Ocean Spiral: Japan Planning to Build City Under Sea

Ocean Spiral: Shimizu Corporation Plans Underwater City

Japanese construction company Shimizu Corporation has unveiled its template for modern-day cities in the ocean — Ocean Spiral. The Ocean Spiral project visualizes using huge spirals to connect to each water tight residential sphere to the ocean floor, where it will create power in the form of methane-producing micro-organism factories. Generators would generate electricity by taking the incremental difference in the temperature of sea water at varying depths, while undersea docking facilities would enable supplies to be delivered and research to be conducted.

Shimizu has been working on the project with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and Tokyo University and thinks it will take five years to shape the first unit.

Shimizu has a standing for blue-sky thinking in a country in which construction firms are usually conservative in their approaches to projects.

Previously, Shimizu has offered creating a 250-mile wide “belt” of solar panels around the Moon that would gather and relays a constant supply of energy to “receiving stations” on Earth by way of lasers or microwave transmission.

Shimizu Corporation‘s Ocean Spiral will take about five years to complete, cost approximately £17 million and People as much as 5,000 would live in a sealed transparent ball at the top of the spiral. It would generally sit above the surface to take advantage of sunlight. Engineers at the company believe that the technology to build the city will be available in around 15 years’ time.

Shimizu spokesman Hideo Imamura told the Guardian: “This is a real goal, this is not a pipe dream.” The corporation is not definitely not short on ambition: a glance at their “dreampage” of “proposals to benefit future generations” reveals plans to construct floating cities, a space hotel and a ring around the moon.

So, what do you think about how crazy is the idea of an underwater city?

 

Ocean Spiral: Japan Planning to Build City Under Sea