Cities in the Arctic

JoshNH4H · 2017-10-29 19:44:23

Even as climate change starts to flood coastlines in some places, it's also creating new coastlines as the arctic ice shelf melts.

We are rapidly heading towards a point where the coastlines of the arctic ocean will be ice-free year round rather than just in the summer. Climate change has a lot of negatives but this seems like a bright spot.

What should we do about it? Is it worth trying to inhabit places that far North?

SpaceNut · 2017-10-29 20:03:11

The first trouble will be with the indigeous populations claims to hunting grounds and land that will need to be over come before man could think about it.
Short trade route of the north would be to hug the coastline for sure.

Antius · 2017-10-29 23:12:00

The biggest problem in my opinion would be growing enough food to feed a large population. This is the single most important reason that these places do not support large populations today. The holding capacity of the land is low. The conquest of the west was possible because huge swathes of prairie land were available to grow abundant crops. They both enabled the exercise and made it worthwhile. Siberia and Northern Canada are empty because they cannot replicate that advantage, or at least could not in the past.

Maybe food can be grown in polytunnels heated by nuclear waste heat. That could shift the equation somewhat. But then again, we tend to locate reactors close to existing demand centres. So it is difficult to see why any government or corporation would choose to locate one in the middle of nowhere. But this would appear to be a key enabling technology for arctic colonisation.

JoshNH4H · 2017-10-30 08:56:09

I haven't done the calculations but glass greenhouses have the ability to stay a lot warmer than the surrounding environments as long as there is sunlight. Warmth won't be a problem, and there's plenty of sunlight during the spring and summer months (more hours per day than lower latitudes in fact). You might do aeroponics to maximize the productivity of greenhouse space, just like on Mars.

Power is the real challenge, as usual. Nuclear seems particularly well-suited to polar locations (there is local oil production but we are moving away from that in general). Solar is pretty much out of the question due to cloudy weather and dark winters.

Terraformer · 2017-10-30 11:58:14

If we can't settle the high Arctic, give up on your dreams of space.

GW Johnson · 2017-10-30 12:04:03

The biggest problem is that tundra is not prairie. When the permafrost melts (and it will) you get a deep bog. Not farmable land.

Further south but still in the far cold north by today's standards, there is cold prairie and forest that will become farmable. THAT is where the population moves to, away from flooded coastlines and expanding deserts (no more glacial melt to prove water in the rivers).

GW

RobertDyck · 2017-10-30 14:46:20

This is Canada's northern border, and has been since 1927. Notice the entire North West Passage is within Canada, it isn't international waters. As of 1895 the border was just 12 miles off the coast of our northern islands, but did include all the waters between islands. That means the North West Passage has been Canadian sovereign territory since 1895.

There are communities up there right now. Not a lot, but some. Alaska has communities along its northern coast as well. I could list them, but it's kind of moot. Some indigenous people of northern Canada are complaining that their traditional way of life is becoming impossible. However, most people live in modern houses, not traditional shelters, and they wear modern clothing, not hand-made clothing from local resources. So again, moot. And brief research on Wikipedia...

The Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule culture, which emerged from western Alaska around 1,000 CE and spread eastward across the Arctic, displacing the Dorset culture (in Inuktitut, the Tuniit). Inuit historically referred to the Tuniit as "giants", or "dwarfs", who were taller and stronger than the Inuit. Researchers hypothesize that the Dorset culture lacked dogs, larger weapons and other technologies used by the expanding Inuit society. By 1300, the Inuit had settled in west Greenland, and finally moved into east Greenland over the following century. The Inuit had trade routes with more southern cultures. Boundary disputes were common and led to aggressive actions.

So it's time for another change. But there are people there now. And yes, communities in Yukon are already building greenhouses.

JoshNH4H · 2017-10-30 18:56:21

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that those cultures are gone, but there's a lot of land up there and we don't need to make the same mistakes as past settlers and colonists did.

I agree with GW that a big benefit will be to the communities at the margins, where farming was previously untenable and maybe less so, but I'm interested in the communities of the arctic coast because they're more different and more Mars-like. I definitely agree with Terraformer that the high arctic is a sort of Mars-on-Earth, with many of the same drawbacks and benefits (minus being on a different planet).

The four largest cities north of the arctic circle are Murmansk, Russia (population 307,257), Norilsk, Russia (175,365), Tromsø, Norway (71,295) and Vorkuta, Russia (59,231). Utqiaġvik, Alaska (Formerly known as Barrow) is the largest town outside of Norway and Russia with just over 4,000 residents, plus a few thousand transient oil workers.

Antius · 2017-10-31 02:18:26

JoshNH4H wrote:

I don't know if I'd go as far as to say that those cultures are gone, but there's a lot of land up there and we don't need to make the same mistakes as past settlers and colonists did.
I agree with GW that a big benefit will be to the communities at the margins, where farming was previously untenable and maybe less so, but I'm interested in the communities of the arctic coast because they're more different and more Mars-like. I definitely agree with Terraformer that the high arctic is a sort of Mars-on-Earth, with many of the same drawbacks and benefits (minus being on a different planet).
The four largest cities north of the arctic circle are Murmansk, Russia (population 307,257), Norilsk, Russia (175,365), Tromsø, Norway (71,295) and Vorkuta, Russia (59,231). Utqiaġvik, Alaska (Formerly known as Barrow) is the largest town outside of Norway and Russia with just over 4,000 residents, plus a few thousand transient oil workers.

So in answer to your original question, these places are inhabited already, albeit lightly. So it is clearly worth inhabiting them, assuming you want the resources and way of life that that implies.

Traditional cultures lived off of the animal life of the land, an approach that spread them thinly and required migratory settlements. The people living there now have already largely abandoned that way of life and live in permanent settlements eating mostly imported food. Not a very sustainable approach, but the productivity of the land is extremely limited and it will not naturally support large numbers of people. To do that requires concentrated artificial energy sources. Mostly fossil fuels up to now, with some contribution from nuclear energy. More later.

Last edited by Antius (2017-10-31 02:21:39)

louis · 2017-10-31 04:55:37

Most people don't like living so far north because of the climate and shortness of days in winter. In some northern cities of Norway more than half the population decamps for the worst of the winter.

Incidentally,my understanding is no one has navigated the NW passage in winter without an ice breaker.

Terraformer · 2017-10-31 05:05:33

This is Canada's northern border, and has been since 1927. Notice the entire North West Passage is within Canada, it isn't international waters.

Not international, but probably not internal waters either. Was the Irish Sea considered the internal waters of the UK before Irish independence? What about the waters between Greek islands?

The Arctic might be able to get by mostly on solar power, actually, when it comes to growing food. It can be stored for the long winters. You'll want sun lamps though.

elderflower · 2017-10-31 06:17:40

Back in those days, states were only allowed 12 miles offshore for their national waters. The Irish sea is about 80 to 100 miles across except for the North Channel. Nowadays states can claim 200 miles as exclusive economic zones. There remains a requirement for freedom of navigation, though this can be restricted in designated zones.

Antius · 2017-10-31 07:23:17

As an aside, the decline of the Greenland Norse is a story that every prospective Mars colonist should know. It serves as a warning of what happens if you attempt to maintain a lifestyle and culture in an environment that is not suited to it. The Norse moved to the southern Greenland Fjords towards the end of the tenth century AD and maintained a pastoral lifestyle there for some three centuries. A combination of factors eventually killed them off:

1. They were dependent upon iron tools and wood and their new home did not provide any source of these;

2. The Fjord pastures were sparsely vegetated, and bovines could not thrive in this environment. The main diet of the Norse was milk, cheese and beef, which they were able to substitute with Sea Lion meat. They made no attempt to eat local fish, presumably for cultural reasons. Their landed lifestyle provided barely enough calories to keep them healthy;

3. A little ice arrived in the late Mediaeval period. This resulted in three problems: (a) The pasture in the fjords retreated, reducing food supply; (b) The Norse were cut off from their Scandinavian homeland; (c) Migratory animal populations shifted.

4. The Thule Indians expanded into Greenland at about the same time. The Norse warred with them, but being few in number and without iron weapons, they took heavy losses.

Generally, their misfortune can be summarised as a failure to adapt properly to a new environment. Their diet and general way of life was not suited to the high arctic environment and they were unable or unwilling to adapt their way of life in a way that would allow them to subsist in such a poor environment. Mother Nature made things worse by suddenly changing climate and cutting their supply lines.

In the modern world, we survive in these environments not so much by adapting to them, but by supporting a predetermined lifestyle with technology. Even the Inuit live in oil heated houses, wear commercial clothing, use petrol powered vehicles, etc. We can do this and the Norse could not, because abundant fossil fuels provide a very cheap storable, portable energy source and allow the manufacture of complex products and their distribution through reliable global supply lines. This way of life will survive as long the energy sources supporting it continue to function at an acceptable energy return. It works because these people are able to trade something that allows them to afford the things that they need to survive.

The problem we have with colonising Mars is that neither option seems to work very well. The high cost of transport means that we cannot live well at the end of supply lines from Earth. Yet the environment itself is poorer even that the Arctic – there is no liquid water, no flora, not even air that we can breathe. A lot of technology and infrastructure are needed just to survive. Yet opportunities for exports to pay for imports are weak at best.

Terraformer · 2017-10-31 07:51:50

The svalbard islands have open borders with a lot of countries, including the US and UK. It's pretty inhospitable, but if we can't make it there, we can't make it anywhere offworld. Perfect for trying to build a town as a prelude to Mars settlement.

elderflower · 2017-10-31 09:54:30

Svalbard has a town (Longyearbyen) and has had a couple of other settlements over the years. The main reason was the mining of coal. Even with an available energy source, no agriculture seems to be practiced. This is probably because the west coast of this island group has a relatively short iced in season despite its high latitude, allowing regular supply shipments. There was a farm at one period but it stopped operating years ago.

louis · 2017-10-31 11:17:11

I remember being fascinated when a teacher at school described how Swedes in the far north iron ore mining areas survived. They lived in their double glazed centrally heated houses, got into a car in a heated internal garage, and then went off to work or shop in centrally heated buildings. That stayed with me, and I have always taken that as a lesson for Mars. There is really v. little need to undertake EVAs or be exposed directly to the Mars climate.

Well elsewhere the talk appears to be of the cost of rocket launches coming down to $60-180 per kg. That's not at all prohibitive.

I don't accept there will be insufficient exports (or other earnings) to pay for imports. And why do you need liquid water if you have ice and frozen water in the regolith? You just heat it up to make it liquid. With efficient recycling (which will be necessary in any case since you can't have a humidity build-up) you don't even need to replenish your supply that much.

I accept a lot of technology per person will be required. But for a small colony, that's not a problem. Building your colony up to 1000 over 20 years say might require 5 tonnes of imports per person, let's say, but that is only 33 BFR flights over 20 years , or just or just over 3 flights per 2-yearly transfer opportunity.

Compared with the polar regions on Earth, equatorial Mars is a benign environment: no fierce storms, no ocean, no huge snowfalls and (nearly) all the minerals you require readily exposed at the surface for the taking, rather than covered in many feet or even miles of ice.

Antius wrote:

In the modern world, we survive in these environments not so much by adapting to them, but by supporting a predetermined lifestyle with technology. Even the Inuit live in oil heated houses, wear commercial clothing, use petrol powered vehicles, etc. We can do this and the Norse could not, because abundant fossil fuels provide a very cheap storable, portable energy source and allow the manufacture of complex products and their distribution through reliable global supply lines. This way of life will survive as long the energy sources supporting it continue to function at an acceptable energy return. It works because these people are able to trade something that allows them to afford the things that they need to survive.
The problem we have with colonising Mars is that neither option seems to work very well. The high cost of transport means that we cannot live well at the end of supply lines from Earth. Yet the environment itself is poorer even that the Arctic – there is no liquid water, no flora, not even air that we can breathe. A lot of technology and infrastructure are needed just to survive. Yet opportunities for exports to pay for imports are weak at best.

elderflower · 2017-10-31 13:30:25

Icy regolith will melt to muddy bleach, Louis. It will need a lot of processing. Much better to find massive deposits.

Terraformer · 2017-10-31 14:22:42

I remember being fascinated when a teacher at school described how Swedes in the far north iron ore mining areas survived. They lived in their double glazed centrally heated houses, got into a car in a heated internal garage, and then went off to work or shop in centrally heated buildings. That stayed with me, and I have always taken that as a lesson for Mars. There is really v. little need to undertake EVAs or be exposed directly to the Mars climate.

They didn't work in heated buildings if their job was building said buildings. Or maintaining the roads people drove on. Or the multitude of other jobs upon which civilisation depends.

louis · 2017-10-31 15:47:01

I presume they put those buidlings up in summer. Many buildings in arctic areas are transported there - basic Portakabin construction.

But horses for courses: on Mars robots can do the building. I presume you have seen robot builders at work? -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzgOPLFwEgM

Terraformer wrote:

I remember being fascinated when a teacher at school described how Swedes in the far north iron ore mining areas survived. They lived in their double glazed centrally heated houses, got into a car in a heated internal garage, and then went off to work or shop in centrally heated buildings. That stayed with me, and I have always taken that as a lesson for Mars. There is really v. little need to undertake EVAs or be exposed directly to the Mars climate.
They didn't work in heated buildings if their job was building said buildings. Or maintaining the roads people drove on. Or the multitude of other jobs upon which civilisation depends.

louis · 2017-11-01 04:24:09

From Wikipedia's Svalbard page: "Taxation: This allows taxes to be collected, but only enough to support Svalbard and the Svalbard government. This results in lower taxes than mainland Norway and the exclusion of any taxes on Svalbard supporting Norway directly. "

Some people with a negative view of Mars's economic potential should take that on board...even though Svalbard is in a very inhospitable locale, it manages to have much lower taxes than rich and (in parts) fertile Norway. Why? Well, as with the early Mars settlement it has very few welfare and education costs. Nearly all the people living there will be pretty healthy and certainly capable of work.They will have been educated elsewhere. It is also a demilitarised area. Health, welfare, pensions, defence and education make up a huge proportion of modern state budgets - probably something like 80% and government spending is usually 40-50% of the whole GDP in European states. So you can see that there is potentially a huge slice of output - probably 35-40% of total GDP - that becomes available for investment in infrastructure in those circumstances. That is a great recipe for rapid expansion.

elderflower wrote:

Svalbard has a town (Longyearbyen) and has had a couple of other settlements over the years. The main reason was the mining of coal. Even with an available energy source, no agriculture seems to be practiced. This is probably because the west coast of this island group has a relatively short iced in season despite its high latitude, allowing regular supply shipments. There was a farm at one period but it stopped operating years ago.

Antius · 2017-11-01 07:07:25

louis wrote:

"Taxation: This allows taxes to be collected, but only enough to support Svalbard and the Svalbard government. This results in lower taxes than mainland Norway and the exclusion of any taxes on Svalbard supporting Norway directly. "

Louis, this implies that Svalbard is financially dependent on subsidies from the Norwegian government. In other words the colony is not financially self-supporting even though it has comparatively easy access to global trade through the sea lanes.

It has other very significant advantages over a Mars base. You can breathe the air and don't need to manufacture it. Habitats need to be insulated, but do not need to be pressurised. Food can be grown in heated (though not pressurised) greenhouses or can be fished out of the ocean. You can go outside to collect and build stuff with warm clothing, rather than a space suit. And a colony on Svalbard can import and export far more cheaply than a colony on Mars. You mention that a Mars colony can gather raw materials from the surface without ownership rights and manufacture all sorts of products. Why is this any less true for Svalbard or Northern Canada or Greenland? It seems logical to ask the question: Why would we expect a Mars base/colony to grow into a thriving civilisation when colonies in much less hostile environments on Earth fail to do so? What advantages does a Mars colony actually have that allow it to transcend the experience of small towns in hostile environments here on Earth?

louis wrote:

Some people with a negative view of Mars's economic potential should take that on board...even though Svalbard is in a very inhospitable locale, it manages to have much lower taxes than rich and (in parts) fertile Norway. Why? Well, as with the early Mars settlement it has very few welfare and education costs.

That is mostly true for a scientific outpost in the early decades, in which the base population cycles back to Earth and there is a pre-selection process in place. The base will still require medical facilities for treatment of injury and disease, but demands upon it will be simpler and less intense given the mostly adult and working age population. It ceases to be true when the base evolves into a city, as Musk intends it to be from day 1 and after a few decades, evolves into a society with a distributed age structure.

Terraformer · 2017-11-01 07:27:42

Svalbard also deports anyone who doesn't have a job, because they can't afford not to.

louis, you idea of Mars settlement seems to be to dump anyone who doesn't meet your standards onto Terra, whether they were born on Mars or not.

louis · 2017-11-01 07:54:35

No, I think the colony will change and become more Earth-like once you have procreation on Mars. But generally procreation is probably a good 4 decades or more away after first arrival. But even then, it's going to be several decades before you have old age non-working pensioners. My point is that for the first 50-60 years the colony can really plough the great majority of its resources into infrastructure investment. On Mars not a lot of investment will need to go into transport, bridges, flood control, weather defences and so on, but a lot will be required for energy, construction, life support and enclosed agriculture.

Terraformer wrote:

Svalbard also deports anyone who doesn't have a job, because they can't afford not to.
louis, you idea of Mars settlement seems to be to dump anyone who doesn't meet your standards onto Terra, whether they were born on Mars or not.

louis · 2017-11-01 08:05:27

No, it does not imply there are Norwegian subsidies. Quite the reverse.

It's true habitats have to be pressurisd on Mars, but on the other hand, heat loss is slower in the v. low atmospheric pressure, and the terrain/seasonal insolation cycle is much more suited to PV power production on Mars.

I think you are misrepresenting what I have said about raw materials/production/exports. I have never suggested that Mars can compete with Earth based mining operations in relation to common materials like iron ore. But for v. valuable materials, such as gold, the absence of land costs, taxation, licensing and (in many cases) environmental protections costs, will make a difference.

The difference between Svalbard and Mars is that the latter has many more USPs - unique selling points - than Svalbard (which is basically like any other sets of islands in the frozen wastes) and moreover, that its land mass is equivalent to all the land mass on Earth.

Antius wrote:

louis wrote:
"Taxation: This allows taxes to be collected, but only enough to support Svalbard and the Svalbard government. This results in lower taxes than mainland Norway and the exclusion of any taxes on Svalbard supporting Norway directly. "
Louis, this implies that Svalbard is financially dependent on subsidies from the Norwegian government. In other words the colony is not financially self-supporting even though it has comparatively easy access to global trade through the sea lanes.
It has other very significant advantages over a Mars base. You can breathe the air and don't need to manufacture it. Habitats need to be insulated, but do not need to be pressurised. Food can be grown in heated (though not pressurised) greenhouses or can be fished out of the ocean. You can go outside to collect and build stuff with warm clothing, rather than a space suit. And a colony on Svalbard can import and export far more cheaply than a colony on Mars. You mention that a Mars colony can gather raw materials from the surface without ownership rights and manufacture all sorts of products. Why is this any less true for Svalbard or Northern Canada or Greenland? It seems logical to ask the question: Why would we expect a Mars base/colony to grow into a thriving civilisation when colonies in much less hostile environments on Earth fail to do so? What advantages does a Mars colony actually have that allow it to transcend the experience of small towns in hostile environments here on Earth?
louis wrote:
Some people with a negative view of Mars's economic potential should take that on board...even though Svalbard is in a very inhospitable locale, it manages to have much lower taxes than rich and (in parts) fertile Norway. Why? Well, as with the early Mars settlement it has very few welfare and education costs.
That is mostly true for a scientific outpost in the early decades, in which the base population cycles back to Earth and there is a pre-selection process in place. The base will still require medical facilities for treatment of injury and disease, but demands upon it will be simpler and less intense given the mostly adult and working age population. It ceases to be true when the base evolves into a city, as Musk intends it to be from day 1 and after a few decades, evolves into a society with a distributed age structure.

SpaceNut · 2017-11-01 16:25:28

Would say that unless a nuclear plant is built and its power remains cheap for the populous that would want to reside there that energy is the greatest problem when setting up new cities along with the rest of the infrastructure required for growth.

If all that populate the cities are from a non power society then the food and fresh water are next for demand as they care little about infrastructure building. Which means you learn to eat what is there and dream about gardens until you have the power and or structures to keep it able to grow the food indoors even with natural lighting.

The domes / other structures that are from Norway and other northern places show how it can be done...

As far as continental territory thats what governments are for and the people care little unless it takes food out of there mouths.

The means to generate power seems to be the main issue for those not accustomed to the area and life style.

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Cities in the Arctic

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