The Good News Only - thread...

[PurplePenguin]

That's *very* good news. I guess that that in itself is a game changer, and (also mentioned elsewhere) that if there is a step change in battery technology (price, space required, environmental impacts from mining etc), that will only add to the no-brainer choices ahead.

 

[Pross]

They've realised it's a non-starter, for all sorts of reasons. Pie in the sky would be more achievable in practical terms. I think they've pulled the plug.

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I saw that but the official site is still up, the suggestion I saw is it is being substantially scaled back but the Saudis claim it is going ahead. It was one of the projects being worked on by a company I interviewed with recently and one of several new cities they were involved with over there.

 

[briantrumpet]

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That's also good news, though not sure about the environmental/human impacts of lithium mining. I remember from c.10 years ago some UK scientist saying that they had a good prospect of aluminium batteries which would be better on all fronts, but I'm guessing that that ran into a dead end somewhere.

 

[briantrumpet]

I saw that but the official site is still up, the suggestion I saw is it is being substantially scaled back but the Saudis claim it is going ahead. It was one of the projects being worked on by a company I interviewed with recently and one of several new cities they were involved with over there.

Commuting would be fun - just 170km to get from one end to the other. London might have its challenges in getting around, but maybe cities that are based on a circular ground plan do have some benefits. Well, lots of them, for the humans that are going to use them. I can't even begin to wrap my head around the thinking that stretching out a city into a 170km line will improve the lives of the humans in it.

 

[Pross]

Commuting would be fun - just 170km to get from one end to the other. London might have its challenges in getting around, but maybe cities that are based on a circular ground plan do have some benefits. Well, lots of them, for the humans that are going to use them. I can't even begin to wrap my head around the thinking that stretching out a city into a 170km line will improve the lives of the humans in it.

I assume it would have zones (and probably very fast rail links).

 

[briantrumpet]

I assume it would have zones (and probably very fast rail links).

I think as a concept it's utterly insane: creating multiple major problems that traditionally-shaped cities don't have because of some bizarre concept of what a city 'could' be like.

Cities have evolved as they have because humans use them and (generally) the evolution has been centred on the human experience, not an architect having a drug-inspired dream about a 170km line in a desert.

 

[PurplePenguin]

I think you are focusing on the wrong thing when looking at the 170km part. It's planned to be one building that is 500m high, 200m wide and completely self-contained with no cars. Fermont, Quebec is vaguely similar, but is only 1.3km long and has a few extra houses and cars. Presumably vitamin D supplements are necessary.

 

[BoldonLad]

It's an interesting moral dilemma where a nation that was easy to criticise on most fronts (communism, repression of minorities, global warming from industry, etc.) is now, because of its size and the ability of the authoritarian government to mobilise a massive working population to take a particular economic direction, able to (potentially) be a massive force for good for the environment.

(Apologies for all the parentheses in a very long sentence.)

Does that make a case for an "Authoritarian Government" ?

 

[briantrumpet]

Does that make a case for an "Authoritarian Government" ?

Not in itself, but it's one of the dilemmas to wrestle with.