Comments on: Depthscrapers Defy Earthquakes

By: Walter A. Johanson

Walter A. Johanson — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 19:19:00 +0000

Please not that I have a patent on a solar hybrid lighting system (US Patent: 6,840,645). Part of it describes a heliostat that can redirect sunlight down a shaft in a building or onto anything. This design two parabolic mirrors with a common focal point take a wide collection of direct sunlight and concentrate it and recollimate it into a shaft of light. This system can collect the full power of the sun where ever it is in the sky (unlike the single mirror shown). The means to get the shaft of light straight down is to use an offset system of mirrors set at 45 degrees to the light beams. By doing this and only this can you beam the full amount of light that you collect down into a building. Please note, that for the building shown in this article I would not use the parabolic mirror to concentrate the light but simply use the two flat mirrors set a 45 degrees to one another. Please feel free to contact me. Walter A. Johanson

By: The Long Now Blog » Blog Archive » Underground Wonders

The Long Now Blog » Blog Archive » Underground Wonders — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:04:37 +0000

[...] Depth Scrapers! [...]

By: mainjurii

mainjurii — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:45:33 +0000

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By: deputydog | depthscrapers

deputydog | depthscrapers — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:46:37 +0000

[...] depthscrapers defy earthquakes. go. [...]

By: Alex Railean

Alex Railean — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 11:04:54 +0000

Wow, that’s a very interesting concept; besides the problem of earthquakes* it solves the problem of insufficient space. In theory, if one day we run out of space on the ground – we can continue by developing more facilities in the underground.

* I’m not sure it’s safe to be underground during an earthquake. What if the structure collapses? There’s no way to run.

“The whole structure, therefore, in case of an earthquake, will vibrate together, resisting any crushing strain.”

It is a bit counter-intuitive to me; I always thought that the closer we are to the hipocenter of an earthquake, the greater the damage can be.

By: Stannous

Stannous — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 02:49:14 +0000

Yeah, just where I want to be in a 9.2 quake, at the bottom of a hole. A giant pre-dug mass grave, how convenient!

And that reflector looks like the parabolic one I used to roast ants with when I was a kid.

Of course if they’d had a bunch of these during WW2 they might have been handy.

By: Stannous

Stannous — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 02:48:25 +0000

Yeah, just where I want to be in a 9.2 quake, at the bottom of a hole…

And the reflector looks like the parabolic one I used to roast ant swith when I was a kid.

Of course if they’d had a bunch of these during WW2 they might have been handy.