Resolved: The USFG should increase construction of mineral accretion coral reefs in the US

CASE DEFENSE I. COST A.) Cost of the plan itselfCon has claimed the the price of the plan will be somewhere around 9% of the GDP using his personal calculations. Con has however pointed something of concern out. The plan I presented was premade by someone else and thus I have no idea how the calculations came about, this means I cannot support the plans stated cost however using evidence I found, which I know is correct, I came out with another answer. The number is much higher the one listed in the plan, yet Much Much smaller than the fabricated price that con created. My calculations resulted in a price of 7.2 billion dollars, I then cut the distance in the plan from 49,515 to just 30,000 miles leaving us with a price of 3.6 billion dollars, a price which I can still easily justify… But before I tell you how I got that answer let’s examine why con came out with the wrong answer. Christopher used his 2014 Department of Interior citation (I’ll refer to it as the DOI from now on) stating that the average cost of building an artificial breakwater is [$19, 791 per 1 meter] he then multiplied this DOI estimate times the number of meters constructed in the plan. This gave him the answer of 9% of the GDP. The real cost of construction per meter is not $19,791 because the plan does not call for the construction of Artificial Breakwaters, it calls for the construction of Mineral Acceretion Artificial Reefs, two different things. The real cost is found in my first citation which is a study by the coral reef alliance using the results of at least 12 other credited studies: “each kilometer of shoreline can be protected for about $50,000 to $100,000 [using mineral accretion]. This is only around 0.3 to 0.6% of the cost of a conventional sea wall, which provides no tourism or fisheries benefits.” Here is the exact method I used to get my answer of $3.6 b: $75,000/1kilometer = $75,000/ 0.62 mile = $120,967.75/ 1 mile Now I can use a proportion to find the price of 30,000 miles of reef construction: $120,967.75/1mi = $X/ 30,000mi (cross multiply) X= $3,629,032,500 or about 3.6 billion dollarsB.) Time the plan needs to pay itself offIm my evidence from Accuweather given above, the median cost of a hurricane is 9 billion dollars and the average is 1.8 billion (dont understand the differenc but thats what they said) this means that if one hurricane with the median price range strikes (9b), then the plan has paid for itself 2.5x over! even if a hurricane with the average cost strikes (1.8b) the plan is paid off by only 2 hurricanes. This sharply contrasts con's evidence stating that the plan will take hundred of years. Keep in mind that the biggest hurricanes like Hurricane Katrina costes the US about 125 billion dollars in revenue.But how long will it take for those hurricanes to strike?Dina Spector, 8-29-2012, "When Will The Next Nightmare Hurricane Hit The US?," Business Insider, <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">http://www.businessinsider.com...;"In an average decade the mainland U.S. gets hit with about seven Category 1 hurricanes, four to five hurricanes that rank as Category 2 and about the same number that hit as Category 3 hurricanes, but just one Category 4 hurricane."That's 1.7 hurricanes per year meaning the plan will almost certainly be paid of in less than 2 and half years.II. Fails to Protect all states A.) Con has misinterprited the plan textCon has stated that I must exclude all states I didn’t list in the plan from having coral construction done on them however this is simply untrue. If I reference my plan text it clearly states that: “The plan will take place on all feasible costal states” that means that unless it is impossible or would result in the downfall of the plan, those states will be constructed on.III. Trade DisadvantageA.) False evidence Con predicates his entire argument on one ship that is currently stuck in okinawa, not only does this Not prove that ships will Always get stuck, it also doesnt neccisarily apply to Mineral Accretion Coral Reefs because they are different things. In order for this argument to remain con must prove that mineral accretion coral reefs will cause shipping accidents using credible sources. I will also use further reasoning to show that this argument holds no substance. This is a picture of the ship off of Okinawa, it is small however if you look you can see that it is nowhere close to 12 to 30 miles off of the coast as required by the plan.It is plainly impossible for a ship to get caught on something 200-300 meters deep which is the depth of the ocean between 12-30 miles off the coast.CASE OFFENSEFurther Explanation of the Plan A.) Mineral AccretionThe plan calls for a vast area to be converted into reefs using mineral accretion. In my own words here is mineral accretion: electricity runs through a piece of metal which rests in the ocean. Through the proccesses of chemistry the electricity in the metal pulls out certain elements and compound floating around in the water which harden on the metal, usually limestone. If you have ever seen white stuff around your fosset that is the stuff that hardens on it. As it turns out the electricity and the the limestone offer corrals the energy they need to constantly grow and feed. Mineral Accretion also creates superior resilience to the effect of global warming and increases growth rates of the coral dramatically, its like corals on steroids. Now here is the technical stuff: definition of MA (mineral accretion): Mineral accretion is a new method that uses low voltage direct current electricity to grow solid limestone rock structures in the sea and accelerate the growth of corals providing homes for reef fish and protecting the shoreline. The electrical current causes minerals that are naturally dissolved in seawater to precipitate and adhere to a metal structure.The result is a composite of limestone and brucite with mechanical strength similar to concrete. Derived from seawater, this material is similar to the composition of natural coral reefs and tropical sand beaches. In the plan the government will use industrial grade aquatic wire mesh and adhere it to the ocean, then run a current through it (1.2 volts, a AA battery has 1.5 volts) which will begin the proccesses of mineral accretion. Mineral accretion begins in just hours and will be finished within a few months, corals will then start to attach themselves to the mesh and reproduce causing a flourishing environment to grow for miles on end, with 80% of corals now dead in the caribean it is easy to see why we need this in America.But what about global warming? wont it just kill off the rest of the reefs when we plant them? No. "Corals were grown at sites in Jamaica where all the corals in the nearby reef had been killed by algae overgrowth caused by high nutrients, and where no new coral settlement was taking place. These had coral growth rates up to three to five times the record rates for many species, and settlement of hundreds of corals per square meter (Goreau and Hilbertz, 1996)."Biorock is a technology which harnesses the same power of mineral accretion, they have used their technology in certain areas and seen amazing results:"Corals grown in the Maldives on Biorock structures had 50-80% survival from the severe high temperature bleaching events that killed 95-99% of the corals on surrounding reefs (Goreau, Hilbertz, Hakeem and Hameed, 2000). Survival of Biorock corals was from 16 to 50 times greater than surrounding habitats (Figure 1). A large population of corals was being grown in the same habitat using conventional cementing methods and being used as controls to compare growth" B.) Previous ArgumentsPlease note the the opponent has conceeded the humanitarian benifits of the plan such as cures and further innovations for disease and the amount of lives we save by implimenting coral reefsSummary: We have deterined the cost of the plan to be 3.6 billion dollars which will repay itself within no more than 2 and a half years, furthermore we have discredited con's second argument because he simply misinterprited the plan text. On Con's final disadvantage he states that implementing MA reefs will halt all trade however he doesnt have substantial evidence to support this claim and I have shown that all MA reefs will be well below the depth of passing ships. After concluding this things I moved away from Defense contentions to Offense contentions where I supported the strength and full out solvency of the plan while also explaining some of its details furthermore the con has conceeded that implimenting MA reefs will lead to cures for a plethora of diseases while also saving thousands of lives from hurricane mortalility. I look forward to the next round and I now pass the gauntlet to Con to craft his responses...