BLDGBLOG - The ice wall

[Arq.to]

The ice wall - Wed, 06 Jun 2007 07:48:00 +0000

'>

[image: Unrelated to the current post, this is something called Frozen Voids, by Ernesto Neto & Ocean North, created for the 2004 Snow Show].

Like something out of Nordic mythology – or Asgard gone plate tectonic – Anglo-Dutch oil firm Shell has apparently decided to construct a monumental underground wall of ice stretching across several oil shale deposts in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
They call it the "freeze wall."
The weirdly exhilirating project falls somewhere between avant-garde earthwork, pagan theology, and the hi-tech petro-economic wet dreams of tomorrow.
So what exactly is it?

'>

[image: Also completely unrelated to this post – but beautiful – this is Oblong Voidspace, designed by Jene Highstein & Steven Holl, as part of the 2004 Snow Show; photo by Manne Stenros].

As the Denver Post informs us, in order to reach what could be up to 800 billion barrels of oil stuck in subterranean layers of shale, flattened under the soil of the central Rocky Mountains, Shell needs to freeze the surrounding earth in place.
For a quick, eye-popping bit of comparison, though, 800 billion barrels of oil "is three times the size of Saudi Arabia's reserves and enough to meet 25 percent of current U.S. oil demand for 400 years." So 100% of U.S. oil demand for 100 years – or 0% of its demand, forever.
In the logic of statistics, then, if you never touched it, you would have enough oil for eternity...
In any case, the Denver Post continues:

• Shell is spending $30 million to create and test a massive "freeze wall" that would extend from the surface to 1,700 feet below the ground. The walls would be 30 feet thick in a shape 300 feet wide by 350 feet long. It is designed for a dual purpose: to keep groundwater from infiltrating Shell's oil-shale wells, and to prevent produced oil from contaminating nearby groundwater.

This whole thing blows me away. Huge, underground castles made of ice! The Great Wall of China made from artificial tundra!
What could Rem Koolhaas do with this sort of thing – or Zaha Hadid, or Buckminster Fuller, or Sam Jacob?
To construct the freeze wall, Shell's engineers will need "about 18 months for the adjacent water and rock to freeze to minus-60 degrees Fahrenheit" – thus "creating the massive ice wall."
But how much longer before we can bring this technique into architectural design studios?

(Story discovered via Bryan Finoki).

Ler artigo...