[lukan]

"At some point I wonder if its going to be viable to harvest ocean plastic"

I hope not. You can harvest landfills much cheaper today. If that becomes more expensive than taking plastic from the ocean, then the oceans would be really full of plastic.

[boffinAudio]

The ocean is a major source of energy which could be used to power the thing.

And I'd prioritize ocean cleanup over landfill, first of all. I mean, maybe we use the ocean to construct the fleet, and then when its nice and clean, send the fleet to land ..

[kjkjadksj]

Landfill is also a source of energy. Some cities have built power plants that are fueled by landfill emissions or through incineration of excess materials.

[lukan]

You might want to learn something about engineering first. And run some numbers.

And read about them, who tried something way less ambitioned:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ocean_Cleanup

And still were not that effective.

[boffinAudio]

Oh, this is just a thought experiment, the engineering isn't within our grasp.

I'd imagine some sort of floating device which can build copies out of itself with the plastics it finds is not far away, but it probably does involve a fair bit of science before it becomes more than just fiction..

[lukan]

If we would have that tech, we also could then release the engineered plastic eating bacterias. Way easier.

But currently we want some plastic to remain intact.