Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: indy007 on January 22, 2005, 02:40:58 PM
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This is pretty cool (http://ueba.com.br/forums/?showtopic=11937)
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Isn't that type of land building extremely vulnerable to earthquakes? Cool anyway.
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Where is this?
The Japanese have learned this doesnt work well. Seems the island/airport keeps sinking.
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The title of that thread has Osaka in it...I'm guessing that's where it is.
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Okay, it was Osaka, I wondered.
They are fighting a battle keeping it from sinking under the water. They literally have to keep jacking up the airport as it is sinking into the ocean. Turning out to be an engineering nightmare.
dago
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That's kinda inflammatory. The airport stopped sinking in 2003, that's why they're adding a new runway. As a business, the airport isn't doing too good. It charges high landing fees (I read $7500 for a 747) that have chased airlines to other airports, and traffic isn't high enough to fully justify the existing capacity, much less the second runway being built.
...but the problems are squarely financial, not engineering.
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how did they build that? Was there land just under the ocean and they just built it up?
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No, it was water all the way to the core of the earth. They just put a big floatie out there and got it to stay.
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Originally posted by hawker238
No, it was water all the way to the core of the earth. They just put a big floatie out there and got it to stay.
ROFL, that's awesome.
-Sik
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The Kansai airport is built on the Osaka Bay, not built on an 'ocean.' Building a higher retaining wall was the latest frantic idea (making it an underwater airport?) before the settling 'reportedly' slowed. I use quotes because, well, because... never mind.
Japan economics 101:
Even though it loses money, another runway will be built. The pesky problem with airlines and passengers using other airports will be solved by... closing or restricting the use of the other airports, of course.
The airport may not make a profit, but that doesn't mean it's bad business. Think concrete and the construction industry. Japan is the world leader in concrete and cement. Japan pours more concrete every year than the U.S. does.
The U.S. construction industry employs about 1% of the workforce. Japan employs 14% of the population in the construction industry.
All those people and all that concrete circulate alot of money and if the people don't use the airport, they still pay for it by taxes supporting it and being used to build yet another airport just down the Bay from it so they can work to pay more taxes to build a dam project (ohh more concrete...) to work to pay taxes to build a money-losing highway (ohhh more concrete) etc...
There you have it.
And by the way, the slowing of the airport sinking was quite a disappointment. You can't pour more concrete for a retaining wall if the darn thing stops sinking, so I suspect the airport will soon be delcared to be sinking again.
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I don't know about concrete, but Japan is not the worlds largest user of Cement, the US or China is(still open to debate). I do know that the US is the largest importer of cement, mainly due to environmental restrictions.
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Originally posted by hawker238
No, it was water all the way to the core of the earth. They just put a big floatie out there and got it to stay.
LOL! You receive a gold star, young man. Well done.
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That is entirely possible, show me, Rolex, since you said I was wrong.
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Sorry, Lizking.
I instantly deleted the post (how did you see it??) because I was on my way out the door of a hotel early in the morning... and late for a meeting (ouch) and most importantly, I was hasty and wrong.
I apologize. I should not have said 'world leader.' Japan does pour more concrete than the U.S. but less cement. You're absolutely right. (I could be sneaky and backpedal to say Japan is the 'per-capita' leader but I won't. :) )
I think the cement ranking is China, India, U.S. Japan. I'm not sure about any debate on the top spot since the China usage for 2002 was almost 700 million metric tons and I thought U.S. usage was a little over 100 million tons. Even a short tons/metric tons conversion error would change U.S. usage by only about 10%.
Anyway, that's the info I have.
[added] I forgot to add that yes, you are right - The U.S. is the largest importer of cement - by far. But that's a whole other kettle of fish.
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Originally posted by hawker238
No, it was water all the way to the core of the earth. They just put a big floatie out there and got it to stay.
(http://gilbertv.com/coppermine/albums/test/normal_owned_kid.jpg)
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I don't think you can be "owned" for asking a question. can you?
I was wondering how they built the thing because I was reminded of a US navy plan to build a floating Naval base that could travel to any ocean in the world in a matter a of weeks.
It was to be about 1 mile long by 1/2 mile across and carry up tp 35,000 troops, planes, everything. A complete base.
So who's "owned" They can actualy build such thing on top of nothing but water like a big floatie. Go figure.
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Yeah, that was improper use of 'owned'.
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More like Smart-assed. :)
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Re Cement production:
Worldwide, the United States ranks third in cement production, behind China — the world’s leading producer — and India.
http://www.cement.org/basics/cementindustry.asp
Re Cement Consumption:
Asia- 974 (million tonnes)
Western Europe- 411
N. America- 115
Latin American- 93
Eastern Europe- 69
Japan- 60
http://www.palladian-publications.com/Cement/WC_regional_review_july04.htm
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Despite popular belief to the contrary, The United States of America does not equal 'North America'.
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It does when you are researching arcane statistics.
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Rolex - you forgot to close the economic loop.
Ruling politicos use tax money to support construction industry. Construction industry funnels money to local politicos. Ruling politicos... etc.
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Forgot to close the loop? That's nothing... I forgot to close my zipper on my dash out the door. And isn't that economics 102? ;)