Singapore, a third world country under the British rule, is today the most expensive city in the world according to a 2018 EIU survey. It has reclaimed land relentlessly to fuel its economic growth. 25% of its original 578 sq. km footprint has been reclaimed from the sea. In the same time span the population grew by 380%, making it the world’s densest country.

In 2013, a White Paper was released by the government essentially preparing this island nation for a population growth from the current 5.7 million to 6.9 million by 2030. Following this, the Ministry of National Development projected it would need to find space amounting to 56 sq km.

The country has an insatiable appetite for space but land reclamation has become more challenging year by year, as sand mining is ecologically damaging and now banned by those countries, which had traditionally supplied sand to Singapore.

Fortunately, it has about 700 sq km of territorial waters well sheltered by a cluster of Indonesian islands to the south. A 65-million TEU capacity mega port is being constructed which will see all port activities on the waterfront of downtown Singapore being diverted to the west.

We believe this opens up huge opportunities for creation of sea space floating solutions for the future. A group of multi-disciplinary professionals with this vision has come together to form the Society of FLOATING SOLUTIONS Singapore (SFSS).

In January 2018, the Society invited Professor Jacopo Buongiorno of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to speak at the National University of Singapore. He delivered a talk suggesting that to meet Singapore’s energy resilience needs and in view of the limited land area, a floating nuclear plant could be considered. We also had other speakers sharing other floating solutions with us on 1 March 2018. Dr. Øyvind Hellan and Dr Arnstein Watn of SINTEF Norway and Dr Masaki Takeuchi of Shimizu Japan spoke at our conference on titled “The Application and technology of Floating Structures” at the Singapore Institute of Technology.

Continuing on this journey, we are organizing a World Conference on Floating Solutions with a view of elevating international awareness of the benefits of floating structures.