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In the late 1940’s to early 1950’s what technology was available that could melt ice?
What factors could lead to a narrow focus of technology?How early was the Earth liveable for today's humans?What will happen if very dangerous technology becomes cheaply available?Could the moons of a Gas Giant all be habitable if that planet was in the habitable zone?What WWII technology could make a smart, underwater mine?What would happen if I showed the Vikings advanced technology?Is a creature that within minutes can melt a block of ice with its hands feasible?What weapons and technology can be used in alternate history set in late 1980s?What is the highest quality method to produce steel with late medieval technology?Steam-powered dirigibles in the late 17th to early 18th century
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In my story I’ve devised lore where Greenland becomes a US territory, and they begin populating the region. It initially just served as the hub for numerous military bases and airbases, but eventually as the machinery thawed out the ice of the island more people began to come in.
I was wondering what technology was available at the time that could melt ice. It could be farfetched as well, since the government is in play and they’d most likely have access to more outlandish gear.
science-based reality-check technology environment alternate-history
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show 1 more comment
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In my story I’ve devised lore where Greenland becomes a US territory, and they begin populating the region. It initially just served as the hub for numerous military bases and airbases, but eventually as the machinery thawed out the ice of the island more people began to come in.
I was wondering what technology was available at the time that could melt ice. It could be farfetched as well, since the government is in play and they’d most likely have access to more outlandish gear.
science-based reality-check technology environment alternate-history
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I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
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– Willk
3 hours ago
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@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
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– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
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Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
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– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
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Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
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– Aganju
1 hour ago
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Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
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– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago
|
show 1 more comment
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In my story I’ve devised lore where Greenland becomes a US territory, and they begin populating the region. It initially just served as the hub for numerous military bases and airbases, but eventually as the machinery thawed out the ice of the island more people began to come in.
I was wondering what technology was available at the time that could melt ice. It could be farfetched as well, since the government is in play and they’d most likely have access to more outlandish gear.
science-based reality-check technology environment alternate-history
$endgroup$
In my story I’ve devised lore where Greenland becomes a US territory, and they begin populating the region. It initially just served as the hub for numerous military bases and airbases, but eventually as the machinery thawed out the ice of the island more people began to come in.
I was wondering what technology was available at the time that could melt ice. It could be farfetched as well, since the government is in play and they’d most likely have access to more outlandish gear.
science-based reality-check technology environment alternate-history
science-based reality-check technology environment alternate-history
asked 5 hours ago
Niobium_SageNiobium_Sage
563
563
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I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
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– Willk
3 hours ago
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@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
$endgroup$
– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
$endgroup$
– Aganju
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
$endgroup$
– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago
|
show 1 more comment
$begingroup$
I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
$endgroup$
– Willk
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
$endgroup$
– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
$endgroup$
– Aganju
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
$endgroup$
– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
$endgroup$
– Willk
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
$endgroup$
– Willk
3 hours ago
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@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
$endgroup$
– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
$endgroup$
– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
$endgroup$
– Aganju
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
$endgroup$
– Aganju
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
$endgroup$
– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
$endgroup$
– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago
|
show 1 more comment
8 Answers
8
active
oldest
votes
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Around that time someone in the US government proposed to use nukes to widen Panama Channel.
Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
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1
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Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
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+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
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– Renan
2 hours ago
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Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
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– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
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Sonic Cannon
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. (Source)
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!
The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. (Source)
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
1 Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.
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I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
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Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
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– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
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You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
Use the greenhouse effect
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
Solar mirrors
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
Just heat it up
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will freeze and release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
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Beat me to it, +1.
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– Renan
2 hours ago
add a comment |
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One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite1
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html2
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
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Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
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– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
add a comment |
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I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.
Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013
Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
secondarily on blasting.
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
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Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
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– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
add a comment |
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Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to Wikipedia, Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active hotspot under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
New contributor
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The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
add a comment |
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The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do not want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water canon.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
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add a comment |
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Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
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add a comment |
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8 Answers
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8 Answers
8
active
oldest
votes
active
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Around that time someone in the US government proposed to use nukes to widen Panama Channel.
Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
$endgroup$
1
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Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
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+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Around that time someone in the US government proposed to use nukes to widen Panama Channel.
Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
$endgroup$
1
$begingroup$
Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
$begingroup$
+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Around that time someone in the US government proposed to use nukes to widen Panama Channel.
Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
$endgroup$
Around that time someone in the US government proposed to use nukes to widen Panama Channel.
Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes.
Using nuclear power to thaw Greenland perfectly fits the enthusiasm of those years toward the use of nuclear power.
edited 4 hours ago
answered 5 hours ago
L.Dutch♦L.Dutch
86.8k29201424
86.8k29201424
1
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Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
$begingroup$
+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
1
$begingroup$
Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
$begingroup$
+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
1
1
$begingroup$
Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
Sounds very Fallout-esque, and I love it!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
2
2
$begingroup$
+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
+1. Can't go wrong with nukes, no matter what the problem is.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Nuclear power - your glow-in-the-dark buddy-in-a-box who's FUN to be with!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Sonic Cannon
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. (Source)
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!
The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. (Source)
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
1 Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.
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I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
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Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Sonic Cannon
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. (Source)
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!
The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. (Source)
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
1 Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Sonic Cannon
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. (Source)
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!
The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. (Source)
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
1 Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.
$endgroup$
Sonic Cannon
From the Israelite army's trumpet-blaring priests at the battle of Jericho 3,500 years ago to today's modern LRAD (long-range acoustic device) cannons, sound has been used to harm and destroy.
Granted, it would take a lot of it.
Assuming you have 1 gram of snow at 0 C, the amount of energy needed to melt that is 334 Joules. The sound from an entire orchestra only amounts to 1 W of energy. If you could somehow focus all of the energy from the symphonies music onto that ice, it would take 334 seconds to melt it, a full 5 minutes. And that's an entire symphony focused directly on a little more than a tablespoon of freshly fallen snow. (Source)
However, orchestras are not amplified and the sound is highly distributed. That same orchestra, pumped through my meager 25W-per-channel high-school-era stereo amplifier would melt 50g of that same snow in 5 minutes, or 1g in 6 seconds.
Now let's back that up with the electrical power generating abilities of the Iowa-class U.S.S. Missouri battleship!
The four engine rooms each has a pair of 1,250 kW Ship's Service Turbine Generators (SSTGs), providing the ship with a total non-emergency electrical power of 10,000 kW at 450 volts alternating current. Additionally, the vessels have a pair of 250 kW emergency diesel generators. (Source)
Ignoring the details of what 450 VAC can do with a speaker (a lot...), that's 510KW of power! In that same 5 minute period we can now melt 510 Kg (half a metric ton) of snow!
To be fair, it's not efficient.1 And I'm ignoring a lot of stuff that would get in the way (like how much power would be absorbed by liquid run-off (heating the water) rather than being used to melt the ice and snow.) But! It's a technology of the time that could be used to solve the problem with its own set of pros and cons. And you get to use an Iowa-class battleship! How cool is that?
1 Certainly not as efficient as L.Dutch's nukes! Not by a long shot. But it does have the advantage of leaving the landscape radiation-free.
edited 4 hours ago
answered 4 hours ago
JBHJBH
45.8k696218
45.8k696218
$begingroup$
I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
I like that fact that it doesn’t leave the island irradiated lol, and your answer is clearly the most thought out.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
$begingroup$
Finally - a constructive use for (your least-favorite genre of music here)!
$endgroup$
– Bob Jarvis
1 hour ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
Use the greenhouse effect
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
Solar mirrors
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
Just heat it up
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will freeze and release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
Use the greenhouse effect
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
Solar mirrors
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
Just heat it up
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will freeze and release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
Use the greenhouse effect
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
Solar mirrors
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
Just heat it up
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will freeze and release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
$endgroup$
You are talking about permanently changing the climate of Greenland. Just melting the current ice is not quite enough.
Use the greenhouse effect
If you intentionally manufacture and release powerful greenhouse gasses, the global climate will warm enough that Greenland will defrost. This has some obvious flaws.
First, it is too slow for your purposes. Second, it would be expensive. Three, greenhouse effect was only fully understood in the late 60s and early 70s, too late for your purposes. Four, you'd more or less permanently mess up the rest of the planet and >99% of human population would have valid reason to want you dead.
The only real benefit this approach has is that it can happen accidentally. Maybe this gas is really useful and you manufacture lots of it. Maybe a nuclear explosion or volcanic eruption releases ridiculous amounts of a greenhouse gas.
Solar mirrors
By putting sufficient area of mirrors in space on polar orbits configured in away that reflects sunlight on Greenland you can in theory increase the temperature selectively.
The biggest downside of this is that Greenland is large, so you'd need a ridiculous amount of mirrors. Which you'd have to launch to orbit. The cost would literally be astronomical. There is nothing in Greenland AFAIK to justify it.
This would also still mess up the climate. And it would few decades ahead of its time for the 50s. This is clearly post Apollo Program (1960-1972) technology.
Just heat it up
Just directly apply heat to Greenland.
The simplest way to do this would probably be to take deep sea water off the coast which is always few degrees above freezing and pump it up. It will freeze and release heat to the environment. This would still be ridiculously expensive since you'd need to pump up ridiculous amounts of water but it is probably the most efficient way to apply heat.
Just have a nuclear reactor and transfer the heat it produces to deep ocean water. This will make the water to rise to the surface and melt the ocean ice. This might be done as a way to keep shipping lanes in Northern Greenland open all year for military purposes. Pretty sure it makes absolutely no sense from economic standpoint as the cost of building and maintaining the needed reactors would be far beyond any possible benefit.
answered 3 hours ago
Ville NiemiVille Niemi
33.6k260115
33.6k260115
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Beat me to it, +1.
$endgroup$
– Renan
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite1
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html2
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite1
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html2
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite1
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html2
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
$endgroup$
One possible strategy would be to take many thousands of large black plastic sheets and place them on top of ice sheets during the summer, weighted down with rocks or clumps of ice. The plastic should heat up in the sunlight and melt some of the ice below it, possibly down to the ground.
Or lots and lots of black carbon particles could be strewn on top of the ice to melt their way down into it.
Possibly atomic bombs could be exploded over glaciers seeded with materials that would adsorb the various types of radiation from the bombs and turn that radiation into heat that would melt the glaciers.
Or large flat objects with mirror-like surfaces to reflect sun light could be laid on the ground right below the southern edges of glaciers. They would reflect sunlight toward the glaciers and melt them back.
A statite (a portmanteau of static and satellite) is a hypothetical type of artificial satellite that employs a solar sail to continuously modify its orbit in ways that gravity alone would not allow. Typically, a statite would use the solar sail to "hover" in a location that would not otherwise be available as a stable geosynchronous orbit. Statites have been proposed that would remain in fixed locations high over Earth's poles, using reflected sunlight to counteract the gravity pulling them down. Statites might also employ their sails to change the shape or velocity of more conventional orbits, depending upon the purpose of the particular statite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statite1
A vast fleet of statites could be placed over the north polar regions with their solar sails angled to reflect sunlight down onto selected Greenland glaciers to melt them, possibly in conjunction with other methods to melt the glaciers.
Ice sheets contain enormous quantities of frozen water. If the Greenland Ice Sheet melted, scientists estimate that sea level would rise about 6 meters (20 feet).
https://nsidc.org/cryosphere/quickfacts/icesheets.html2
So melting too much of the Greenland Ice Sheet could be considered a hostile act by many other governments ruling low lying coasts.
For example, Cape May, New Jersey, has been flooded by the sea during at least two or three storms since 1956, and has an elevation of 10 feet (3 meters), the highest point in the city, at the corner of Washington and Jackson streets is 14 feet (4.3 meters) above sea level. Residents of Cape May, and New Orleans, and many other coastal communities, would demand that the US government prevent any project that would melt enough ice to raise sea level by several feet.
answered 3 hours ago
M. A. GoldingM. A. Golding
9,181526
9,181526
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
$begingroup$
Elaborate on seeded nuclear bomb...
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.
Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013
Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
secondarily on blasting.
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.
Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013
Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
secondarily on blasting.
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.
Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013
Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
secondarily on blasting.
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
$endgroup$
I think other answers assumed you were trying to terraform Greenland. If this is just a mining operation, people do mine in Greenland and there is apparently more interest in this now as the ice melts and access is easier.
For purposes of mining, ice is treated as low strength rock, and removed with standard mining methods.
Open-Pit Glacier Ice Excavation: Brief Review. Copyright 2013
Open-ice-pit mining, in order to recover a subglacial mineral deposit, is dependent on safe and predictable large-scale ice excavation...Three distinct ice-excavation tech- niques are reviewed: blasting,
melting, and mechanical excavation, providing a case study of each.
The authors summarize the unique advantages and disadvan- tages of
each technique and conclude that an optimal open-ice-pit mining opera-
tion would most likely rely primarily on mechanical excavation and
secondarily on blasting.
The paper covers technology used in Greenland between the end of WW2 and the present. It is mining technology, adapted to the different density and mechanical properties of ice. They loosen it up and move it out with machines, as is done with open pit mines elsewhere. Not super sexy, and it doesn't really open up new areas for habitation because I gather the low lying mines tend to fill back up with water - a property also shared with mines elsewhere.
answered 2 hours ago
WillkWillk
112k26209465
112k26209465
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Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
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– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
add a comment |
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Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
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– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
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Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
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– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
$begingroup$
Do you think that nukes would work more efficiently? I was thinking the US could us up a majority of their remaining nuclear stockpile to rid Greenland of most of its ice. Granted they’d still have to wait several months for the radiation to die down. By the time it was safe to return would snow have already replaced the thawed out areas? Oh and nuking an island to smithereens would be a nice display of power to the other countries of the world.
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– Niobium_Sage
2 hours ago
add a comment |
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Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to Wikipedia, Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active hotspot under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
New contributor
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The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to Wikipedia, Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active hotspot under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
New contributor
$endgroup$
$begingroup$
The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to Wikipedia, Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active hotspot under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
New contributor
$endgroup$
Are flamethrower brigades out of the question? According to Wikipedia, Germany started producing flamethrowers as early as 1911. I think it would not be far-fetched to be building fleets of flame tanks by the 40's.
Other options include: beaches and beaches of salt grit, large scale greenhouse construction, teams of people with tractors / dump trucks,
AND, my personal favourite, artificial explosive insemination to disrupt the active hotspot under all the ice, causing a massive volcanic eruption.
New contributor
New contributor
answered 4 hours ago
Aloysius AniseAloysius Anise
464
464
New contributor
New contributor
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The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
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– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
$begingroup$
The user above you suggested nukes which I’m fine with, flamethrowers are rather mundane by comparison!
$endgroup$
– Niobium_Sage
4 hours ago
add a comment |
$begingroup$
The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do not want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water canon.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
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add a comment |
$begingroup$
The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do not want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water canon.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do not want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water canon.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
$endgroup$
The standard way to melt icebergs would have been entirely possible with 1940s technology.
It's as simple as it's effective - high pressure seawater. Very, very effective (high specific heat content, salt, almost trivial cost of deployment and inexhaustible). Low cost of deploying multiple of them, as well.
You do not want to be using flamethrowers or lasers and similar on sizeable icebergs or coastal ice buildups - they may be great for some things, but hopelessly outclassed in this job, for sheer ease, speed and efficiency, by high volume water canon.
For huge 'bergs, as the ice becomes cut up, the smaller bergs also become easier to separate, ending the cold microclimate that surrounds huge 'bergs, and making them more vulnerable to being tugged, pushed away (again with water jets), and exposing more surface to the sea/air/pressure hoses.
There's no reason this couldn't also be used with coastal and continental ice as well as floating ice, if it's either relatively close to the coast, or one can drill through it to seawater.
answered 1 hour ago
StilezStilez
3,092711
3,092711
add a comment |
add a comment |
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Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
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add a comment |
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Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
$endgroup$
add a comment |
$begingroup$
Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
$endgroup$
Nuclear powered electric plants generate waste heat. Lots of it. Set up electric generating stations in Greenland to power all of North America. Use the waste heat to melt the ice.
answered 1 hour ago
Walter MittyWalter Mitty
48527
48527
add a comment |
add a comment |
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-alternate-history, environment, reality-check, science-based, technology
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I am curious why the military would want to melt the ice. What is wrong with ice?
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– Willk
3 hours ago
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@Willk To open up more of the island for mining purposes, since 98% of Greenland is coated in permafrost.
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– Niobium_Sage
3 hours ago
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Water has a really high specific heat; the amount of energy you'll need to melt Greenland would probably be enough to cause mass destruction. (Many answers suggest nukes.)
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– Adrian Zhang
1 hour ago
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Burn a lot of coal and oil? Seems to work quite well.
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– Aganju
1 hour ago
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Here's something you might want to have a look at: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Iceworm
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– Morris The Cat
1 hour ago