There’s a problem with oil rigs…once they’ve pumped all of the oil out from underneath them, they become gigantic, useless hunks of metal sitting in the middle of some of the most beautiful oceans in the world. So what do we do with all of them?

Well we’ve already seen people strapping wind turbines to them, to turn fossil fuel farms into wind farms, and we’re pretty big fans of that idea. But this year’s winner of the Radical Innovation in Hospitality award is taking that idea a few steps further. Yes, the oil rig will have a wind turbine, but the turbine will be used to power a luxury hotel that will sit on the off-shore island.

The hotel would have 300 luxury suites, a conference center, a roof-top infinity pool, a dive bell and (since there are no specific laws preventing it) a casino. What else could a modest millionaire ask for in a vacation spot?

Because it’s so expensive to hire construction crews certified for working on oil rigs, the hotel would be pre-fabricated on-shore, and then shipped in modular components to the oil rig.

To me, there are a few significant flaws to this plan. The first, of course, is that Katrina showed us just how vulnerable these structures can be. And while they would have plenty of time to evacuate, the Hotel would probably just be empty for all of hurricane season, and absolutely impossible to insure.

Second, this seems like a fairly unsustainable use of an unsustainable product. I’d rather we just strap a wind turbine to it and be done with it than constantly be helicoptering millionaires into the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

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