[robj3]

Tony Stroppa wrote:

If I am mistaken, please clarify!

I'll give it a go.

If we arbitrarily set the number of regions in the USA at ten, then one per region or equivalent area in the USA. Ten such caches (9x containers) nationally is better than nothing, but not a significant drain on Project resources.

That's a bit on the small side unless your Project is very small indeed.
Think bigger, Tony.

U.S. corn production is on the order of 10,000 million bushels (254 million tonnes) per year. It's been like that for almost forty years.

http://www.ers.usda.gov/data/feedgrains/Table.asp?t=01

Diverting a hundred thousand tonnes a year (~0.04%) from this production flow would cost US$20 million a year in current prices. That provides enough grain for over 3,500 containers at 28,000kg per container. At nine containers per team, that's almost 400 (~388) teams supplied per year.

By "modern" I mean industrialised agriculture that provides increased individual productivity along the scale of the 1st world, per your point above.

OK, it's hard to escape the need for tractors and combines then.
I think we should avoid feedlots, battery farms and high-density pig farms though. There are better ways to produce meat.

In your response to Richard:

Project resources may be vast but they shouldn't be practically unlimited (if we want to keep this within the bounds of reality).

See above. The cost is modest. I think we had a discussion on one of the Yahoogroups about how big the Project could be - and given the size of the U.S. economy during the second half of the last century (4-10+ trillion of dollars per year using current prices), it can be very large indeed.

A multi-billion dollar (in current dollar terms) annual budget would be noise in the system ; corporate profits exceed a trillion dollars a year, let alone the activity of the rest of the economy.

Therefore, short term aid is acceptable as long as it's not a drain on the resources that are available for reconstruction.

I've just demonstrated that for low percentages of the resources likely to be available to the Council of Tomorrow we can provide a large quantity of grain.

I agree with Richard.

Cpl. Kalkwarf wrote:

Actually you would want to protect the containers before covering them with dirt.

I agree with sheathing metal with concrete. It provides corrosion resistance as well as protection from ground shock.

One such idea would be a specially designed lightweight concrete that with a large hammer or other object could be used to break it away for the critical area.

This is a good idea.

All in all Caches will be a tricky part of the project.

Yep. In terms of general construction, I'm thinking along the lines of the launch control centres used for ICBMs, as well as extensive standardisation (e.g. Minuteman silos).

Avoid the water table, use impermeant rock formations where possible.

Darkwing wrote:

There's a finite amount of space that can be hidden without giving the secret away by the work required to hide it.

This is the big problem - or is it?
It depends on how big you think the Project needs to be. Over the years people have used small (a few thousand field personnel) to very large (over 100,000) in their games.

With regard to construction, the United States is a large country and there's lots of building going on. Covering up from prying eyes (Soviet or other foreign intelligence services, nosy investigative journalists) is going to be hard work - but it is doable (e.g. the B2 bomber and stealth aircraft, much of the nuclear weapons production effort). We know this from the development of the 'security state' following WW2.

Now, some other things to think about: How many species will die out?

That depends on how the world ends. I don't think the Project would plan for a Permian level mass extinction scenario (96% marine species, 70% of terrestrial vertebrates, for an overall loss of ~60% of all families).

Seed and animal banks that you go on to describe are area or regional level assets, as Richard has pointed out.

I don't have an objection to small animals being frozen with the teams, but horses and the like are probably more trouble than they are worth (Project members have enough to learn without developing equestrian and large animal vet skills).