energy intensive but requires
floating platforms all over the place that all have to deal
with waves and periodically stormy conditions.
the elevator station that also serves as an energy conduit
will obviously connect to a central surface station , but that
station can be run efficient like a floating oil platform that
perhaps has massive fuel supplies or ---perhaps even a set of
wind power plants that float on the water surface and
provide an energy source that is transmitted through the
elevator cable.
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So what's the mothership for? why don't the drones
recharge directly from the elevator cable/conveyor
belt? |
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The mothership is for the Evil Criminal Mastermind to run his Evil Criminal Empire from, via the fleet of innocent looking shrimp fishing boats which appear to fish in the area but in reality transport vast quantities of manganese nodules to the underworld manganese market. Whatever you do, don't touch that red button... |
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mothership moors the elevator to the seabed, and
docks drones while they charge, fixes broken
drones , and relays infomratoin up and down the
water column . |
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also, very importantly, if you have a surface power
providing system, for example a giant ocean
windmill it will not only be powering the elevator,
but will send electricity down to the mother ship,
where the electricity can be stored in whatever
form is most stable, and then used by the drones
as needed. |
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the mother ship will also be processing the
nodules in whatever way makes them most
concentrated and easiest for transport up a mile
or more of water. |
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when you lifting that kind of weight through the
water column, best to pakcage and process your
product as efficiently as possible. that takes
energy and equipment---all aboard the mothers
ship.
prehaps it's easiest if its a nuclear powered
submarine and the drones all fit in and are
depoloyed through the torpedo tubes? |
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Why not just have nuclear powered drones that
hoard all the manganese marbles into one place for
collection? |
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Hey, [Harry Mudd] is back! Greeting! |
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Please double check the difficulty of building a 4-
6km conveyor belt/elevator, in order to reach the
high concentration area on the abyssal plain. |
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It probably makes more sense to deploy each
independent craft with a series of inflatable
pouches and a tank of compressed air. The pouch
is filled with sufficient mass, and then inflated
from the tank. The air movement while inflating
can also run a turbine to provide additional power
to the craft. The pouch floats to the surface,
where a GPS equipped homing beacon is
activated, so it can be picked up by a surface ship. |
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Periodically, the surface ship repacks a new
cartridge of pouches and an air tank, and drops
them to the bottom, where the autonomous unit
picks it up and continues on it's way. |
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Alternatively, the last pouch is simply oversized, and
the unit resurfaces itself with it, whereupon it is
recovered, reloaded, and resunk. |
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//Alternatively, the last pouch is simply oversized, and the unit resurfaces itself with it, whereupon it is recovered, reloaded, and resunk.// |
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[MechE] I like your first idea better. It seems like it could take a couple hours to reach the surface using just boyancy and another couple to sink back to the bottom, so just drop the resupply a couple hours before it is needed so the drone can keep working on the bottom continuously. Of course the last package can contain the air tank and bag dispenser to be refilled. And don't forget to send down more fuel as well. |
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Does sonar work well for communication at that depth? You'll need sonar beacons on the resupply package for the drones to find them as well. Sonar will be low bandwidth and delayed, but should allow for tracking the drone location and commanding it to go in the right general direction. High res photos or other data collected can be sent to the surface in flash memory in the GPS homing beacon modules. |
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Hmm, this doesn't sound that hard except maybe the actual semi-autonomous mineral collection part. What's the method for finding those? |
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The latter is a simpler rover design, the former is
more productive. |
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One of the major problems is with international
regulation, not the actual technology. |
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Can the drones go wakkawakkawakka as they eat up
the nodules? |
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mech E i like your idea, but i think the surface vessel
that is the mother surface ship should not go around
transporting these little devices separately without
an elevator. |
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the mother ship should deploy the elevator
underneath it which delivers the crab style drones
that scour an radial area completely over time ---
picking up all nodules from the full area circle
around the center where the elevator it, and once
the area is scoured, the elevator hauls the crab
drones up to the top to the mothership. and the
elevator is hauled up as well. the mother ship moves
another 10 miles and then sets up . |
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repairs of the drones can be done on hte surface
mothership. crabs that are broken so badly they
cannot walk along the seaflor to return to the
elevator base station------must be towed by healthy
fucntioning crabs to the elevator. so the crabs have
built in rescure cability ---which might be possible
using echo location sonar units embedded at the
base elevator bottom anchor----allowing it to see
where the crabs are. i don't think it would be easy
for the crabs to send information wirelessly at that
depth to the elevator base station though. |
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mech E i like your idea, but i think the surface vessel
that is the mother surface ship should not go around
transporting these little devices separately without
an elevator. |
|
| |
the mother ship should deploy the elevator
underneath it which delivers the crab style drones
that scour an radial area completely over time ---
picking up all nodules from the full area circle
around the center where the elevator it, and once
the area is scoured, the elevator hauls the crab
drones up to the top to the mothership. and the
elevator is hauled up as well. the mother ship moves
another 10 miles and then sets up . |
|
| |
repairs of the drones can be done on hte surface
mothership. crabs that are broken so badly they
cannot walk along the seaflor to return to the
elevator base station------must be towed by healthy
fucntioning crabs to the elevator. so the crabs have
built in rescure cability ---which might be possible
using echo location sonar units embedded at the
base elevator bottom anchor----allowing it to see
where the crabs are. i don't think it would be easy
for the crabs to send information wirelessly at that
depth to the elevator base station though. |
|
| |
mech E i like your idea, but i think the surface vessel
that is the mother surface ship should not go around
transporting these little devices separately without
an elevator. |
|
| |
the mother ship should deploy the elevator
underneath it which delivers the crab style drones
that scour an radial area completely over time ---
picking up all nodules from the full area circle
around the center where the elevator it, and once
the area is scoured, the elevator hauls the crab
drones up to the top to the mothership. and the
elevator is hauled up as well. the mother ship moves
another 10 miles and then sets up . |
|
| |
repairs of the drones can be done on hte surface
mothership. crabs that are broken so badly they
cannot walk along the seaflor to return to the
elevator base station------must be towed by healthy
fucntioning crabs to the elevator. so the crabs have
built in rescure cability ---which might be possible
using echo location sonar units embedded at the
base elevator bottom anchor----allowing it to see
where the crabs are. i don't think it would be easy
for the crabs to send information wirelessly at that
depth to the elevator base station though. |
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