Chainsaw-wielding Robotic Submarine

merryprankster writes "New Scientist is running a story about Sawfish, a chainsaw-wielding robotic submarine used as an underwater lumberjack. There are some 200 million trees thought to be standing on the floor of hydropower reservoirs worldwide. Sawfish attaches airbags to, and cuts around 9 trees an hour - the trees then float to the surface for collection. Cue the jokes about robotic high heels, suspenders and a bra."

Old growth lumber

[BWJones]

So, besides the cool tech issues, and clearing waterways of obstructions, the big deal here is that almost all of the old growth forests are gone. It is nigh impossible to find lumber that has grown slow and does not have knots in it anymore. In fact, Aladdin homes used to advertise back in the 20's and 30's that they would pay you a dollar for every knot you were able to find in the lumber they used to construct your home, but now....

At any rate, this old growth wood that is at the bottom of lakes and rivers has become quite prized for high end furniture, musical instruments and other applications where modern lumber does not cut it (*Snicker*), so developing robotics like this should have quite the payoff.

How good is the wood like that?

[dealsites]

Is it petrified? I can't imagine soggy wood being to good for anything other than making pulp for paper. I don't want some rotten 2x4's to build a deck. My deck can rot on it's own as it is.

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Re:Environmental Consideration

[ObviousGuy]

If the water is as low in oxygen as they expect, it is unlikely that there are many, if any, creatures living in and around those trees.

Re:How good is the wood like that?

[tx_kanuck]

actually the wood is very well preserved. I used to live with a carpenter, and he used to use that kind of wood. The cost per board foot is can be 3-4x what it normally would be in a lumber yard if your lucky.

I wish I could explain the biology to you, but I can't. Something about the fact the water doesn't move much at the bottom the lake (as opposed to a river), it's fresh water (as opposed to salt), and the type of wood (cedar works well and oak preserve really well), and you have old growth lumber that is amazingly well preserved.

Oh, and if you used it on a deck, you deserve to be beaten by said deck for wasting such good wood. :)

Re:Old growth lumber

[BrewerDude]

Very interesting.

This is probably just my ignorance, but I'm surprised that that wood is actually usable after it has been submereged for so long. Doesn't it rot or become otherwise compromised? Or, is that a slow enough process that there's still plenty of good wood inside the logs?

Python references aside...

[Klatoo55]

I think that it is quite an interesting development that we can use robotic harvesters to gather previously cost-ineffective resources. Maybe next we can go after the tons of gold dissolved in seawater. Robots are nothing if not patient...

Re:Old growth lumber

[crackshoe]

How bout how much on-land space you have? japan is pretty f'ing tiny.

Re:Old growth lumber

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it have to be stagnant water, so there's no O2?

Re:How good is the wood like that?

[irokitt]

Yes, absolutely. To save the forest, use plastic, because depleting the amount of oil in the world is just fine. It's someone elses problem.

It's not a matter of tree count

[fm6]

Your definition of "old growth" is faulty. It's not forest that has been deliberately planted, it's forest that has had a very long time time to mature. It's valuable both economically (wood that old is high quality) and ecologically (lots of genetic diversity in them old woods).

Ever been in the Santa Cruz area, south of San Francisco? All the redwood forests look very pretty. They give the impression of hosting tons of wildlife, and being very ancient. Both impressions are completely false. The Santa Cruz forests were actually completely cut down in order to rebuild San Francisco after the 1906 quake. (Redwood is the best structural wood there is, being extremely resistant to termite damage.) But after nearly a century natural, there are as many trees as there ever were. So the damage is undone right?

Wrong. When they cut down the forest, they eliminated a habitat, and a lot of biodiversity simply went away. It'll come back too, eventually -- but not in another 100 years, and probably not in a thousand.

There's more to forest management than just keeping the tree count up.

Re:Return on Investment

[lgbarker]

Probably a lot cheaper than the equipment for helicopter logging. And that pays.

Re:Old growth lumber

[Derg]

I would think it would have something to do with the fact that fish have specially evolved organs... theres a big word there.. Gills... oooh... trees, the last time I checked, dont have these, and as such, cannot absorb the oxygen in the water in the same way the fish do. The fish actively pursue the oxygen, the trees just ... dont

The tenth floor fallacy

[fm6]

It's not like we need those ecosystems, given the fact that we've been practicing agriculture for 6000 years...

So your logic is, "we've been destroying ecosystems for 6000 years, therefore we can continue to do so indefinitely." Not logical. The global environment is big and complex, but it's not infinitely so. If we continue to simplify, and at an exponentially increasing pace, it'll eventually be too simple to support our noble selves.

How much margin do we have left? I dunno. There are many arguments, but probably the only way to know for sure is to keep pushing until the planet ceases to be habitable. Which will certainly settle the argument, but which isn't very practical!

You remind me of an old ethnic joke. In these politically correct times, I can't be specific about the ethnic affiliation of our Straight Man -- insert whoever you stereotype as terminall stupid.

Anyway, the SM goes and jumps off the Empire State building just to see what its like. As he's passing the tenth floor, he thinks, "I heard this was dangerous, but so far it's just plain fu..."

Re:Old growth lumber

[Iamnoone]

I believe it is theoried that some of the secrets used to make fine violins or other instruments, involved some kinds of aging under/in/around water esp. saltwater. But I believe the secrets are lost and attempts to build instruments with the same acoustic characteristics have failed.

Re:The tenth floor fallacy

[francium de neobie]

Even your farm products are not independent from nature. You can still starve from drought, rainstorms, pests, diseases, etc.

I agree we shouldn't care too much about nature when it doesn't matter. But it does matter for now. Your argument will be correct when we've got most of our supplies from space (space farms, space mining, etc.), i.e. when we're out of this stinking ecosystem. By that time we may even nuke Earth into pieces and kill everyone you don't care for God's sake. But NOT NOW. You don't want to screw with your current environment when that is the only place you can live in.