Plane sailing

By Stacey Sheppard

Adam Englund talks to Stacey Sheppard about his futuristic vision of an offshore floating airport for San Diego.

“San Diego has the opportunity to be the global leader in ocean infrastructure and have an iconic architectural marvel that attracts tourists from around the world”
-Adam Englund

Since air transportation became a reality the movement of people and cargo by air has grown more than anticipated. According to Boeing, the world air cargo market has grown by 7 percent a year since 1970, whilst we have seen a 5 percent annual growth in passenger traffic.

However, problems have arisen in recent years, as many airports are no longer able to keep up with this demand. The much needed expansion of airports is often limited by the fact that they are situated in densely populated areas that lack the necessary land for further development. 

In order to meet future demand it has become necessary to look at alternative options whereby the expansion does not depend upon the availability of land. This has led to some rather unconventional suggestions as to where the airports of the future should be sited. Only 29 percent of the Earth's surface is in fact made up of land, with the remaining 71 percent being covered by ocean and this vast body of water is where attention is now being focused.

One such innovative project is for the development of a new offshore floating airport for San Diego, which is being championed by Adam Englund, lawyer and President of Euphlotea, a company dedicated to researching and educating on the development and civilization of the ocean. Englund is an interesting character who is clearly very passionate about the idea of open ocean colonization and his background has prepared him well to be a pioneer in this particular area.

In 1971 he worked at the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii, which was, at the time, working on its Floating Cities program, an ocean project federally funded through the University of Hawaii. At that time he had set his sights on being a floating city builder. He went to college and got a liberal arts degree and then went to law school. He wrote his International Law thesis at Cambridge University on the jurisdictional and administrative issues raised by artificial islands and floating cities.

It was eventually a project devised by Float Incorporated to tackle San Diego's difficult airport relocation problem that caught Englund's attention. It was submitting a proposal to the Airport Authority for a new airport, which would be situated offshore on a maritime platform. When this concept was rejected by the Airport Authority, Englund thought the idea was too good to simply give up on, so he picked up the baton and he's been running with it ever since.

 "San Diego presents a number of economic and geographic considerations that make it a prime candidate. First of all, the airport here is extremely restricted and will reach congestion in the next 5 to 12 years, and the region stands to lose $100 billion in lost economic opportunity and there's no expansion capability," says Englund.

"The Airport Authority conducted a $20 million study and found that there was no other appropriate place in the county, the one last hope they had was the centrally located military base which is controlled by the federal government. But the voters rejected this option by two to one. So the only place left was in the ocean."

As would be expected, the idea of an airport in the ocean was something a little too novel for the Airport Authority to accept with any real conviction, despite the fact that numerous examples of offshore airports have already proven to be successful. In Okinawa, Kansai Airport went through a similar process to San Diego also having exceeded its capacity for expansion. It ended up relocating its airport to a more convenient offshore location in the bay. Admittedly this was not a floating airport, but it did prove that that the concept of an offshore airport could be a success.

Englund stresses that his proposal is for a floating airport, as opposed to a landfill airport, should not affect its chances of success as the technology to achieve such a structure already exists. "Actually the technology was first proposed in 1913 by Edward Armstrong to cross the Atlantic with a series of refueling stations for airplanes. Charles Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic obviated that need," says Englund.

"But he then turned that technology to the oil industry and had the first patented semi-submersible platforms for the oil industry. So over the last 50 to 80 years that technology has been well proven and those semi-submersible platforms, of which it would take about 200 to compile this structure, will continue operating in 40 foot seas and they're designed to withstand 90 to 130 foot waves and 100 knot winds."

However, the idea of an airport out at sea will inevitably strike fear into the hearts of some less adventurous travellers, particularly as incidences of hurricanes, tsunamis and other extreme weather conditions are on the rise. But Englund says that such a structure is relatively resistant to seismic activity. "The largest wave on record here is 38 feet and the 2000 year wave is 78 feet. If you bring all these modules into a monolithic structure it will be extremely stable. It will actually be the safest place to be during seismic activity," he explains.

The airport would have other advantages over traditional land-based facilities and would for example, be even be better placed to withstand the dangerous effects of global warming, such as increases in sea levels and flooding, as it would merely rise with the ocean, whereas a number of inland airports would end up under water. The existing San Diego airport is only 17 feet above sea level.

Environmental concerns

One of the main concerns of the project's opponents is the possible damage that such a structure could inflict on the environment and particularly the natural habitat that the ocean provides for the many species that live within it. However, Englund is quick to dispel such worries and reassure sceptics. "It doesn't have the environmental impacts that a landfill does and in fact it provides a substrate for new habitat that didn't exist before. So environmentally it's a much more acceptable and possibly even a positive shift for the environment," he says.

An important consideration when putting a platform over water is the fact that it will block sunlight and in shallower waters, like those in San Francisco Bay or even in Tokyo, this would potentially destroy the natural habitat there. But Englund explains that when a platform is placed over deep water, the water itself creates a shadow. "So by creating a structure on the surface, you're actually creating an artificial reef, which allows these organisms to continue to get the sunlight they need to grow.

In addition to that we'd also surround the platform with giant kelp, which is indigenous macro algae here in San Diego. It is the fastest growing plant in the world and we could possibly use that for biofuels. There is a group in San Diego that is developing a microalgae that can be turned directly into jet fuel, and with unlimited water and sun we should be able to supply the jet fuel needs for the facility," says Englund optimistically.

He is also confident that all of the other energy demands of the facility could be met by extracting the power from the ocean itself in terms of winds, waves, currents, tides, thermal gradients and solidity gradients. "The most amazing thing about this project," says Englund, "is that it may be positive for the environment. Where we have overstayed our welcome on land, this gives us the opportunity to let the Earth breathe a little bit and handle our human processes with the resources of the ocean."

More facilities

One of the most important resources that the ocean provides in this instance is of course the luxury of space, which would allow the airport the expansion it so badly needs. "It allows for a multi-purpose facility," says Englund. "There is a flight deck and then four decks beneath that. We need that kind of thickness in the structure just to have integrity over the three square miles it covers. But if you look at that as space, over four stories it turns out to be 12 square miles. Even if you take a third of that away, you still have 220 million square feet of useable space and that is off the water by about 30 or 40 feet."

Englund explains that also this extra space could be used for all sorts of activities such as heavy industry, light manufacturing, shipping facilities, conference centres, hotels, casinos and universities. "All these things can take place there and when you have 25 million passengers a year passing through the facility, that is the kind of activity and human commerce that promotes a city," he says.

However, those exact passenger numbers could also raise the question of security on such a structure. As we know, airport security has continued to rise up the agenda since 9/11 and a floating airport would need to ensure that t could meet increasingly stricter security requirements. But here also, Englund is convinced that such a facility actually provides a more secure situation than a traditional land-based airport.

"With the terminals being onshore, passengers would go through security onshore and then once again offshore and it's the redundancy and layers of security that really provides serious security. There would also be underwater robotics, surface robotics, and we have the Sixth Fleet here with three nuclear aircraft carrier groups. We have the Coast Guard and the Port Authority. The local police would be on board too so there's a substantial ability to secure the facility," says Englund with great confidence.

Engineering challenges

At this point it seems like Englund has all the answers and the concept of a floating offshore airport appears to be relatively easy to realise. But there are indeed challenges that will need to be overcome if such a structure is to be a viable option. "The real engineering challenges regard access," says Englund. "It's creating that umbilical between the shore and the deep ocean and transiting the coastal zone." And he admits that some people will be sceptical in their reaction to such a passenger experience.

"We're looking at a submerged floating tunnel with light rail, so if you look at examples like the Chunnel or BART in San Francisco, people get on it and they don't even realize that they are going under water in either case. And yet once they've not it, is not so much of a consideration. Ultimately the passenger experience should be seamless," he says.

But a semi-submersible tunnel is not the only option that passengers will have. For those who don't feel comfortable getting to the airport under water, there will also be a fleet of fast ferries that will take passengers from up to 13 ports along the shoreline to the facility. "The opportunity to use mass transit in a positive way is, I think, pretty compelling," says Englund.

In reality, the whole concept is pretty compelling and Englund can't stress enough what an opportunity this would be for San Diego.  "The population of the world has tripled in my lifetime and continues to grow exponentially. In addition, the population is pressing to the coasts and people need water and all the resources it can bring. I believe that ocean infrastructure will occur and it will occur this century.

San Diego has the opportunity, to be the global leader in ocean infrastructure and have an iconic architectural marvel that attracts tourists from around the world. But it really comes down to the state of mind of the people in the community. If they're ready for it it'll happen here," he says. "But it'll happen somewhere else if San Diego doesn't step up."