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Concrete does get stronger over time, though. They took a wrecking ball to a building in Chinatown and it just bounced so they renovated instead of replaced the building. But that was only a two story building and it wasn't falling over in the first place.
Hmm, hadn't even thought of water. There's just under a million living on Oahu at the moment and the water table is dropping. Has been dropping since the mid to late 70's. Before folks got all security conscious, you used to be able to go into the water tunnel and see the water source for Honolulu. They had marks for the water level each year and all of the ones for 1960 and earlier are high and dry. In the mid 70's it started bobbling up and down, then it just started going down and down. I'm not sure how deep the water table is on Oahu, if it's below sea level, then if they draw it down too far, salt water will go in to fill it, one would expect.
What is the limiting factor for the amount of population that Oahu can sustain? Well, if we're going sustainability, they're past that, but I mean using shipped in food and goods?
I appreciate your love for Hong Kong? Or at least understand why you like the city. But question? Why make oahu into another Hong Kong? Why don't you just move to Hong Kong?
What they probably didn't teach you in school is that a US citizen just can't pick up and move somewhere like Hong Kong legally. Nor would my wife appreciate it.
As for Hong Kong, which you've never been, it is a great city for Honolulu to model itself after. A stunning skyline and great public transportation. You are kidding yourself if you don't believe the population of Oahu isn't going to increase dramatically over the decades - so plan the infrastructure now and build up, not out.
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Originally Posted by hotzcatz
How many daily barges of supplies would be needed to support seven million on Oahu? I would suspect seven million living on Oahu would also be horrendously expensive because of the length of the supply chain. But, from the looks of things, they're heading that way.
As far as barges - one would address that two ways. First off, the harbor in Honolulu needs a complete revamp to be able to handle supertankers, that should be happening regardless of growth on Oahu. The newest ships can handle 18,000 20 foot containers - just one ship.
Also, increased population density may finally be the jumpstart the Big Island or Maui needs in terms of agriculture and livestock.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotzcatz
Hmm, hadn't even thought of water. There's just under a million living on Oahu at the moment and the water table is dropping.
You address this in a couple of ways. First off, water is way to cheap on Oahu - among the cheapest in the US. There is absolutely no incentive to conserve water. Raise the price dramatically to lower usage.
Second, look at places like Dubai who supply drinking water via desalination plants. We got plenty of ocean all around us.
Thats the wonderful thing about being an american citizen is you can get duel citizenship. Anyway, so no plans to preserve the wonderful gorgeous aina of Hawai'i from growth? Just use the aina for agriculture and urban growth?
A friend from a different site had a great ideal, the ideal was a last ditch effort or last line in the sand that would never be crossed per sa and that was to put aside Kauai or Molokai and pass a law to never develop it so when another 50 to 100 years pass when oahu, maui, big island and other islands look like oahu and developed then we can have a place to remember the natural gorgeous aina of Hawai'i. Because as much as i sound cynical about growth etc it isnt practical to believe that oahu and maui will ever be enough. Waikiki has sure grown alot in 40+ years.
Ps: thou i agree that water is really cheap, most everything be above mainland prices?
look at places like Dubai who supply drinking water via desalination plants. We got plenty of ocean all around us.
LOL You are using a city that has an artificially cooled SKI RESORT when talking about sustainability of water sources?
Oahu uses 206 million gallons of potable water per day. Dubai recently opened a state of the art 168 million gallon (daily) desalination plant. The power consumption of this plant is 2,060 MEGAWATTS which is more than 50% more power than the total generating capacity of Oahu... just to pull the salt out of 80% of the water we consume daily. They pay 4-5 cents/kWh for electricity or 1/7 the rate of electricity that we pay. Electricity is basically free there so desalination (and man-made ski resorts in insanely hot desert climates) are viable.
Electricity to desalinate is only half the problem. Our aquifers and water supplies are currently located in the mountains at higher elevations from where water is actually used... so energy required to pump water isn't a major factor now. With desalination plants, it will be a HUGE factor, further increasing the electricity needs to provide water to our existing point of use locations. Every gallon of water produced would have to be pumped to existing storage tanks high up in the mountains to provide viable storage/accessibility/pressure requirements of water. The entire underground infrastructure would have to be rebuilt to accommodate a larger pipeline near the ocean and smaller near the mountains. Then factor in the myriad of other costs to build and amortize the expense of these extremely expensive plants (fixed construction costs, land leases, risk mitigation, environmental impacts, etc etc).
Desalination will not work here for many many decades to come.
Thousands of state and city workers downtown -- and untold thousands of other commuters -- could begin flooding Honolulu roads and highways Wednesday afternoon, triggering a second consecutive pau hana traffic nightmare, Gov. David Ige acknowledged Wednesday.
Thousands of state and city workers downtown -- and untold thousands of other commuters -- could begin flooding Honolulu roads and highways Wednesday afternoon, triggering a second consecutive pau hana traffic nightmare, Gov. David Ige acknowledged Wednesday.
So the gov is basically saying it's just another regular day?
Concrete does get stronger over time, though. They took a wrecking ball to a building in Chinatown and it just bounced so they renovated instead of replaced the building. But that was only a two story building and it wasn't falling over in the first place.
The hardening of the concrete has nothing to do with the lifespan of the building. Steel corrodes in concrete. It is 100% inevitable. And further exacerbated in a warm, wet, high-humidity and salt-air laden climate like ours. Once it's compromised, it balloons inside, and forces the concrete to literally explode in slow motion. It then loses its tensile strength which then compromises the structural integrity during an event such as a hurricane or earthquake.
Here is an article from the Boston Globe which used global warming as the precursor to premature building end-of-life. Of course, they are simply saying WARM environments are most susceptible to shorter steel reinforced concrete structure lifetimes (which Hawaii is smack dab in). Not to mention the increased rate of steel degradation in areas closest to the sea (i.e. Hawaii).
In Canada, the average lifespan of a building is down to 37 years. So what do we do? There are technologies to ward off and repair concrete degradation, including sealing cracks and applying an acrylic coating to building surfaces to keep moisture out. These methods are expensive, however, and likely to be justified mostly for important buildings. “[The Christian Science Mother Church] near the Prudential, they want that building to last 500 years, no matter what,” says Kelley. The firm Kelley works for, Simpson Gumpertz, is currently assessing possible repair strategies for the church. Susan Knack-Brown, one engineer on the project, anticipates applying “some sort of coating” and adds that taking care of a concrete building is “like having diabetes—you have to stay on top of it
Read IMPORTANT buildings. Not a single condo building on Oahu is "important", sorry to say.
Thats the wonderful thing about being an american citizen is you can get duel citizenship.
This is true, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have to find a viable, legal way to obtain a visa to Hong Kong, or any other country in the world you choose to live and work in. You can't just move like you would to another US State or territory, and no one is handing out passports/citizenship for free, just for showing up.
Good luck using reason and logic here. You and I are the only ones on this forum that understand steel reinforced concrete structures have finite lifespans. Everyone else here is confident they last forever.
HUH? Where did that come from? "Everyone else"? So even though I haven't even taken part in this discussion (or any other discussion involving steel reinforced concrete structures) somehow I've managed to make some kind of error? Oh, you didn't mean me specifically??? Then who is "everyone else here"?
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