Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Expensive, difficult, slightly dangerous, not particularly effective... I'm on a roll.

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Reefulgurites

Harvest the lightning.
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Scientists and ecological rebuilders are using steel frameworks and low voltage electricity in order to calcify the frames giving coral a purchase to repopulate, and keep the atolls and coastlines from eroding.

I'm wondering if we couldn't also be using similar frames crosshatched within the seabed itself.
Connected to these frames, thin conductive filaments would run from buoys which sprout tall lightning rods.

Because the structures are grounded, very large voltages could be passed through them without harming local sea life. Melting the sandy bed and creating a fulgurite lattice will have the dual purpose of solidifying the sand and giving the coral beds a firm anchor as they are exposed by further erosion.


Kraken http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraken
It's big, but it's not clever. [8th of 7, May 20 2010]

[link]






       This would have to be done on a large scale to be effective, and might have a negative impact on those who, for their own self-justifiable pseudoscientific reasons, have an instatiable craving to crank up the old lightning rod and reanimate strange, hybrid creatures assembled from parts of decomposing corpses stealthily harvested from fog-filled graveyards, sending them forth drooling, groaning and lurching to seek employment manning the drive-through window at McBurgers, where their slow, clumsy speech, limited understanding and almost total lack of manual dexterity (due to having one hand that is not only back to front but composed entirely of thumbs) will pass entirely unnoticed, even after they get promoted to Shift Manager.
8th of 7, May 20 2010
  

       um...yeah, I should have put that in the summary.   

       Yes, but you didn't, did you ? You have no consideration or empathy, no interest in the inner states of others, their hopes, fears, dreams and sorrows. You're just like all the others.
8th of 7, May 20 2010
  

       I would have expected "just like all the others" to be a good thing, coming from Mr. BorgCo.
In No Particular Order, May 20 2010
  

       Ah, but if I had put it in the summary then my planned ruse for conning the eco-friendlies into appropriating government funds, to unwittingly re-animate the prehistoric behemoth known to mortals as the Kraken, upon whos petrified femur rests a certain atoll in the south pacific, would not have come to fruition...   

       and now you've ruined it.   

       Our work here is done ...   

       <wanders off to trash someone else's treasured brainchild>   

       // Kraken, upon whos petrified femur //   

       Kraken are generally considered to be cephalopods of some description, and thus are invertebrates. <link>. Therefore, femurs would not feature in their anatomy.
8th of 7, May 20 2010
  

       They are wrong. Just the babies don't have femurs.
The big ones grow a skeleton to support their weight.
  

       They's tough bastards then.   
      
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