From: Damien R. Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 16 2002 - 14:34:11 MST
On Fri, Mar 15, 2002 at 04:01:13PM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> > Fresh water, fertile agricultural soil, greenhouse emissions, energy.
> Fresh water is a red herring. The majority of the photosynthetic carbon
> fixation that occurs is the oceans in salt water.
What's the relevance of that? We need fresh water for human
consumption, industry, and agriculture. Mostly the latter two. Our
agriculture is freshwater. It may be possible to grow GM wheat in
saltwater, but it's hardly been done, and someone could ask about the
energy losses if it was done.
At a global level I think there's enough fresh water to go around, but
the distribution is uneven, and the moment large regions are short or
will be. Or so the analysts say. (Doesn't help Canada doesn't want to
sell. I say no water to us, then no solar power from Arizona. :)
> Fertile agricultural soil is a red herring. You can grow what you
> need in solar ponds where your only requirement is the addition
Huh, that's a new one. I usually think of more intensive hydroponic
systems.
Tangent:
My gold standard of sustainability: there's about a megawatt of
insolation per human being on the Earth. (More like a megawatt per
person for 10 billion people.) Do we actually know how to use that
power to keep ourselves alive indefinitely? Producing fresh water,
oxygen, food, sufficient light to stay sane, etc.? Where by "know how"
I mean not ability to sketch a system, which we can do, but to build one
which will actually work efficiently and do literally everything needed?
Taking into account toxin buildups, pollination costs, etc...
-xx- Damien X-)
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