THE BLUE REVOLUTION: Wanted...Imaginative Mega-Billionaire!

All my effort to Save Planet Earth and Humanity could well be validated with this posting today.  We all wonder if there is a purpose to our life, and my simple answer is no.  So read on.

The Big Bang, if there was one, created our Universe, and for nearly 14 billion years, stars, planets and life were created, while in sequence, pretty much at random.  It is said there might be a septillion stars out there, which is 1 followed by 24 zeroes, or a trillion trillion.  Yet, we might well be the only life form anywhere.  Until we get obviously alien signals (flying saucers are pure fantasy) confirmed to be real, we are the only intelligence.  Next, maybe robots and artificial intelligence, but those won't be developed unless humans perfect them.

Life is tough, for forming only a little more than 300 million years after Planet Earth appeared 4.6 billion years ago, of the more than five billion species, 99% are now extinct.  Evolution and extinctions resulted in hominins (our earliest ancestors) perhaps 6.5 million years ago.  Mammoths only appeared 4.8 million years ago.  The first Homo genus came as long as 2 million years ago, with us, Homo sapiens, possibly 200,000 years ago, but these dates keep changing.

BBC has an excellent video of the 25 biggest turning points in our history, ending with the advent of Man, so let me move ahead to 2000 years ago with Jesus Christ, while new technology like light begun to come two centuries in the past.  We now have 7.6 billion people and 19 billion chickens, but we are exceeded by maybe 100 billion rodents.  These numbers pale to the 200 trillion 3-inch bristlemouth fish living at the bottom of the ocean.

I have problems with ants, and now I know why.  There are a septillion of them.  Again 1 followed by 24 zeroes. There are more bacteria in a gram of dental plaque than all the people who have ever lived. I can go on and on, but let me end by saying that there are 1 followed by 31 zeroes worth of viruses, and placed end to end (and you can imagine how small they are) you wouldn't be able to guess how far they would stretch.  I'll tell you anyway, 100 million light years, just about the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy.  But viruses aren't alive, are they?

By now you should be impressed about life on Planet Earth anyway.  So what has all this to do with the Blue Revolution?  Well, Humanity is at the threshold of ruining our world with global warming and not particularly liking each other to boot.

The solution?  The Blue Revolution.  Here is a future that will only happen if the world gets together and proceeds to develop OTEC, using this technology to power floating cities and industrial parks, while producing sustainable energy and resources, plus remediating climate change and minimizing tropical storms.

What is standing in the way of progress?  Money. And motivation.  An iPhone 10 sells for less than $1000.  The Pacific Ocean International Station, the first proposed step towards the Blue Revolution, could easily run beyond $1.5 billion.  There is no financing mechanism for anything so risky and bold.

The Apollo Project was indeed a giant leap for mankind, and came in with an initial budget of $25.4 billion 55 years ago.  Today, the value is $200 billion.  But the USA chose to go to the Moon by 1969 mainly for political reasons.  We were concerned about the Soviet Union, and this decision helped to bankrupt our adversary, ending the Cold War two decades later.

The Blue Revolution does not have the glamour of the Mars Project.  There is a range of cost estimates, but $1.5 trillion sounds about right to get to that enigmatic globe.  Elon Musk says he can do it cheaper and earlier.

In any case, how many can afford Musk's $200,000 flight ticket for tourists to get there?  Maybe this was only a one way price.  So, we reach Mars, what is the point?   Walking on the Moon ended the Cold War, and this was worth $200 billion. But Mars?  Billionaires missed the memo that said outer space has become obsolete for now.

Some mention space mining.  But for what mineral?  Others point to Stephen Hawking's prediction that we only have a century left before something terrible happens on Planet Earth.  Business Insider reports on five reasons why we need to colonize Mars now:

• Ensure survival of our species.  (Asteroids?  Far-fetched.  The last serious impact was 66 million years ago when the dinosaurs died off.  We are supposedly now in a serious sixth extinction event, but I can't get too excited about the lethality.)

• Discover life on Mars. (We have failed so far with remote instrumentation, but if life is found, so what?)
• Improve quality of life on Earth (I miss this point).
• Growing as a species.  (Huh?  Going to Mars is an awfully expensive way to grow-up, in fact, sounds irresponsible to me.)
• Demonstrating political and economic leadership. 

On that fifth reason above, yes, it would be a fine achievement for the world to partner for the good of Humanity and Planet Earth.  But any Mars project will not result in anything all that useful, save for some dubious ego satisfaction.  What about the Blue Revolution?  The former would be an amazing feat if life is found and a few end up surviving on the Red Planet.  But that's about all.  The latter:

• Sustainable energy and resource pathways:
• hydrogen
• freshwater
• biofuels
• methanol
• rare earths
• much more

• New economic development.
• Attractive habitats for an alternative life style.
• Replenishment of fisheries.
• Prevention of hurricanes.
• Remediation of global warming.

I can add to the above cornucopia of benefits, but this comparison is almost pointless.

Mind you, I once worked for NASA's Ames Research Center on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, and am a fan of space.  We should continue much of the scientific activity, and more, really.  Someday, of course, we almost surely might need to send pioneers to other worlds.  But the timing is not now.  In a millennium, maybe, but more probably closer to a million years when we have mastered travel through wormholes, if that is ever achieved.

The 2017 Forbes billionaires list numbered 2043.  Their total net worth was $7.67 trillion.  Bill Gates has been #1 for 18 of the past 23 years and Jeff Bezos, who is now #3, added $27.6 billion in one year.  Mainland China had 76 newly recognized billionaires.  Click on iBlue Revolution to review a history of analyses regarding billionaires and the Blue Revolution.  To quote one posting:

In any case, you don't just go up to a billionaire and ask for money.  You need that key connection, compelling vision and fundamental link to a special passion.  Most desire to help the downtrodden, prevent diseases and reverse poverty.  Surely, among the 2000 psyches there just has to be a particular enlightened individual dedicated to Planet Earth, wishing for something extraordinary to provide some key commodities in harmony with the natural environment.  For only $1.5 billion--one percent the cost of the International Space Station, a $150 billion space adventure that meant well, but will crash into oblivion in the Year 2020--the Blue Revolution represents the next economic frontier for Humanity to generate a cornucopia of sustainable products while enhancing our environment.

I tried, even personally donated funds to  show my commitment, and certainly haven't given up on finding a major benefactor.  But perhaps you're better suited to involve that special tycoon.  If so, you really don't need me.  Go ahead, take the leadership role.  Involve that billionaire to Save Humanity and Planet Earth with the Blue Revolution.  Glad to be of service should you need any advice.

Practicality will prevail, so the first Blue Revolution prototype will no doubt be placed in a reasonably ideal location where natural conditions will permit the utilization of OTEC.

Frankly something closer to the equator would be best, for no hurricane has ever crossed from one hemisphere to the other, plus this is where the surface temperatures are at a maximum, with 4 degrees Celsius still available at 1000 meter depths.

All things considered, then, Hawaii would be the perfect spot to build and test the Pacific Ocean International Station because we have succeeded in more workable OTEC experiments than anyone else, have a thriving Natural Energy Laboratory Laboratory Authority to provide expertise and have chaired more conferences and workshops  on related subjects.  As mentioned two days ago we already have billionaires with close association to this 50th State with ideal names:

• Pierre Omidyar International Station (POI Station)
• Larry Ellison International Station (LEI Station)

I can add a third:  Pacific Ocean Steve Case or POS Case, a stretch, but there no doubt are others.  We would welcome someone from Japan, China or anywhere else.  Most important is that sincere drive to consider the ocean as the solution for Humanity and Planet Earth. 

Anyone reading this posting linked to a potential mega-supporter, please contact Blue Revolution Hawaii.  Three coordinators are co-authoring a presentation on the Blue Revolution at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas next week:

• Leighton Chong (left, LKMChong@aol.com) directs the Hawaii effort, is a patent attorney and copyrighted Blue Revolution for our organization,
• Benny Ron (right, TetsuzanBennyRon@gmail.com) originally from Israel with a special zen association in Japan, is marshaling the session, and
• I (PatKenTak@hotmail.com) will give the talk.

That billionaire would not be expected to personally come up with the full $1.5 billion.  He/She can serve as the illuminous catalyst to launch the effort...someone who convert Fantasy into REALITY.

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PIOS: Colloquy with John Pina Craven

Our Story of the Blue Revolution started with John Pina Craven, so it was appropriate to begin the next phase of development for the Pacific International Ocean Station (PIOS) with an information exchange to gain his ancient mariner wisdom.  Above, Professor Craven pontificating on the merits of this particular mock-up of a very large floating platform.  At his home this afternoon, interacting with him were George Ariyoshi, Fujio Matsuda, John  Farias, Leighton Chong, Matt Matsunaga, Ken Sanders, Patrick Takahashi and, as interlocutor, Benny Ron.  Associates of John were his wife Dorothy and (does anyone have the name of John's assistant?).

John is one of those individuals who needs no introduction, but let us anyway indicate that he was born in New York City 88 years ago; has science, engineering and law degrees from the Californian Institute of Technology, the University of Iowa and George Washington University, respectively; served as Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy's Special Projects Office (where his activities were well-chronicled in books such as Blind Man's Bluff and his The Silent War); and arrived in 1970 to stay in the middle of the Pacific Ocean as the Marine Affairs Coordinator for the State of Hawaii, where he founded the original facility for what is now the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority at Keahole Point on the Big Island of Hawaii.

He regaled us with old sea stories, weaving into the fabric of his life people like Hyman Rickover, Richard Nixon, John Burns, Kiyonori Kikutake and Marlon Brandon.  The bottom line is that he encouraged Blue Revolution Hawaii to keep proceeding with the Pacific International Ocean Station, for if not us, then who.  He strongly felt that the technical aspects of the sustainable ocean system with the co-products were eminently attainable, but we should be particularly sensitive to, and in fact, will actively need to overcome, the political, sociological, economic and environmental factors, which will make or break our efforts.  Finally, here is our Man of the Ocean:

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THE STORY OF BLUE REVOLUTION HAWAII

The Blue Revolution Hawaii board met yesterday, with some sorrowfulness, as one of our members, Guy Toyama (left), earlier this week passed away at the age of 42.  Three days earlier, a key inspiration for the Blue Revolution, Paul Yuen (right), also suddenly died.  Blue Revolution Hawaii is the synthesis of half a century of efforts validating Hawaii as the headquarters of the Blue Revolution.

Ostensibly, there is no real beginning for the Blue Revolution, as innumerable marine pioneers over the past century have contributed to this progress.   Let us begin in 1972, forty years ago, when Hawaii ocean engineer John Craven (left above) and Japanese architect Kiyonori Kikutake built a model of a floating city and towed it to Kaneohe Bay.  Alas, it sank, and remains rusting away.  John went on to found the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii in 1974, while Governor George Ariyoshi the adjacent Hawaii Ocean Science and Technology Park in 1985.  In 1990 the two were combined into the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA):

There are a few who wonder if this was wise, as now NELHA needs to assure that every project is self-sufficient.  For a field so formative, there has to be a vibrant R&D component to solidify the science and engineering, and cultivate new ideas and pathways.  The Pacific International Ocean Station, described in a 3June2012 posting, is the open ocean extension of NELHA, except that the early focus will be on technology transfer, with opportunities for free enterprise activity.

Early insights came from Spilly Spilhaus (left), founder of the Sea Grant Program, with his dreams about colonization of the ocean, and Joe Vadus (right), chief ocean technologist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adminstration, who had the drive and imagination to dream about what could be.

The first real piece of hardware that actually worked on the open ocean was Mini-OTEC off NELHA at Keahole Point, Hawaii, in 1979.  Jim Wenzel and his Lockheed crew were the first to attain net positive for ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC).

Patrick Takahashi had just joined the staff of U.S. Senator Spark Matsunaga, and he helped draft the original bill for OTEC R&D.  The legislation was enacted in 1980.  The language suggested 10,000 MW by 1999.  During this same period, U.S. Senator Dan Inouye also succeeded in passing legislation to stimulate the commercialization of the technology.  Well, advancements have been elusive, for there is exactly zero MW operating today.  However, click on the current state of development, as there is newfound reason for some optimism.  Of course,  while OTEC is the necessary natural energy source, it is only an element of the Blue Revolution.

Chapter four of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth is on the Blue Revolution, while the Huffington Post has published three articles on the subject:

  The Dawn of the Blue Revolution

  Blue Revolution

  The Blue Revolution is the Optimal Solution for Japan

In a nutshell, while the Green Revolution merely led to an expansion of grain production, the Blue Revolution shows promise as the next major opportunity to produce clean energy, marine biomass plantations, next generation fisheries and other co-products, while remediating global warming and preventing the formation of hurricanes.

So back to the history, in the early to mid-80's, Paul Yuen and Pat enlisted the assistance of Fujio Matsuda (left), who was then president of the University of Hawaii, and George Ariyoshi (right), who was governor of Hawaii, to create the Pacific International Center for High Technology Research (PICHTR) as a partnership with Japan to establish in Hawaii a clean technology transfer organization to complement university research for the benefit of the Pacific Islands and World.  PICHTR succeeded in attaining net positive in 1992 with a 210 kW open cycle OTEC experiment at NELHA.

In 1991, Pat co-authored a presentation on the Blue Revolution by Hawaii Senator Richard Matsuura (left) to the The First Very Large Floating Structures Conference held in Honolulu.  In 1992 Senator Dan Inouye (right) published in SEA TECHNOLOGY The American Blue Revolution.  During this period, Joseph Vadus and Pat co-chaired a workshop in Kona, where the participants came to a conclusion that a 100,000 square foot (one hectare) floating platform could be built for $500 million, half the cost of one B-2 bomber, with a target date of the Year 2000.

The notion of half a billion dollars scared funding agencies and congressional staffers.  So a decision was made to pursue specific marine bio-product and ocean enhancement pathways, which someday in the future could be integrated unto a floating platform.  It was left to the private sector to develop OTEC.

Stan Dunn of Florida Atlantic University and Pat co-chaired a workshop at the headquarters of the Department of Commerce in D.C. in 1993 to prepare a feasibility plan for the design, construction and operation of a fleet of OTEC-powered plant ships to retard the formation of hurricanes.    They published a paper entitled Artificial Upwelling for Environmental Enhancement.

The University of Hawaii was selected as the National Science Foundation Marine Bioproducts Engineering Center in 1998 with funding of $12 million.  The primary focus was on marine microorganisms to produce high value biopharmaceuticals and nutraceuticals.

In 1999, a team led by Fujio Matsuda, Joe Vadus and Pat wrote in SEA TECHNOLOGY on The Ultimate Ocean Ranch.  PICHTR hosted several next generation fishery workshops and summits, in Honolulu (1997), Tokyo (2004) and Bergen (2005), the latter resulting in the Bergen Declaration for Next Generation Fisheries.

In 2003 Pat was invited by the United Nations to address the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission to gain international cooperation for the Blue Revolution.  While interest was high, funding proved difficult, and the operative term then was something closer to the Blue Evolution.

Integrating the above, the timing was ideal to create an organization with the vision and capability to take all this knowledge to the next level, as indicated in a tribute to Guy Toyama by Pat in his Daily Blog:

Guy's legacy might well be Blue Revolution Hawaii and the Pacific International Ocean Station.  A couple of years ago, we were having lunch in Kona when he mentioned how billionaire Gordon Moore had provided funds to initiate the Thirty Meter Telescope Project.  As Guy had an office at Keahole Point at the entrance of the NELHA, why not the Blue Revolution with support from a billionaire?  Thus was born Blue Revolution Hawaii, which proposed the Pacific International Ocean Station.  Guy created the presentation for PIOS, which I presented at the Seasteading Institute's conference in San Francisco.

Leighton Chong came on board as the third Blue Revolutionist.  He and Guy took on the leadership role to organize Blue Revolution Hawaii.  The two made presentations in Japan and China and met with potential partners in those two countries.  The original board included Fujio Matsuda and John Farias.  Our two annual dinners with advisors:

The Board meeting today of Blue Revolution Hawaii at the Plaza Club:

Clockwise from the bottom left:  John Farias, Dante Carpenter, Patrick Takahashi, Matt Matsunaga, Leighton Chong, Kaiu Kimura and George Ariyoshi.  Fujio Matsuda had the flu.

So the story of the Blue Revolution can only be introductory and the mission of Blue Revolution Hawaii is only beginning.  Space became passe when the Cold War ended.  The next great opportunity for humanity is to develop the riches of the seas in harmony with the marine environment.  Hawaii is in the middle of the largest ocean, and the ideal site for the Pacific International Ocean Station (PIOS).  For only 1% the cost of the International Space Station (left, ISP, which has expended $150 billion), PIOS can serve as the platform from which can come sustainable fuels, ultimate ocean ranches, marine biomass plantations, Disney-at-Sea and, someday, floating cities.  Pictured below is Shimizu Corporation's Green Float, a future phase which could well begin with PIOS:

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