Sustaining Australia’s Future – Building Mountains
I have often thought about the idea of governments constructing large scale mountain building programs in areas which have low rainfall or in areas which can tweak the climate to produce a cooler more favourable climate for human habitation or for establishing more fertile farming areas and also increasing forestation.
My theory is this. For example. In Australia which in southern areas and dessert areas the climate seems to be getting drier and drier. All major states in Australia are considering building large scale desalination plants at the moment. These plants use coal as in Australia we are generally opposed to nuclear power. Desalination plants can change the salt content in water and therefore alter aquatic life that some people say will threaten fisheries if the plants are built to large as is proposed for the state of Victoria.
What I have always thought to be a more logical approach would be to build a large artificial mountain range. I know what you are thinking..that it couldn’t be done. However such a project would not be a short term project but a massive construction project almost self perpetuating project that would be measured in timelines of many decades to a century or more to build. I suggest building a massive mountain range with the aid of our best scientists who would predict where a mountain should be built to cause rainfall to precipitae and in which areas. This project would mean massive land areas be put aside for mountain building. Huge earth moving equipment, in my opinion built around a train and rail network of shifting earth would be employed. These tarins would shift earth gradually along a gradient. With new raillines being built at higher latitudes as the mountain progressively builts up in height. Huge steel conveyers would evenly distrubute soil and earth and cement and concrete, rock, and other materials over big distances to spread the soil.
The earth moving equipment, from escavators, conveyers to train locomotives etc would be electric powered. The electricity would come from future Helium- 3 fusion or other short term current technology nuclear reactors if other option isn’t available. In my opinion a massive rocket program would land on the moon and mine the surface for Helium 3 in the near future. As helium 3 future proposed nuclear reactors dont produce radioactive waste like current uranium reactors. Therefore not harming public as much. Therefore special purpose Heium 3 reactors(if possible) would power all the mountain building equipment for many decades. Earth removed from certain areas would become vast freshwater lakes which Australia needs desperately as we have been in the grip of a bad drought for more than 7 years. The worst on record.
Building a mountain in my opinion requires so much imagination and courage that it is no suprise that no leader or individual has been great enough to propose or go ahead with such a massive project. But the rewards..for instance to Australia would be enormous.
Rainfall would increase. I would propose to build personally a mountain range to go from the northen area of Victoria along the murray across to the left or West of Australia into south Australia. I would build a mountain in a way to most effectively capture water and be of use to humans for farming, forrestation and habitation, by “designing” a mountain range which is several hundred kilometers long. The mountain wouldn’t have to be Mt everest height to be of good use. I have studied ecology and science and from my own observations of how best to build a mountain to create the most ideal environment I suggest a mountain be made like this:- The start of the mountain nedds to rise about 600meters from sea level and then gradually rise for a distance of maybe at least 50 – 100 km of plateau..to a height of about 1000- 1500meter(1500meters in australia would be ideal). The mountain must rise sharpely at a steep gradient to first reach 600meters and then just slightly rise all the way to 1500 meters. This altitude is the most ideal altitude in my opinion from my oextensive personal bservations of many foresst types in australia. Tress like tall mountain ash or the equivalent of Red sequia foreests in N. America thrive at these altitudes. You will create a self sustaining environment which will create an abundance of foreest types from cool temperate rainforests in southern states of Victoria to warm rainforrest vegetation in more northernly aress of australia, where these mountain terraforming areas would be contructed. It is important to have a plateau area large enough to then farm on, or have forrestry industry, fishing in artificial lakes. You would create rivers, and most importantly “Water”.
By the way, once the terraformed mountain range reaches 1500 meters in height I would then propose to build a steep gradient ridge which would rise a s high as one nation could build it..to about 2000meters even to a loftly height of 2500-4000meters in sections. This would stop the high clouds which would have to precipate their water. You would have high lands which would be snow covered which would feed the murray darling basin and all majors southern river systems. I would propose a mountain range to go east west in design, with areas of mountain blocking the west hot summer sun to favour growth of tall wet forrests. In summer the city of Melbourne where i live would be cooler. As The hot northernly winds which come over central australia would be blocked or rise over the mountain range therefore reducing summer days to below 40 degrees in summer. So we may well have a more “european’ climate where summers may be wetter and have maximum temps between 27- 33 degrees. In the mountains themselves more likelt summer temperatures around 25- 27 degrees. Much better than 45 + degrees! (in desserts) now. The snow would create world premier skiing industry which doesn’t really exist in Australia. We would have more spring melt. We wouldn’t have any water restrictions and gardens trees in cities such as Melbourne would become lush.
If massive mountain ranges were strategically created in Australia then Australia would decades to centuries later, have a more favourable climate. Australia would be able to sustain a bigger population, have more natural resources and have a bigger more robust economy..as more humans will be able to prosper. We may be able to sustain a population of 100 million as opposed to the 21 million we have now. Therefore any short sightedness now will be offset in the near to far future generation of Australians which will be able to live and thrive in cities and areas which were once desserts or too dry to live. Most of Australians live along a thin and fragile belt of greenery which is the great dividing range which is along all of eastern Australia. We don’t have that must fertile land, however the continent of Australia is very large and if we had more mountains therefore a more favourable climate in general, populated areas would be able to move more westerly in current dessert areas.
It would create massive employment. It would help Australia sustain bigger population therefore better economy. We would not be crippled with so many droughts. We would prosper and show the world that technology can also be use to help humans on a climatic level to change local climate conditions. If we can destroy so much, why not use our brain power and creativity to create several strategically placed mountain ranges to put the climate in our favour. especially with green house emissions this would make sense.
A mountain is the “Best” desalination plant that human kind can ever have in my opinion. It creates rain and water, grows forests, and supoorts life with no power input from us and works 24/7. It doesn’t break down or need solar, coal or even nuclear power once built ofcourse. It would continue to help and serve man kind for many many centuries to come. Once the massive construction has been completed and people see the rewards, people wont laugh at the idea and maybe even think why did it take so long to build a big pile of dirt. I agree that it is scientifically challenging. In fact if you are going to propose terrforming mars for eg, then why not terreform the places where we could thrive right now at our doorstep. ( I am not against Mars colonising though)
The funny thing is that we have the technology to build mountains in Australia and anywhere in the world right now. There are vast areas which have oxygen and you dont need a spacesuit which can benefit. I see a distant future where one day desserts will have mountains and will be terraformed to better support human life in the near future. After that we will have the capability and the right attitudes to do the impossible in space on much more hostile terrains and vastly more expensive scale than on earth. But terraforming earth in my opinion will have the the most rewards in the nearest future than mars. However it is inevitable in my opinion that humans will believe in and want to rise to the future challenges of making new planets more hspitable aswell.
These are my opinions only.
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7 Responses to “Sustaining Australia’s Future – Building Mountains”
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Ugh, I sincerely doubt anyone will read this, but I’ve shared this same idea for many years now (since late 2005 early 2006) but never have managed to articulate it in such detail.
Although it would be all the more credible if you actually spelled DESERT correctly. Every time it was written all I could think of was chocolate mousse.
Hi this is Martin, I wrote a couple paragraphs about building an artificial mountain range in regions of Australia’s deserts. Thank you for your response. Glad to see like minded intelligent people out there!
I am really sorry about the bad spelling throughout! I wasn’t sure if the particular blog I wrote in was going to accept my response so i submitted it quickly and didn’t check it over.
Anyway, I have found out that in Berlin there is a person who has proposed building a small mountain and also in Dubai, but for more tourist attraction reasons. The Dubai project I think is on hold till the economy picks up again.
Anyway I still believe that by building a mountain in the north west regions of say the state of Victoria (Australia) and making it go into South Australia, then this would block the hot northerly winds ans heat associated with all our bushfire fanning winds. We would in effect creat a much milder climatic conditions in the state of Victoria and possibly NSW and SA. If hot winds have to travel up and over a mountain range in the north of the state then the air should cool down considerably and this would also create precipitation. What a mountain does is it creates a cold region of air which then through the science of convection draws in hot air from the surrounding regions, by this I mean hundreds of kms, which then subsequently cools as it rises to a higher altitude. The beautiful thing about this process is that it draws winds from directions that may normally not travel inland. A mountain range may have air temperatures cooler than ocean air temperatures which creates the ideal conditions of drawing moisture laden warm air from over the oceans and draws this air far inland towards a mountain range where fresh water precipiation is needed. At the moment I have been studying rainfall around Australia, and actually alot of rain actually falls in our southern oceans and not over any land mass as the southenr oceans are cooler than the land mass of Australia. The models of the greenhouse gas predictions, seem to point out that actually more rain will fall in the south oceans rather than on land in Australia. For as the continent heats up more this creates hot air masses which are drawn towards the oceans where it is cooler, and hence moisture laden air is pushed out to sea, rather the other way around.
If we built a mountain range across Australia or at least say 200 km long, from the North west of Victoria into South Australia then the Murray Darling Basin will have dramatically more water flow, and the summer climate in Melbourne would be European and mild, with plenty of spring rain. I believe that you would see the climate change for the better. New rivers would form and we could build large lakes to hold this water. If I was in charge of this moutain building project then I would increase the size of lake Eyre in SA and also deepen it so there is less evaporation (deeper water satys cooler longer and evaporates far less than shallow lakes which dry up in a matter of weeks in desert regions.
More freshwater inland lakes leads to local climatic changes which promote the growth of vegetation and also lead to increases in local scale rainfall.
In terms of moutain design, the reason why I believe that you need a large plateau surface area at high altitude of say between 600 meters to 1500 meters is that at higher altitudes you have the most favourable conditions to create fertile land which you can farm, and create forrests. The air is cooler and this favours a damp soil environment. In effect you would create hundreds of square kilometers of fertile soil, which would become rainforrest, if left alone. Also by creating a plateau which rises sharply to about 600 meters and then has only a slight graident or slop up to 1000-1500 meters, is so you can create as much flat land at higher altitude which will not have as much runoff as steeper mountainous areas. The steep regions to 600 meters initially makes air currents rise and cool down, then these moiture laden air currents then rise up to 1500mters and then should hit a high steep ridge to say 2000-2500 meters, even less (say 1500meters )if the tip of the mountain has a long ridge. The ridge forces higher air to cool and precipiate, but runs down into the plateau region where it will be put to most use to grow forrests. Eventually the runoff will leave the mountain and head into the Murray or possibly another river system. The effects of creating this mountain will not only be felt in the mountain itself but the vast regions south of where the mountain is built will cool down and have much more rain. The cool air of the mountain will create much more rain across deep inland victoria, than currently and farmers will have less pressure from the environment. Our forrests in the east and south of the state of Victoria will become wetter and not be prone to the devastation of large forest fires as happens currently at 20-40 year intervals or less now. This would mean more rainforrest would grow and the forrests would have much better habitat for wildlife as leaf litter can fall and buildup without risk of fires as it would be kept damp longer and rains would be more frequent. We may also be able to create skiing regions and this would help tourism. Which ever way you look at it it makes sense in my opinion to build mountains in Australia. Any amount of money spent will be recovered in the centuries to come. It would be a multibillion dollar project, but it would be worth it.
Thanks Martin Poljansek
Interesting to hear others have entertained ideas I have had for at least two decades. I have even thought of a channel linking Spencers Gulf in South Australia to Lake Eyre, but I suspect that the salt content would soon make this inland sea too salty. But the additional preciptative possibilities could be subjected to rigorous computer modelling to see what such an inland shipping channel come canal to Lake Eyre would reap.
In terms of building mountains, how about extending the Australian Alps about 30kms along its spine and adding about a 1000 metres at its highest?
Or firing high volocity projectiles into the earth in Central Australia and building volcanoes?
Just some thoughts. Terraforming is a science of the future…..
Great to hear your comments on the article I wrote, we think very much alike. In the near future I would like to write a more detailed and scientifically backed book or online resource with alot of illustrations of my and other peoples mountain building or terraforming ideas. Basically building a mountain range or extending an existing mountain range in length and height like you suggested is a worthy scientific and engineering goal of a society in my opinion. I also share your idea on expeanding Lake Eyre with the Spencer gulf in S.A.. I would love to both expand and deepen lake Eyre, as when you creat a body of water large enough you do change the climate into a much more moderate one which can further help establish plant life which would othewise not exist. I strongly believe that the residents of South Australia and Australians in general Lake Eyre would benefit enormously by deepening Lake Eyre to about 10 metres deep (up to 20 in areas) or deeper, as at the moment from the Lake while being very large in area is very shallow, maybe 2 metres or less on average, which means it evaporates very fast as water is shallow and stays to warm. Deep lakes dont evaporate as fast. Also I agree that it needs additional water from somewhere which is more reliable than occassional seasonal rainfal or once in a 5-10 year filling event. I would build a mountain somewhere inland in SA, well behind Lake Eyre which would then have a river system feeding Lake Eyre and also The Murray Darling. What wil happen is that the agricultural and also temperate climae would extend into SA and allow greater food production, allow greater population and better standad of living, better soil structure and allow forestry and greater animal habitats in areas which arent very favourable to human settlement. You would change Australia in so many beneficial ways that the costs of building a mountain or an artificial sea as you suggested would very much justify such a project once people start to see the benefits to the economy. I agree that an inland lake is preferable to be freshwater as you can then use it for irrigation, industy and domestic purposes, but a seawater area is also beneficial if done correctly. If you are going to build a mountain then there will be ample freshwater runoff to fill a lake, without a mountain then extending a seawater lake will be the most beneficial. And I totally agree with you that computer modelling has to be done with a team of CSIRO scientists and engineers, to calculate what would be the best option. I do agree with you that an inland shipping channel would generate enormous benefits to Lake Eyre which in my opinion is under utilised resource. And yes adding any length to the australia alps would be beneficial and increasing its altitude by 1000m would help alot. The reason I didn’t suggest increasing existing mountains height is that it would be hard to convince green groups and justify that you can cover up existing maybe threatened ecosystems which mountain building material like conctrete or earth. But I am glad you raised this point as it is something i forgot to include. Tht is why I suggested that it may be better to select arid, poor quality land which doesn’t have any existing overlying vegetation, such as desserts and improve them and turn them into oasisis. I believe if you build any high altitude land water naturally comes with it, it is very simple natural. I am glad there are like minded people around so I really appreciate your email. I want to spread this idea around to as many people as possible so that Australia and other places which are dry areas can benefit from additional water. Because water is the bottom line which is why a mountain is to be built.
Thank you again for your comments,
Lets hope that one day people smarten themselves up to these ideas.
Best regards,
Martin Poljansek
Again sorry about my spelling mistakes! Got to proof read what I write in more detail!,
Thanks,
Martin
By the way I like your idea about firing high velocity projectiles into the centre of Australia and making a volcanoe. I would like to expand on this idea:-
What you need to do is to build either a huge rail gun in space, orbiting the earth. Or alternatively there is an American company startup which has proposed buidling a kilometer of so long gun which floats under the sea and sticks out only a little bit out of the water and attched and serviced by an oil rig type platform so it can be rotated in all directions. This gun is proposed to fire projectiles into space which can service space station, but my personal opinion is that the shear G-forces probably would make the transported goods difficult to say the least as it is similar to putting something into a shot gun and firing it. But really to make a crater impact I believe that even this gun would not be sufficient. You have to think bigger, such as an asteroidal impact forces. The technology that could best achieve such a terraforming crater which if not done for military purposes would be in my opinion a great idea. How you do this is with a couple optons. You can build an orbiting space rail gun of suitable size to fire a 4 metre diameter tungsten carbide projectile about 10-20 meters in length. The projectile needs to have a ballistic rounded tip to dissipate heat most effectively as a tip speeds of mach 17 plus will be encountered. This is why reentry vehilces or hypersonic vehicles dont have sharp tips as they over het due to to mu suface area to volume. Anyway the projectile then is tapered slightly as parralel shaped projectiles are hard to steer at hypersonic speeds (you can read about this on NASA and other defence blogs). A deep impacting tungsten carbide projectile of 4 metres diameter and 10-20 meters long, travelling at mach 17 to mach 25 has the ability to match a small asteroid type collision say something such as the Tungusta event in siberia russia earlier this century. You would create a crater with this projecile. It all comes to speed and weight. Tungsten carbide is about 19 times heavier than water (I have to check this again) but it is much heavier than iron and is very hard and has a high melting temperature which means it would withstand re – entry speeds. Small military weapons based on this principle are used as the deep penetrating bombs used a future bunker busting bombs by the military.
However mankind will have to choose if such an engineering marvel will be used for good or evil. The ultimate weapon or either terraformming concept that mankind has technology right now, which I have come up with is quite simple. Think about the Pentagons top weapon systems to take out an Iranian deep bunker nuclear bunker or something equivalent of forming a crater for terraforming in places such as central Australia. How you can do this today on current technology is to set aside between 6 and 12 ARES heavy launch lift rockets. We are talking bigger payloads than the Saturn 5 Apollo era rockets tha lande n on the moon. What you do is launch separate tungsten carbide tapered cylidrical pieces which when combined in space fit to form a large projct. These individual peices are screwed together on internal ground taperd mating surfaces and assembled ann zero gravity in space. Once the 4- 8metre wide projectile is assembld from large pieces in say 6-12 rocket launches, you then have a huge ARES type rocket in space to accelerate the projectile which would weigh several hundred to may 2500 tonnes (based on ARES heavy lift rocket lifting 200 tonnes on each launch into suitable geostationary orbit, 400km or so) into the centre of australia. This would really make a big crater, the projctile of 2500 hitting the eath at about Mach 25 – Mach 40 would creat a huge crater, something like an asteroid impact. You could wait till the volcanoe cooled down then use it as a lake or it may creat a small mountain. The dust and ash it jects into hig atmosphere would be a cause for concern though as it would alter climate for about 3 years making it cooler as it takes time to dissipatesmall dust particles. So what ever you do it has to hit the right spot, well away from people and you need plenty of warning. But if you want a true equivalent of a non nuclear bomb with no radiation and want to take outa deep bunker somewhere then the enemy would really not stand a chance. This rojctile could literally penetrate more than a kilometer deep and the shock wave both underground and above ground would heat up everything for maybe a radius of 10-25 kilometers,it could create a mountain or take out any underground North Korean nucler site with ease to more than a kilometer depth, so it is no laughing matter when this things approahes. You will be roasted alive if it came down on top of you by the air pressure heat and hock waveould then obliterate you well before impact. So if I was a North Korean nuclear scientist then I would be very scared as reinforced concrete even 100 meters thick would be like going through tissue paper when this thing hits. But yes apart from the truly awesome military power of such a weapon in the hands of a “good” superpower, you culd easily build a small yet useful crater in central australia for terraforming purposes such a lake creation or a basin to catch water and grow trees in a cooler area. Think of the kimberley mountains with all the crevaces and gorges which support life well away from the hot 40 plus temperatures. This is what a crater would also do, giv much needed protection from the Northrly and westerly sun.
Thank you,
Martin