In article ,
Derek Lyons wrote:
For example, I see no mention of the problem of keeping the collection
system free of barnacles and other sea life, a problem that's never been
fully solved even for ships.

Send a diver or ROV out and wipe the thing down now and again -
problem solved long ago.

Not for things that have surface areas of hundreds or thousands of square
kilometers, it hasn't been. A collector system that can sweep cubic
kilometers of seawater per minute won't be small.

And barnacles in particular don't just "wipe" off most kinds of surface;
if I recall correctly, they can even anchor themselves fairly solidly to
Teflon, which is quite a trick. Maybe if you wipe often enough to clear
the larvae off before they can anchor...

Oh, something workable can probably be developed. But I'm not convinced
it's a trivial issue, not for something on this scale -- it could easily
be a major source of difficulty and expense -- and it's an example of the
sort of practical problem which needs to be considered and apparently
hasn't been, yet.

This is promising work, yes, but it's way too early to call it an assured
source of TW-yr/yr quantities of uranium.
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