> GBurch1 wrote:
>
> > In a message dated 98-03-01 11:52:02 EST, Michael Lorrey wrote:
> >
> > > The reason why I think developing sea based enclaves now is a good idea is
> > > that it
> > > is an excellent and low cost test bed/training center for long term
> > > habitation/colonization in space. For example the figures I believe that
> > > John
> > > Clark contributed of supertanker costs indicates that these are relatively
> > > cheap.
> > > A couple tens of millions for a whole supertanker? wow.
> >
> > Actually, I think John was saying that he thought it might cost ten times the
> > approximately $100 million figure I supplied to make a supertanker liveable.
> > I don't know if it would be that much, but the all-in cost of acquiring and
> > converting a very large tanker would surely be more than $200 million and
> > probably at least $300 million. To my subjective sense of economic
> > proportion, this seems like such a high threshold of investment that the
> > benefits offered by such an extra-national enclave would have to be VERY great
> > in comparison to continuing a business within the confines of existing
> > national territories.
>
> I was talking with a freind of mine today who is an oil wildcatter. He said that
> the reason tankers are in such demand today isn't for their transportation
> capability, but merely for their storeage capacity, due to the present glut
> overextending the present capacity of land based storeage for crude. He said that
> a short three day war in Iraq would completely dry up this glut, and send tanker
> prices down again.
So you're suggesting that we wait until there's a week-long war in
the mideast, then invest in firms that own & rent out tankers?
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