Ocean Spiral: The Underwater City

Japan has plans for underwater city! It’s called Ocean Spiral.

I always wonder, what will happen, when we run out of space on the surface of the Earth. Now it seems like Japanese firm, has plans for the city under the water. It would cost around 22 billion Euro ($25 billion). The name is very appropriate – Ocean Spiral, and could accommodate 5.000 people. Now, a Japanese construction firm called Shimizu Corp., says, that they are already working on this project. The expected finish should be sooner, then we all expect – by 2030. Hideo Imamura, the Shimizu spokesman, said, that this is not just a pipe dream, but the real deal.

Ocean Spiral – The Underwater City

As the name says, Ocean Spiral, the structure of this underwater city will be spiral and it will have 3 major sections. The central part is a spiral, 15km long with room for business zones, residential areas and hotel rooms. At the bottom at about 3,000 to 4,000 thousand meters under the sea, the spiral will be linked to an ‘earth factory’. This represents the research centre for developing energy sources. The plants inside are there to produce methane from carbon dioxide by using microorganisms called ‘methanogens‘. The company also wants to use the differences of seawater temperature to produce electricity. This concept is known as ocean thermal energy conversion.

Ocean Spiral – The Underwater City

The design of this underwater city was created with researchers from the University of Tokyo. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology and government’s Fisheries Research Agency. Shimizu Corp. is planing to use technologies, that they think will be acceptable in the future, like an industrial scale 3-D printer and to create the Ocean Spiral out of resin.

However, it is not just good news and everything will go smoothly. The company already knows, that underwater cities are very vulnerable to damage from tsunamis or earthquakes. For now, I guess, we don’t have many options, just to wait till 2030 and we shall see. By the time, maybe Japan will be moving under water. Who knows.

More pictures of Ocean Spiral:

Ocean Spiral – The Underwater City

Source: Shimizu Corp.