Concreting the UK

kabayiri

The Google Way would be to find a method of driving over grass and rock and rubble and stuff. Forget concrete or tarmac.

Hover power it is then. Point to point too.

Now then....tough question time .... if I hover commute over some landed gentry's ground at a height of say 10 feet am I trespassing?

Generali

kabayiri wrote: »

The Google Way would be to find a method of driving over grass and rock and rubble and stuff. Forget concrete or tarmac.

Hover power it is then. Point to point too.

Now then....tough question time .... if I hover commute over some landed gentry's ground at a height of say 10 feet am I trespassing?

I think you are only trespassing if you break something or breach a court order.

cells

Generali wrote: »

Here's a thought that I can't answer because I'm on the train. How would the concrete get to the UK? Is/could the UK be self-sufficient. If not, what would be the capacity of ports to bring in the raw materials.

Another one. How does the answer change if we tarmacked over the UK or turned the UK into some nice decking?

At a cost of some £20 trillion to do the job almost all of it has to be domestic we simply couldn't afford to import a fraction of that

We could possibly manufacture all the cement (limestone and chalk) and use bricks (clay). Sand might be a problem not sure how much the UK has

decking is probably cheaper so would take less time. You probably don't need any big ground works for decking so maybe 5 times faster if its 5x cheaper.

the_flying_pig

Generali wrote: »

Here's a thought that I can't answer because I'm on the train. How would the concrete get to the UK? Is/could the UK be self-sufficient. If not, what would be the capacity of ports to bring in the raw materials..?

I'm fairly sure that the UK is near enough entirely self-sufficient, e.g. loads of aggregates come from the mendip hills & get moved to the South East by rail.

of course to get enough aggregates for concrete to cover the *whole* of the UK you'd need, well, quarries that covered a really large slice of the UK, even allowing for quarries going much *deeper* than a single road's worth.


importing that many aggregates, yeah, I suppose it'd be done by ship and would be a really slow & costly business.

zagubov

Would we need to upgrade a lot of roads first so that the aggregate lorries can bring in all the sand and gravel to all the remote places? Or is it worth while extending the canal network to transport it more slowly but cheaply. Before filling them in of course.

Generali

Thinking about it, you'd clearly use some kind of prefabricated paving slab. You simply wouldn't want to pay to carry all that water in a readymix lorry.

Anyway, I maintain decking is the way to go. Probably using that plastic stuff that's made from recycled something or other.

You could then grow food in pots on the deck which would support some fraction of the population. Tourists would come from miles around to see the great Fens Deck, the largest single flat decked area in the world.

zagubov

Generali wrote: »

Thinking about it, you'd clearly use some kind of prefabricated paving slab. You simply wouldn't want to pay to carry all that water in a readymix lorry.

Anyway, I maintain decking is the way to go. Probably using that plastic stuff that's made from recycled something or other.

You could then grow food in pots on the deck which would support some fraction of the population. Tourists would come from miles around to see the ewly-paved-over country.great Fens Deck, the largest single flat decked area in the world.

I'd presumed that food would be driven out from the multitude of Soylent Green factories to all the corner shops dotting the newly-paved country.

robotrobo

cells wrote: »

Say we wanted to concrete over the whole UK

How long would it take?

I'm not talking about houses, just the stuff roads are made from

Any ideas?

can you please do my driveway when you are passing.
best regards

BobQ

chewmylegoff wrote: »

The easiest way would be to use the hot air generated on this forum to melt the polar ice caps until there was only a tiny bit of Britain left above water and then concrete that. I reckon I can get it done by next Wednesday.

A few nuclear bombs might also help the levelling!

OP what is your plan after concrete? It is a hell of a job to clean you know.

antrobus

Generali wrote: »

Here's a thought that I can't answer because I'm on the train. How would the concrete get to the UK? Is/could the UK be self-sufficient. If not, what would be the capacity of ports to bring in the raw materials. ..

Greece has cement making companies. Greece apparently has a lot of quarried crushed rock. Greece has a large shipping fleet.

Problem solved.