Nicey

I for one believe that the earth is getting hotter (that's recordable on surface temp, up 1 degree centigrade in about the last 100 years)...so we are likely to see more and more storms on the Katrina level. I think a major concern is if something like Katrina hit Houston directly, the country would have a gasoline shortage fairly quickly. So again...why would this dome not be focused on protecting the port where all the oil comes in and the refinery sector where all the petrol products are made?

Ah...yes, I forgot to account for 1 million people humping inside of a sealed structure. That should generate some steam.

I thought they were proposing total control of the temperature inside...(which could be insane...I wonder how much downtown costs to keep cool anyway...but you're dealing with a geometrically much larger area with all that space) Humidity wouldn't be an issue with a sealed structure...the ocean air is the main contributor in coastal regions. They were talking about having huge vents at the top of the structure that would control air flow, regulate temp, etc. There are tons of issues...how do you keep downtown trees like the ones overhanging mainstreet (which as someone who moved here is a really cool site to see tree branches overhanging completely on 4 lane roads) growing without rain? The whole thing is Houston itself is gigantic. The population "officially" is listed around 2.4, 2.5 million...but for me I would consider Houston to be all the outlying regions as well, since it's basically one big metroplex, any area extending for a few miles past the beltway is Houston. So most of our electricity use may in fact be more outside downtown Houston, so does this really save power? One of the goals. They did say every panel could withstand sustained winds (they didn't give the gust wind rating, but I imagine its higher) of 180 mph, specifically to withstand the biggest Cat 5s we've ever seen. ________ The need is probably there as long as we have to have gasoline and petrol products, which even with targeting reduction we will have for many decades more. Just Ike shutting the city down for a few days was bad for the rest of the country (as Houston produces something like 30-40% of the gasoline for the US). A Cat 5 shutdown would be a disaster bigger than Katrina. Just thoughts.

Most modern new skyscrapers are being built to recycle rain water for use in the buildings. I imagine that any such structure would apply a similar concept. It's based on the use of ETFE, which was successfully used in the Chinese National Aquatics Center built for the Olympics. I don't think it's a terrible idea...we're going to have to come up with solutions for coastal regions because of global warming. Unless we're just planning on abandoning cities. Of course, the Port of Houston is probably more important than the entire downtown (especially the refinery center, that's the whole reason this city exists as it does)...so I don't know they are necessarily aiming at protecting the right thing. I like the idea of having a car free structure using trains/monorails to transport people to the edge parking to pick up their cars. Of course...since downtown already has massive freeways, and this is a huge city that already has enough traffic issues...how does one get around the dome? Most of us have had to travel from one edge to another, and you have to interchange downtown or face a very, very long circle drive. Interesting idea...application would take a lot of planning, and a lot of work.