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#15014739
To clarify, from the previous post of mine....


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https://newatlas.com/methane-emissions- ... ria/60351/


Manipulating gut microbes in livestock could cut their methane emissions


ENVIRONMENT
Michael Irving
Michael Irving

5 hours ago
An audio version of this article is available to New Atlas Plus subscribers.
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Researchers have investigated the gut microbes of sheep to find ways to reduce agricultural methane emissions(Credit: bogdan.hoda/Depositphotos)

Fossil fuels cop the brunt of attention for reducing climate-changing emissions, but they're far from the only culprit – livestock like sheep and cows are responsible for huge amounts of methane being released into the atmosphere. Now, an international team of researchers has analyzed the gut microbes of different sheep and found clues that may help us curb the problem.


While carbon dioxide is the most common greenhouse gas being emitted today, methane makes up for its smaller amounts by being more potent. Though it only accounts for 10 percent of emissions in the US, the gas can be up to 28 times more damaging, thanks to its prowess at trapping heat.

Methane is a by-product of coal, gas and oil processing, but the biggest source comes from the burps and farts of farm animals. And considering there are over a billion cattle in the world and about that many sheep as well, that's a lot of gassy animals warming up the planet.

So researchers from Monash University, AgResearch, and the Universities of Otago, Illinois and Hokkaido investigated how to reduce the methane emissions where they begin – in the stomach of these animals.


The methane released in a hearty fart isn't actually produced by the animal itself – blame it on the microbes in the gut. As they break down the animal's food they release methane, which then builds up until it's released out of one end of the digestive tract or the other.

The researchers on the new study looked at the microbes in the guts of two groups of sheep, one that produced high amounts of methane and one with low emissions. The biggest difference between the microbiomes of the two groups were in the bugs that consumed hydrogen.

In high methane emitters, a group of microbes called methanogens – which eat hydrogen and produce methane – were the most dominant. Unsurprisingly, in low emitters the more common bugs were those that didn't produce methane, including acetogens, fumarate, nitrate and sulfate reducers.

Of the bugs that produced hydrogen, the team found that Clostridia were the most active, while a group called Ruminococcus albus was seen to alter its metabolism depending on the hydrogen levels in the sheeps' guts.

Armed with this information, scientists could change up the types of food given to livestock in order to manipulate their gut microbiomes and reduce the amount of methane released into the atmosphere.

"Controlling the supply of hydrogen to the methanogens will lead to reduced ruminant methane emissions and allow us to divert the hydrogen towards other microbes that we know do not make methane," says Chris Greening, an Associate Professor of Monash University's School of Biological Sciences who led the study. "We're excited about this research because it has strong potential to lead to new strategies that slow agricultural methane emissions, which will vital for the ongoing health of the planet and sustaining economies."

In a similar vein, other studies have found that feeding livestock certain types of seaweed or tropical leaves can lead to reduced methane emissions.

The research was published in the International Society for Microbial Ecology Journal.

Source: Monash University

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#15014765
QatzelOk wrote:About shooting your classmates with an AK-47, Truth to Power wrote:
But it might well make them more able to survive scarcity.

Why did you feel you had to lie about what I plainly wrote?

Oh, wait a minute, that's right: evil must always be justified, and the only way to justify it is with lies.
Like the scarcity we will soon experience from our stripped down and poisoned environment?

<yawn> Thanks to increased atmospheric CO2 from burning fossil fuels, crop yields are up and deserts are shrinking.
Seriously, you are really good out of arguing against the survival of our species.

No, I am just intelligent enough to distinguish between genuine threats to the survival of our species and bull$#!+ scaremongering.
None of your points above are credible

False. All are factual.
- some of them are just empty plays on words (discrete increments as opposed to slowly),

That's not a play on words.
and other points are just industry propaganda from 40 years ago.

Facts.
Your texts demonstrate that mankind's worst form of pollution has been complexity, as this has rendered him incapable of understanding science or the reality around us.

Some of us are intelligent enough to understand and deal with complexity. Others (maybe you?) are not.
And the complex number-games of Economics - usually divorced from any comprehension of their inevitable side effects - is one of those complex stupidities that masquarades as "smart."

It is understandable that one would consider modern mainstream neoclassical economics to be complex stupidities that masquerade as smart, because that's what it is.
#15027911
https://newatlas.com/puffy-pink-seaweed ... ane/61136/


The puffy pink seaweed that can stop cows burping methane into the atmosphere

Nick Lavars

8 hours ago
4 PICTURES

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Cows are responsible for a large portion of methane emissions from the agriculture sector, but a puffy pink seaweed could put a stop to that(Credit: Nick Lavars/New Atlas)

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Fossil fuels burnt for things like energy and transportation might be the first things that come to mind when considering climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions, but a sizable portion also come from agriculture – around 9 percent, according the EPA. Within that, the methane belched out by the world's cows is a particularly potent contributor, but scientists are preparing alternative diets for these livestock that could cut these harmful emissions out altogether.


Though methane isn't nearly as abundant in the atmosphere as carbon dioxide, it is much more effective at trapping heat, making it around 28 times more potent as a greenhouse gas. Methane emissions can come from many sources, including the fertilizer industry, leaky gas facilities, the world's reservoirs, and also, the bellies of farm animals.

As the microbes in the stomachs of livestock break down the food they consume, they produce methane that builds up in the belly and is released from either end of the animal, but predominantly via the mouth in the form of burps. According to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, livestock account for 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Of that, methane emissions make up almost half. Which is to say, there is plenty of motivation to help these animals clean up their act.


Back in 2014, scientists at Australia's CSIRO published a paper describing a new kind of supplement that could be added to the diet of cattle to completely eliminate methane from the equation. The puffy, pink seaweed known as Asparagopsis taxiformis, grows naturally in the tropical waters of Queensland, Australia, and plucking it from the wild and working it into the feedstock of cows appeared to disrupt the activity of the methane-producing microbes in their bellies in the most useful of ways. So much so, it has been found to reduce methane production by more than 99 percent in laboratory testing.

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Dr Nicholas Paul leads the Seaweed Research Group at Queensland's University of the Sunshine Coast

There are parallels between this and other research ventures, such as a project at the Autonomous University of Mexico State that found feeding cattle tropical leaves could also positively interfere with their digestion, and other research that looks into manipulating the gut microbiota itself. But ongoing research into the Asparagopsis taxiformis has continued to show that it presents a particularly promising path forward, as biologist Nicholas Paul explains.

"Since CSIRO's initial research, further long term studies have been conducted to confirm beef and milk is unaffected, and that the cows will continue to eat the seaweed over time," Paul tells New Atlas. "It's since been found that it ticks all of these boxes. If anything, we've been reassured that this is a positive for consumers, cows and for the environment."

Paul leads the Seaweed Research Group at Queensland's University of the Sunshine Coast‎, where he and his team are optimizing this method of tackling climate change, with an eye to farming the puffy seaweed on a massive scale. Having identified the chemical compound responsible for methane reduction, the scientists are now working through various sub-species of the seaweed to determine which kind will be the most fruitful.

Image
Scientists hope to supplement cow diets with a naturally occurring seaweed species as a way of...

"The next steps are to identify which strains of Asparagopsis are the fastest-growing or have the highest amount of the active ingredient, and prove this over time so that we are confident in the repeatability of our work," Paul says. "We do that by collecting different individual seaweeds off the coast, analyzing their bioactives, domesticating them into culture and then keeping the seaweed in tanks."

From there, the team hopes to take their research beyond the lab and out to sea, in the form of massive seaweed farms that can be leveraged to tackle Australia's methane emissions initially, and ultimately the globe's. Paul says research groups around the world are expressing interest in the approach and publishing papers of their own on the effects of Asparagopsis taxiformis, though there is plenty to play out before any kind of worldwide rollout.

"It is a very big transition stepping from tightly controlled indoor conditions into the real world of light, temperature and other environmental swings that happen on a daily basis," Paul says. "We use laboratory cultures as stock cultures, preserving particular strains of interest. However, all of our R&D work happens at the outdoor scale. This is critical as the next step is taking it beyond the tanks and into the sea."

Casting an eye further afield, producing Asparagopsis taxiformis on a large-enough scale to put a dent in Australia's methane emissions would be a monumental undertaking requiring huge off-shore facilities. The 2.5 million cows in Australia on feedlots (not including those on pasture) eat around 10 kg (22 lb) of feed a day. But Paul says that just a sprinkle of the seaweed, equal to around one percent of their daily feed, can do the trick. And achieving the necessary output, the biologist believes, is a realistic proposition.

"When we do the calculations we would need at least 2.5 thousand hectares of farming area off the coast for just the feedlot portion, once the aquaculture production has been developed and optimized," he explains. "Conveniently, the great Sandy Marine Park in Wide Bay, Queensland, has 15,000 hectares of area zoned for aquaculture for just these types of activities. So that is not an insurmountable number. Our neighbors Indonesia and China produce hundreds of thousands of dried seaweed product a year already. It can be done."

Source: University of the Sunshine Coast

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#15028710
ckaihatsu wrote:Paul leads the Seaweed Research Group at Queensland's University of the Sunshine Coast‎, where he and his team are optimizing this method of tackling climate change, with an eye to farming the puffy seaweed on a massive scale.
...
From there, the team hopes to take their research beyond the lab and out to sea, in the form of massive seaweed farms that can be leveraged to tackle Australia's methane emissions initially, and ultimately the globe's.

Even if this seaweed plan doesn't work, it looks like some Australian entrepreneurs will be making a lot of money off of this project. And does anything else really matter in our current civilization?

Answer: no. All that matters is making money because we've all "learned" some Economics from commercial propaganda.
#15028820
QatzelOk wrote:
Even if this seaweed plan doesn't work, it looks like some Australian entrepreneurs will be making a lot of money off of this project. And does anything else really matter in our current civilization?

Answer: no. All that matters is making money because we've all "learned" some Economics from commercial propaganda.



Well, I'm not changing my politics, towards this as any kind of global 'solution'.

That said, if people are still going to continue to eat meat, myself included, maybe this particular treatment will alleviate much of the greenhouse-gas impact that the raising of animals for meat takes on the atmosphere. So, to me, it's a valid technical reform.

Capitalism only allows things to get done through the profit motive, so any near-term technical reforms, like this one (puffy pink seaweed in farm animal's diets), basically has to go through commercial channels, unless government is willing to step in, which I doubt would happen, and if it did would take several years to be implemented from any kind of conceivable government initiative.

I'm *all for* overthrowing capitalism, in favor of the world's workers own collective self-determination, post-capitalism, over social production. Until that time, though, there *are* pressing social issues like this agricultural one, that may benefit from small potential, technical-minded reforms.
#15028984
ckaihatsu wrote:Capitalism only allows things to get done through the profit motive...

Exactly. And this is very anti-social.

For example, the "research" that you posted was done by people living in an Economic system where their only motive is making money. They really don't care if their product works, as long as they can make a lot of money selling it.

And they really don't care about "helping other people" or "building a stronger community." This is because they have learned too much about economics, which has poisoned their minds.

Most of our "science" and "technology" is garbage that is designed to get us addicted to false sources of hope. So this "new improved tech" is doubtlessly the same. Fake good news to make money.
#15029097
QatzelOk wrote:
Exactly. And this is very anti-social.

For example, the "research" that you posted was done by people living in an Economic system where their only motive is making money. They really don't care if their product works, as long as they can make a lot of money selling it.

And they really don't care about "helping other people" or "building a stronger community." This is because they have learned too much about economics, which has poisoned their minds.

Most of our "science" and "technology" is garbage that is designed to get us addicted to false sources of hope. So this "new improved tech" is doubtlessly the same. Fake good news to make money.



I appreciate your skepticism, QatzelOk, since I think it's well-placed.

That said, though, I also think your line tends to throw out the baby with the bathwater, because -- even with the slow, incremental capitalist development of technology / innovation, there are still benefits to be gained by the consumers of whatever technology (those who can afford it).

Can I personally vouch for this touted 'puffy pink seaweed' -- ? No, I can't. Maybe it would work as advertised, or maybe it's the economic dominance of marketing and turf, over use-values / legitimacy.

But, under capitalism, in the short-term, it's basically all we have. Yes, it's fundamentally economic blackmail, as you're pointing out, but if it *does* work it may be the best step the world can take right now to significantly cut greenhouse gas production (methane, in this case). That's just the empirical socio-political reality that we're currently living under. I wouldn't be so dismissive on-principle, holding my breath for the world's proletariat to take control while the environment spirals out of control due to an ongoing legacy of polluting fuel usage.

Ultimately the *best* course of action would be a socio-political one, to put such environmental matters squarely in the hands of the working class, as over the rainforests of Latin America -- but we're not even at *that* step yet.
#15029284
ckaihatsu wrote:Maybe it would work as advertised, or maybe it's the economic dominance of marketing and turf, over use-values / legitimacy.

But, under capitalism, in the short-term, it's basically all we have...

Yes, it's true that, under capitalism, the only "hope" we have is in commercial slogans and marketing campaigns.

This is why so many people are losing confidence in our societies and cultures: because they have been replaced by PR and commercial hype.

Also, the lack of free-thinking under our oppressive system means that the average consumer can't figure out how to consume less meat or less gasoline. Instead of thinking, his mind is flooded with PR and marketing campaigns that purport to "solve" the problem whose solution would have been fairly easy if he had been allowed to think for himself.

Not thinking for ourselves makes us more like the pets of other humans. And pet-hood is very similar to being a hostage.

Hostages are unable to be social. And they are often tricked into "loving" their captors (Stockholm Syndrome).
#15029400
QatzelOk wrote:
Yes, it's true that, under capitalism, the only "hope" we have is in commercial slogans and marketing campaigns.

This is why so many people are losing confidence in our societies and cultures: because they have been replaced by PR and commercial hype.

Also, the lack of free-thinking under our oppressive system means that the average consumer can't figure out how to consume less meat or less gasoline. Instead of thinking, his mind is flooded with PR and marketing campaigns that purport to "solve" the problem whose solution would have been fairly easy if he had been allowed to think for himself.

Not thinking for ourselves makes us more like the pets of other humans. And pet-hood is very similar to being a hostage.

Hostages are unable to be social. And they are often tricked into "loving" their captors (Stockholm Syndrome).



Allow me to clarify *one* thing -- to rephrase, I'm saying that *if* reforms happen to come along, as with this possible change to farm animals' diet, to reduce methane emissions into the atmosphere, then such reforms would be welcome, but they *wouldn't* indicate any change to the revolutionary program. Such reforms shouldn't even be *advocated for*, because of their merely *incremental* nature -- there will always be soft-left liberal and nationalist types who would back such reforms as a matter of their core political principles.

Revolutionaries already know that it's far more impactful to be politically *independent* for the working class, and to be as collectively self-determining as possible, as with planned civil disobedience actions, labor actions, strikes, etc. -- those class initiatives, with publicity, compel the powers-that-be to *respond*, such as in the civil rights and anti-Vietnam-War movements of the 20th century.

I agree, of course, that most people are disempowered from their own potential individually-proportionate political power in the world, and even more-so on *collective*, mass scales. Reformism is a dead-end of course as a political program, but individual reforms, if they happen to emerge from within the establishment -- like marijuana decriminalization -- can be positive incremental developments for everyone (populism), though far short of revolutionary overthrow in workers own best self-interests.
#15029406
SolarCross wrote:
With all this talk of revolution surely it is those with the poorest understanding of economics who are the most anti-social? What could be more anti-social than murdering your fellow nationals to steal their stuff? :eh:



The title of this thread says the *opposite* -- that the *more* one knows about status-quo (capitalist) economics, the less social one will be.

I happen to think that this pseudo-sociological conflation of economics with personal sociability is a red herring, but whatever -- we're certainly not *constrained* to this misleading hypothesis.

Your stereotyping of what a proletarian revolution *entails* is certainly even less welcome than some pseudo-sociological purported correlation. Bourgeois types like yourself love to attempt to *criminalize* independent working class efforts at collective revolution, as you're doing here, by falsely equating revolution to a simplistic 'stealing' of 'stuff', as though worldwide self-coordination of the working class over society's production is somehow akin to looting. It's really an unkind formulation, not to mention *erroneous*.

It's also, I'll add, *not valid* to conflate past historical state-capitalist (Stalinist) formulations with the socialism originally outlined in the Communist Manifesto. Your mischaracterizations expose your antagonistic attitude, which is definitely *counterproductive* to people accurately understanding what class struggle and proletarian revolution are all about.

I've already addressed this point with you on another thread:


SolarCross wrote:
No it isn't because you want to kill all the capitalists. Technically that is almost everyone including yourself. Where is the solidarity in wanting to butcher humans for being human?



ckaihatsu wrote:
Here's another knee-jerk *personalizing* of class politics -- even *if* killing-of-capitalists was to happen, it would only be in response to actual *empirical* conditions playing-out, such as the resistance of counterrevolutionaries to the nascent workers state. In other words it would be a *tactic* to fit overall political conditions, and not would not be something for you to take *personally*.

Your type indulges in such scarce-tactics with your knee-jerk hand-waving over such issues -- it's *not* a revolutionary-ideological *precept*, that 'all capitalists must be killed', as you're currently misrepresenting.



viewtopic.php?p=15027018#p15027018
#15029413
ckaihatsu wrote:The title of this thread says the *opposite* -- that the *more* one knows about status-quo (capitalist) economics, the less social one will be.

Yes and I am saying that is wrong, do keep up. An evidence of this is that in general the most successful people tend also to be the most adept socialisers.

I am not reading the rest of your post because your misuse of ** is irritating.
#15029415
SolarCross wrote:
Yes and I am saying that is wrong, do keep up. An evidence of this is that in general the most successful people tend also to be the most adept socialisers.



'Successful', measured how?

Are you implying that wealth equals success?


SolarCross wrote:
I am not reading the rest of your post because your misuse of ** is irritating.



Okay, you can forfeit. Works for me.
#15029420
ckaihatsu wrote:'Successful', measured how?

Are you implying that wealth equals success?


A successful person is someone who achieves their goals. Mostly goals require other people to help make them come true. Consequently adept socialisers are able to make more challenging goals and achieve them. In general becoming wealthy is the natural outcome of being successful. As you give so shall ye receive.
#15029429
SolarCross wrote:A successful person is someone who achieves their goals. Mostly goals require other people to help make them come true. Consequently adept socialisers are able to make more challenging goals and achieve them. In general becoming wealthy is the natural outcome of being successful. As you give so shall ye receive.


I've done well in life.

While I've not always enjoyed the wealth I have now, once I decided that being poor sucked, being wealthy was a pretty attractive option.

I've found that "success" is a combination of things, not the least of which is the individual's drive and willingness to bust ass to achieve goals. And, has been mentioned, help from other people is certainly a component. But I can tell you this: Not a single person who helped me along the way would've lifted a finger to help me had I not been willing to do all of the heavy lifting. Well, except for Barry, my financial advisor. I pay him him to do that.

One of the most miserable people I know is also one of the richest people I've ever met. He inherited several million dollars back in the 1980's and, to his credit, he's built an incredible fortune. But that's all he's got. Sure, he lives in a 12,000 square foot mansion. He lives there with three little shitty yappy dogs and a Great Dane. He's got several cars with price tags over $100K. He rarely drives any of them. He's got his own business jet, but he rarely goes anywhere. He's not married, and he won't even date because he thinks women are just out to get his money.

He has no other point of reference, though. He grew up in a ridiculously wealthy family. He can't survive without money, simply because he's always had it. It's like air for him. If I were to lose everything tomorrow, it would suck, but I wouldn't be facing anything I've not faced before. I've been poor, and I know I can live that way. I'd just rather not.

I don't believe that all wealthy people are great in social situations, but I believe all successful people are, for the reason mentioned by SolarCross...
#15029465
SolarCross wrote:
A successful person is someone who achieves their goals. Mostly goals require other people to help make them come true. Consequently adept socialisers are able to make more challenging goals and achieve them. In general becoming wealthy is the natural outcome of being successful. As you give so shall ye receive.



Okay, I tend to agree with this definition, but there's also the dimension of *collectivism* -- if a rich person's goal is to benefit from government tax cuts, and Trump / Obama / Bush / whatever cuts taxes for the wealthy, then is that really individual 'success', or is it simply being a default recipient of class favoritism by the plutocratic government -- ?

I appreciate BigSteve's anecdote here, since it follows a similar line to this point I've just made.

I have to take pointed issue with the moralistic verbiage at the end there, though, SC -- just the ongoing reality of income inequality itself in our society would seemingly rationalize the reality that all who stay poor are *deserving* of that poverty, according to this epigram you've quoted.

Religion is *immediately* suspect because it was developed within the history of the class division in human society, and its ideology / beliefs tend to condone the *status quo* of rulership / political power since it's usually run by members of that same privileged managerial elite.
#15030962
SolarCross wrote:With all this talk of revolution surely it is those with the poorest understanding of economics who are the most anti-social? What could be more anti-social than murdering your fellow nationals to steal their stuff? :eh:

Just before the French Revolution, the people of Paris were spending 90% of their daily income on bread.
They could no longer afford apartments or clothing.

Non-French-speaking troops were stationed on Paris streets to "protect" the elite from French citizens.

Luckily, the French had enough social capital in their societies to realize that they were being "lead" by a group of mentally-ill parasites who were more than willing to see French citizens starve to death if it made them richer.

Americans might not have enough social capital left to make any changes that might save their society. They have been rendered anti-social, and have virtually no functional communities or cooperation. They "learned" to be anti-social by watching Economic propaganda in mass media.
#15034553
https://www.fastcompany.com/90404556/th ... apture-co2


09.17.199:00 AMWORLD CHANGING IDEAS

This ‘personal carbon sequestration’ device uses algae to remove CO2 from the air

Just plug it into your office’s HVAC system and start removing emissions from the air.

This ‘personal carbon sequestration’ device uses algae to remove CO2 from the air

Image
[Photo: Hypergiant Industries]

BY ADELE PETERS3 MINUTE READ

In the future, your office might have an extra appliance next to the copy machine and the refrigerator: an algae bioreactor. Designed to fit inside offices and eventually sit on the rooftops throughout cities, it can capture as much carbon from the atmosphere as an acre of trees. And there’s an initial prototype already at work.

Inside the bioreactor, algae does the work. “What’s amazing about algae is it’s really cheap and it’s easy to grow—the core things it needs are sunlight, CO2, and water,” says Ben Lamm, CEO and founder of Hypergiant Industries, an AI-focused tech company that developed a prototype of the device, called the Eos Bioreactor. Because algae grows much more quickly than trees, it can also sequester carbon more quickly; the company estimates that the device, which optimizes the algae’s ability to capture CO2, can sequester around two tons of carbon out of the air each year.

The company isn’t the first to envision using algae to clean city air. One German building already uses an algae-covered façade to power itself. But Hypergiant, which typically creates AI-driven technology for companies in the aviation, space exploration, and defense industries, saw an opportunity to use machine learning to make more efficient algae-filled devices that could be broadly deployed.

Image
[Photo: Hypergiant Industries]

The team took the project on internally after exploring ways that they could use the company’s skills to tackle climate change. “As an emerging tech company that’s working in the field of AI and robotics and all of these super interesting things, we have not just an opportunity, but we have a responsibility to make some of our R&D lab time focused on the some of the biggest challenges,” Lamm says.


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The first version of the device, which is currently in operation, is three-by-three-by-seven feet. It’s a closed system that works indoors, connecting with an HVAC system to reduce CO2 levels inside and release cleaner air. The closed system also makes it possible for the team to study how algae grows—with sensors monitoring everything from light and heat and pH to the speed of growth and oxygen output—and how the system can be tweaked to work best in different conditions outside on rooftops. “With the first generation Eos, we have precise control of every aspect of the algae’s environment and life cycle,” he says. “It’s a photobioreactor, but it’s also an experimentation platform. We’ll be using this platform to better understand the environment that best suits biomass production under controlled circumstances, so that we can better understand how to design reactors for the variety of environmental conditions we’re going to encounter in the wild.”

As the 55-gallon device generates algae, it can be harvested and used to make products like food, fertilizer, cosmetics, or even fuel (though it’s worth noting that many past attempts to make algae biofuel into lasting businesses have failed). The company envisions using the devices in various sizes depending on local needs. Some products—like fuel or fertilizer—could potentially be consumed onsite. For other products, the algae would need to be collected and processed elsewhere.

It would require rethinking larger systems. “There’s nothing new about the idea of growing algae to sequester carbon, and a few dispersed bioreactors alone are not going to reverse climate change,” Lamm says. “In order for this to work, we need to approach this as the beginnings of a new form of hyperlocal, decentralized supply chain, and then dovetail this work with a host of other initiatives that have the potential to dramatically change the way consumables are produced, processed, transported, and consumed, especially in our population centers. We want cities, companies, and individuals to adopt this technology, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but also because it’s cheaper and more practical than the alternatives.”

The team is currently building mobile applications that can monitor and run the bioreactors autonomously. The company aims to use the project to showcase the potential of algae as a solution. Because it has a new division that works on smart tech for cities, it plans to work with cities to adopt the bioreactors along with other smart infrastructure. But it also wanted to make the device simple and low-cost enough that anyone could build one themselves, and it’s working on DIY plans that it will release next year so people can build the bioreactors at home. “We’re trying to give more people options for how they can go make a difference in their own communities,” Lamm says.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adele Peters is a staff writer at Fast Company who focuses on solutions to some of the world's largest problems, from climate change to homelessness. Previously, she worked with GOOD, BioLite, and the Sustainable Products and Solutions program at UC Berkeley, and contributed to the second edition of the bestselling book "Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century." More

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#15034859
ckaihatsu, your two contributions on this page have demonstrated how much energy is used to sell products to other people.

I suppose one takeaway from this is that this is what predators do: identify a major problem, and then try to find a snake-oil that can be sold in the name of "curing" that same problem.

This is anti-social in that it seeks, as a primary form of social communication, scamming people with less information than yourself. I.E. Capitalism.
#15034932
QatzelOk wrote:
ckaihatsu, your two contributions on this page have demonstrated how much energy is used to sell products to other people.

I suppose one takeaway from this is that this is what predators do: identify a major problem, and then try to find a snake-oil that can be sold in the name of "curing" that same problem.

This is anti-social in that it seeks, as a primary form of social communication, scamming people with less information than yourself. I.E. Capitalism.



Sorry if it appears that way -- your instincts are correct, but please allow me to re-contextualize the info.

I posted it on a for-your-information basis, without any interest in, or connection-to, the commercial aspect of it.

I think the *approach* is a good one, using algae as a concentrated carbon sink instead of trying to regrow forests to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. The ad copy, at the end, also mentions that it will be making d.i.y. plans available, so that this algae approach can be implemented by people themselves / ourselves.

Of course none of this precludes a *political* approach, because this kind of technological thing should be *centralized* and implemented consistently overall as a matter of government policy, so that people *don't* have to incur the cost and trouble of having to repeat this implementation over-and-over again, for every locality and household.

But I think the underlying technique / approach may be a valuable one, so that's why I posted the article. I don't mean to be trumpeting the interests of the private sector, or to be information-elitist.
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