TECHNICAL FEASIBILITY OF “ECO-PLATFORM“ - Technology Integration for the 21st Century - Ryusuke Hosoda, Shigemochi Murota and Satoshi Nakatani Osaka Prefecture University, Dept. of Marine System Engineering, 1-1 Gakuencho, Sakai, Osaka 599-8531, Japan hosodaO.mdrine.osdkafu-u.ac.io Abstract-A concept of “ECO-PLATFORM“ is proposed for solving environmental problems that people are facing now and will face in and around the coastal area, setting their sight on the contribution from the viewpoint of the sea. The Eco- Platform is a complex on a floating platform and has functions for solving social and environmental problems. The functions installed are generation of heallelectric energy by incinerating combustible waste without introduction of fossil energy, cascade use of heat energy, application of marine hio- technology for processing the rewage and purifying eutrophic seawater, reproduction of material and energy resources from man-made waste and sewage. All the functions installed are integrated systematically and efficiently To ensure the realization of the concept, it is necessary to stndylinvestigate the feasibility of systematic combination of functions and facilities installed on the Eco-Platform. The authors have been studying the required function and size of each facility, probable wastelsewagelenergylresonrce input and ontpnt relations. After the studies on the desirable comhi-nation and arrangement of installed facilities, they also studied the energy and material balance of the total system from the technical standpoints to implement the Eco-Platform system. The results of the study shows that the Eco-Platform is technically feasible applying technologies mainly developed in the latter half of the 20th century. I. INTRODUCTION Arguments about the worldwide degradation of natural environments have been repeated seriously for more than ten years. Problems have been reported with serious evidences, and have been discussed to find out suitable solutions and measures. We have recognized that almost all of the environmental problems arose in the coastal land and sea areas are results of long-period human activities on the coastal area, such as over-population and industriali- zation. So that, we have to reconsider and change the paradigm of human society and activities developed in the 20th century supported by the technical and social system of mass-production, mass-consumption and mass-dumping. According to a certain prediction, the world population will reach 8,000,000,000 in the former half of the 21st century, and more than 2/3 of the population will he concentrated in the coastal area. It may be easily imagined that the environmental problems will be much more serious in the coastal area throughout the world. We are not allowed to commit solution of environmental problems to the following generation. To find out solutions, ideas and measures supported by sophisticated technologies have been developed and proposed so far, however, utilization of high- technologies often requires the introduction of additional electriclheat energy which may cause the rise of entropy of the earth system. Introduction of new energy is not necessarily acceptable from the viewpoint of long-term sustainability of the earth system. The final goal for human beings is to establish the symbiotic relations with all the creatures on the earth. The keyword is “Sustainable development“ for the achievement of final goal. To put it more definitely, we have to make efforts to maintain the ecosystem of fauna and flora as well as to ensure the human lives and activities. Efficient uselreuse of energy and resources as well as rednctiodrecycling of waste are the effective measures. However, since people are not able to lower their living-standard and life-style, the amount of waste and sewage have been increasing gradually. Besides, they never accept the construction of waste disposal and sewerage facilities in the neighborhood of their residence. So that, we have been facing difficulties that there are no vacant land available in and around the highly populated urban area to build such annoying facilities. We have to find out a vacant land where necessary conditions are satisfied. One of the possible solutions that will meet the egoistic human demand is finding a space in the sea area for constructing such annoying facilities. The. concept of ECO-PLATFORM is thought out after recognizing the current serious situation and the forthcoming critical situation. Especially, it may play an important role as the core facility for realizing the circulated social system in the coastal areal. The Eco-Platform is a floating- complex on which functions of sewage and waste disposal, energy generation, resource reproduction and purification of eutrophic seawater are highly integrated as introduced above. For the realization of the Eco-Platform, it is necessary to stu