PLAN SCS Bases/Islands/Vessels (Not a Strategy Page)
- Thread starter lilzz
- Start date
joshuatree
Captain
Power and freshwater will be the biggest logistical challenges if this will become a base like Diego Garcia. I don't know how far along China is with miniature reactors or the collaboration with the Russians on floating reactors but if they are not planning on transporting in freshwater (itself an expensive endeavor), filtration or desalination will require lots of power.
Did Diego Garcia ever get an OTEC power plant. It was proposed at the time for the unit to produce 8MW a day and 1.25 million gallons of potable water.
The fresh water is derived from rain. The new island must have been designed so that rain water will not immediately mix with sea water as is naturally the case in Taiping.
joshuatree
Captain
Rain water will supplement but I don't think it will be enough if they are establishing a meaningful base.
It will depend on the eventual size of the island. The water collected will be proportional to its area, the loss to the sea has more to do with the length of the coast line and the character of the material along the coast. And of course what we mean by "meaningful base".
Zetageist
Junior Member
Even on Taiping Island (0.5 sq km) with fresh water sources, the local water is only used for washing, cleaning and shower. Drinking water is still needed to be provided by desalination machines.
from Wikipedia:
I am curious to see if after China reclaimed Fiery Cross Reef to larger than 1 sq km, the island could start to harvest its own fresh water.
On Taiping Island, Taiwanese have accidentally found an unfinished submarine base, 200 meters underground, built by the Japanese back in WWII. So it would be interesting to see is if China were able to build an underground submarine base on its reclaimed reefs like Fiery Cross.
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lcloo
Captain
On Woody island, there is an infrastructure of rain water collection, storage, and underground distribution of purified rain water. It is much easier to do the same on Fiery Cross since the reclaimed land can be pre-installed with underground reservoir and all sort of piping and tunnels before the final layer of surface soil is laid.
Submarine pen on small islands is bad idea, more so with the clarity of water which makes large objects in under 30 meters of water clearly visible to naked eyes and satellites. It presents a nice shooting target to cruise missiles and pg bombs.
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