The Plastic Plan – Using trashed plastic bottles for clean energy generation

EcoFriend

Ifyou summarize the problems environment faces today, the end resultwould be two main issues – the increase in landfill waste, which mainlyconsists of trashed plastic bottles, and the reduction in energy supplyto fuel our hi-tech living. Industrial designer Chris Allen has come upwith an ingenious solution to both the problems in a project he calls “The Plastic Plan”.

Theproject requires the collection of millions of plastic bottles withtheir caps on from landfills and carbon-intensive recycling plants andturns them into thousands of cubes, which can float on the oceansurface. Thousands of similar cubes can be joined together to form anoffshore structure, similar in size to three football fields stackedone on top of the other.

The platform can then be floatedoffshore major cities, and solar, wind and wave energy generationsystem can be mounted on the platform. These renewable energygenerating system fuel water pumps with the goal of pumping sea water30 meters or more up to the reservoir structure made by joining theplastic bottle cubes. This water will then be used to generatehydroelectricity by pumping it onto hydroelectric turbines. The energygenerated by the system can easily be transported back to the shore, upthe power grid and into your homes.

The plan minimizesplastic waste and uses it to create a type of dam on the ocean, whichalso removes the issues of a decline in water levels in dammed rivers.Chris believes that the Gulf of Mexico offshore of New Orleans beingthe perfect location for the first cluster of islands, and whenharnessed properly and at a scale no one ever thought of, can end theescalating energy crisis and fuel the world with clean, zero-emissionenergy.

Via: The Plastic Plan

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