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Is DIY Algae Farming the Future?
hex0D points to this "interview with Aaron Baum explaining why people growing algae at home for food can help the environment and their health, and what he's doing to facilitate this. 'We'd like to create an international network of people growing all kinds of algae in their homes in a small community scale, sharing information, doing it all in an open source way. We'd be like the Linux of algae – do-it-yourself with low-cost materials and shared information.' And one of the low-cost materials is your household urine."
Although I wouldn't consume algae as a food source, I could certainly use it as a fuel source.
I even make LED panels for growing specific species of algae, for this very purpose.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Does this article really suggest feeding algae urine and then using it as a food product?
I'm skilled at cultivating mold on the floor, shower curtain, and walls of my shower. Perhaps these moldy efforts can help the environment and health.
Somehow I think this business is it's own worst enemy. Perhaps they should omit that little part of the plan, at least until they start making some progress with the rest. How could they think this was a good way to promote a new food source?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Its been raised as an issue with rainwater tanks where I live. The solution seems to be to have a grid of fly wire over all large openings so that the mozzies can't get in and out.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
We'd be like the Linux of algae – do-it-yourself with low-cost materials and shared information.' And one of the low-cost materials is your household urine.
So, like I start going down on the bitch, and complain that she tastes like algae and household urine. And then she quips, "But it runs Linux!"
Can't argue with that . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
And yes, I was under the influence of something else that was green when I thought that'd be a good idea.
You might want to reconsider growing algae for food, one research group at my university is investigating growing algae to produce sugar, so we don't have to cut down forests to grow sugarcane. Also, I really hope those LED panels are solar powered. As solar powered LED panels emitting light at frequencies the algae uses can be far more efficient than growing algae in direct sunlight(even cheap solar panels are more efficient at solar conversion than algae).
In commercial algae growth, the water is not standing, it is agitated. For home algae growth you may not use an agitator, but I imagine at the least you would use an air bubbler like in fish tanks to keep things mixed. And of course, by screening any openings the mosquitoes can't get in to lay eggs.
Is shooting yourself in the head to avoid a pointless and severely unpleasant (but "sustainable") existence in a dystopian ecologically green world "the future"? Can we deprive ourselves of everything good about life so our children can inherit a world where they'll also have to deprive themselves of everything good about life? Is this wise?
Why wouldn't we choose to strive for a good outcome rather than the worst possible outcome where we all (sort-of) survive?
Do you have the blueprints to the Discovery Channel building?
Yay! The pool I don't clean is the FUTURE!
The reason people don't eat algae is that it tastes bad. The author himself says he can only eat 15 grams a day, which comes to about 60 calories. Gee, that's only 3% of his daily energy needs. Now, if he could splice in some genes to make his spirulina taste like beef or chicken, he'd have a lot more success.
Personally, I'd like it if somebody worked on engineering trees instead. A tree growing potatoes with sugarcane's photosynthesis efficiency could feed the world.
We'd be like the Linux of algae
So they're going to grow algae in their neckbeards?
The advantage of "progress" that makes life worse, or at least having access to the technology and engineering needed to institute it on short notice, really depends on how optimistic you are about the alternative.
If you are of the optimistic "steady-state-or-even-better" school, giving up long hot showers, giant pieces of perfectly cooked cow corpse, and 85 degree buildings all winter for its own sake is a rather curious and masochistic hobby. Fine if that is your thing; but not really for general consumption, much less compulsory introduction.
The great utility of "worse progress" comes in the event of some sort of nasty supply shock. The basic problem is this: "progress"(R&D, engineering, building infrastructure, educating people, etc.) requires that a civilization be able to run a surplus in energy, food, and other useful materials. If civilization falls short of that, it generally falls back on eating its own infrastructure to survive(just consider the amount of european masonry that was just pilfered from roman stuff; because that was easier than mining it, and they couldn't make concrete anymore). Worst case, you not only get infrastructure degradation(both material and human capital) from lack of maintenance and training; but further destruction as people fight over the scraps.
In our case, hydrocarbons have essentially allowed us to, for the past century or two, run massive surpluses. If we have to get off that particular train, we have to hope that the fusion/solar/orbiting microwave satellite/thorium breeder reactor/etc. guys have it together by that time, or things are going to get ugly. The nightmare scenario is that we lose the ability to run surpluses before we perfect the next energy source. If that happens, we might never have another shot at it. "Worse" technologies have the potential to be a useful delaying tactic, allowing us to run an R&D and infrastructure construction surplus long enough to get something else in place. Also handy in extreme environments, like space colonies or antarctic bases or what have you.
on a gram by gram basis Corella Algae is actually like SUPER nutritious. NASA i think experimented with using it for long space flights in the 60/70's. So your body can function longer running on a tomato-sized amount of algae than it could on an actual tomato.
Ancient alien conspirators actually believe that the Holy Grail was actually a Manna Machine that produced this kind of algae. Fun Fact..
kinda skimmed the article but i think hes getting at the idea that it's a good supplement and could have potential in enriching foods.
Who gives a shit what extreme anybody thinks, it doesn't mean you don't have to worry about sustainable alternatives because you don't agree with some whack that wants you to sit on your hands all day. Sounds like a convenient excuse to do whatever you want because the extreme opposition is 'wrong'.
We could use extreme environmentalists as fuel. Since most of them are also vegetarian, they'd even be carbon-neutral!
Mind the frickin' laser...
Asimov predicted this decades ago. Just another case of science catching up to fiction, or perhaps this just validates the theories of psychohistory that we aren't supposed to know about..
Of course, there's a long way to go before we generate enough recipes and concoctions of artificial ingredients to make it palatable, so that it's economically and socially mandated to create massive bio-farms.
For more information, refer to your copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica.
But the solar powered LEDs take a lot of energy to manufacture and ship. At what scales does it make more sense to use direct sunlight to grow algae rather than use a solar powered LED?
Monstar L
Sugar producing algae? I WANT!!!
Just add yeast. Fun for all.
Fortunately, there is enough easily accessible uranium in the Earth's crust to power civilization for tens of thousands of years. Modern nuclear plant designs are incredibly safe, and the French have proved that spent fuel reprocessing can be done quite efficiently. If there's a true civilization-ending energy crisis ahead, we have a LONG time to work on it. For now, the main issue is improving battery/fuel cell technology so that electricity generated by nuclear reactors can be used for transportation.
That is, assuming you buy into the concept of near-term "peak oil" in the first place.
I have made no money with my own "victory garden". However, I have managed to produce small quantity of items that I can't get in sufficient quality at my local green grocer.
I think this algae idea is totally bonkers.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Most of the population has enough trouble with basic sanitation, leading to thousands of preventable cases of gastric poisoning each year. Now people are going to poison or kill themselves with home cultured algae gone wrong. At best they'll poison the local waterways & wildlife when they dump their bad algae.
The is kind of why flying cars and jet packs, although feasible, haven't really taken off, pardon the pun. Drivers can barely manage turn signals let alone handle a third dimenson. People poison themselves with DIY alcohol brewing, preserves and curing gone wrong quite frequently.
Anyone considered the disposal implications here? Many local governments would not allow you to dump this stuff via sewer or storm water.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
I agree that hiding from dystopias makes a lousy overall culture; but having some people specializing in it can be quite useful.
More to the point, in this case, the chap in TFA sounds optimistic to the point of utopian. He isn't railing about the imminent demise of all Haber-Process based agriculture, he is geeking out about the second coming of the vegetable garden. Given the percentage of the American population that basically lives on things that food chemists can turn corn into, and the percentage of the world population that spends a lot of time not actually eating, he is (arguably) proposing progress in line with your definition.
growing algae to produce sugar
Combine with this: viologen mediated sugar-air fuel cell. The viologen is a major weed killer, so it's quite cheap.
Responsibility is an addiction
Virtue is a temptation
Community is a cartel
Like anything else, it's a first step. The first internal combustion engines didn't put out 320 HP, either. It'll take time for new iterations to evolve it into a better product than this guy is pitching. And getting it started now is the only way to get those next iterations going.
Those potential improvements would include not only the size and energy input types of things, but improvements to the palatability of the finished product. I'm not saying that they'll ever produce a steak-like substance with it, but maybe they can produce enough food to feed a cow to get us some tasty steaks. (Cows are horribly inefficient food sources, by the way, requiring at least a 10:1 feed-to-meat ratio.) Or maybe if cloned meat ever becomes commercially viable, algae could be the feed needed to grow it.
And I know you want things to get "better", but "better" is not sustainable. Civilization has peaked. This is it. You and I are among the ultimate consumers at the pinnacle of production and consumption. You may want even more for yourself, but it's got to come from somewhere. From here on out as the population grows and available land shrinks, as non-renewable energy sources run down, things are not likely to get "better" by your definition. But perhaps we can slow the decay, and that might be good enough to call it "progress" by some measures.
I agree with you that advertising it with the words "your own urine" does not help sell it, except maybe to a few eco-fruitbats. That's why real businesses hire marketing people. Even a C-average-marketing-degree kid fresh from college would know "Grow your own food with urine!" is not a particularly effective slogan.
John
So, you just stuff one more tank under your bed, and grow those bacteria there ;)
Spirulina is pretty much the king of the hill in that respect. The problem with it though is that it's cleansing, consuming enough to make for even a small snack would definitely be enough to give you diarrhea amongst other things. But it's packed with nutrition.
To some extent same goes for other algae, they've got lots of nutritional value, but you have to be mindful that they are used medicinally for a reason.
These guys claim to be "Open-Source" but when you go to their website they want you to come to California and pay $150 for a seminar to learn from them. No designs or instruction available for free.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Ancient alien conspirators actually believe that the Holy Grail was actually a Manna Machine that produced this kind of algae
They also believe the Ark of the Covenant was a radioactive energy source of some type which powered the Manna Machine. Interestingly enough, the descriptions available do describe, if you want to liberally interpret the readings, a high energy weapon (gamma + laser beam or something) with radiation sickness; including for those who might open the Ark.
A big issue with biofuels is the water used. It's sort of dead obvious once you think about it. It doesn't take a heck of a lot of water to pump a barrel of oil out of the ground, but producing a similar amount of ethanol from corn will require a lot of water for irrigation, and we're already straining our freshwater water resources. According to a report commissioned by congress [http://www.circleofblue.org/waternews/2010/world/energy-department-blocks-disclosure-of-road-map-to-relieve-critical-u-s-energy-water-choke-points/ it takes 1.5 gallons to produce a barrel of oil, 4 for corn without irrigation, 1,000(!) for corn with irrigation. Coal and nuclear also require vast quantities of water for cooling.
It would be interesting to know how algae compares. Probably you'd use a lot less water than corn, since land plants have to pump water through their veins by evaporating it from the leaves, and you could use sealed tanks/ponds that wouldn't lose water. Also, if you can use wastewater or brackish water, water use would be less of an issue.
We'd be like the Linux of algae
I'll be right here waiting for the year of Algae on the Rooftop.
AT 100,000 gallons of oil/acre/yr in the desert Algae may be
the new source of oil for the world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hioZ7C6HLs
With some modification it can be switched over to
produce hydrogen in a biological fashion as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_hydrogen_production
Once we get the infrastructure for hydrogen in place
it would be a viable transition between these two methods.
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
You let them run your country...
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
You would think that, but I've been working on systems to produce far more while consuming far less.
http://imgur.com/TOgCX.jpg
As another example, an acre of barley grass takes about 100,000 gallons of water to produce on regular land, and about two weeks for usable animal fodder harvest. Newer systems I work on cut that down to about 1500 gallons, it happens in 7 days, and we don't even need ANY source of light. We grow it in completely dark sheds.
http://imgur.com/TYJUR.jpg
And we have these already in production for growing biofuel-producing algae, so your assumption would be somewhat wrong. The Middle East is one of my bigger clients.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
There was an article a few months back that showed that you need certain enzimes produced by some specific bacteria, to digest algae.
It depends on the type of algae. For instance, macroalgae (such as seaweeds) are pretty much similar to any other kind of plant, in that the cellulose portion of it whistles straight out of your exhaust-pipe unless you happen to be a goat, which has bacteria secreting cellulase in his rumen.
Lots of phytoplankton are pretty much digestible, though I guess diatoms (which have silica cell walls) might be a bit problematic.
So you are saying that coke soon will contain HFAS* instead of HFCS? *High fructose algae sugar
They're also great at eliminating your frog shit shortfall at the same time they boost your frog urine reserves. Bloody useful creatures, frogs.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
What the other response to this post is trying to say is that chlorophyll can't convert most light frequencies into food. Converting sunlight into blue light, even with a 30% efficient process, would mean more sunlight + co2 + h2o converted into sugar (or whatever you're trying to produce).
Once we get the infrastructure for hydrogen in place
it would be a viable transition between these two methods.
Why bother? We have the fueling infrastructure for biodiesel right now, and mechanics who know how to work on diesels. Diesel fuel is less dangerous than gasoline, while hydrogen is arguably moreso, or at least in the same ballpark. Batteries are gaining quick charging technologies that are setting them up to rival the speed of hydrogen refueling, and they are already approaching the best-case energy density of hydrogen while currently providing superior efficiency in giving up their energy as opposed to hydrogen through a fuel cell. Hydrogen in cars is stored at extremely high pressures necessitating an extremely costly storage and distribution network that is simply not necessary with diesel fuels; meanwhile we have an adequate power grid for nighttime charging of MANY electric vehicles before ANY changes need be made. Indeed this would improve the overall efficiency of the grid system because of our currently wasted nighttime base load.
There are zero compelling reasons to use fuel cells. Give up on them already: that means giving up on hydrogen, too, which has its own special set of problems that we simply don't need on the road. Biodiesel from algae grown in our deserts on seawater (and optionally coupled with saltwater aquaculture of other food that people actually want to eat!) has the potential to replace our entire diesel fuel consumption and then some, and profitably, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Why bother?
For cars and heating? You wouldn't - it would be a stupid idea. For laptops and other mobile devices, it might make sense. You can make a hydrogen fuel cell a lot smaller than you can make a diesel turbine. More likely, however, you'd want to produce methanol, which can also be used in very small fuel cells but can be stored easily without needing to be kept under pressure. Interestingly, these are more efficient at around the temperature of a warm CPU, so you might end up with the methanol flowing in a pipe over your chips then cooling the waste water (or just dumping it) in future laptops.
The main problem with using fuel cells (of any kind) in consumer electronics is that you can't recharge them at home, you need to buy the fuel to refill them. A small algae tank that could produce methanol would eliminate this problem and make it a much more attractive fuel source.
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Batteries are improving faster than fuel cells, though.
But methanol still has 15 times the energy density of the best Lithium-ion batteries, and about 5 times the energy density of LiS batteries (which currently die after so few charge cycles that they're not in use anywhere outside military UAVs).
Except that practical methanol fuel cells are seemingly even further away than the hydrogen ones.
The first functional cells were produced in 1990. They've been refined significantly since then and they are commercially available.
Also, a methanol leak is immediately hazardous: the bad things in it can be absorbed through the skin and make you blind
You need to consume 10ml to make you blind. Absorbing this much through your skin would be very difficult. It's volatile, so a small leak will disburse into the air, making it only dangerous in confined spaces.
I'm just not seeing this EVER being allowed on public transportation, nor should it be.
Better check the law. They've been allowed for a few years. Quoth Wikipedia (complete with citations, if you want to follow them):
However, the International Civil Aviation Organization's (ICAO) Dangerous Goods Panel (DGP) voted in November 2005 to allow passengers to carry and use micro fuel cells and methanol fuel cartridges when aboard airplanes to power laptop computers and other consumer electronic devices. On September 24, 2007, the US Department of Transportation issued a proposal to allow airline passengers to carry fuel cell cartridges on board[4]. The Department of Transportation issued a final ruling on April 30, 2008, permitting passengers and crew to carry an approved fuel cell with an installed methanol cartridge and up to two additional spare cartridges
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