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Why so smarmy? The article specifically says "using only sun and seawater", so it's worth mentioning that they're also adding nutrients to the water. There are

Why so smarmy? The article specifically says "using only sun and seawater", so it's worth mentioning that they're also adding nutrients to the water. There are three necessary ingredients. If the title was "using only sunlight and nutrients" or "using only seawater and nutrients" it would make sense to mention the third ingredient, so I'm confused at why you jumped straight to condescension.

jonknee 10y ago
Well if you want to get technical it also involves tons of pumps, solar panels, glass, etc. Obviously they weren't planting seeds in a puddle of seawater. I was able to figure out it was a hydroponic setup from the headline and that the novel part was that they were powering desalination with solar power, not that they have figured out how to grow plants without any nutrients.
civilian 10y ago
IDK, I am with jonkee here. Femto seems like the smarmy one to anyone who has some knowledge of biology. It's really weird to be on a HN thread where most of the people don't know much about the topic, you get really weird pedantic posts seemingly out of nowhere. Biology and space seem like the most common ones, where people who are very smart point out missing details, the kind of missing details that are handwaved by the actual professionals and the kind of details that would turn an article like this into a textbook chapter.
- femto 10y ago
  A realistic possibility was that they are using the cheap energy to manufacture nutrients, such as ammonia, on-site, which is an energy intensive process [1]. [1]https://www.scidev.net/global/agriculture/news/solar-ammonia-process-may-spur-fertiliser-revolution.html https://www.scidev.net/global/agriculture/news/solar-ammonia...
  - lightedman 10y ago
    Another alternative is the seawater they're getting comes loaded with nitrates already from fertilizer runoff or naturally-occuring sources of nitrate leaching.
- white-flame 10y ago
  Aquaponics (fish + plants) is a more closed cycle, where the plants can feed the fish, and the fish byproducts can add plant nutrients to the water, if the right fish/plant combinations & balances are used. If this greenhouse system did not require an external nutrient supply, that would also be a noteworthy innovation. Note that people are asking if the nutrients are coming from the coconut husks, or from composting leftover tomato plant matter, specifically because it only said sun & seawater are used. Anybody who grows anything is interested in reducing inputs to their plant systems, and greater feedback interactions among their biodiversity.

jonknee 10y ago

Well if you want to get technical it also involves tons of pumps, solar panels, glass, etc. Obviously they weren't planting seeds in a puddle of seawater. I was able to figure out it was a hydroponic setup from the headline and that the novel part was that they were powering desalination with solar power, not that they have figured out how to grow plants without any nutrients.

civilian 10y ago

IDK, I am with jonkee here. Femto seems like the smarmy one to anyone who has some knowledge of biology. It's really weird to be on a HN thread where most of the people don't know much about the topic, you get really weird pedantic posts seemingly out of nowhere. Biology and space seem like the most common ones, where people who are very smart point out missing details, the kind of missing details that are handwaved by the actual professionals and the kind of details that would turn an article like this into a textbook chapter.

femto 10y ago
A realistic possibility was that they are using the cheap energy to manufacture nutrients, such as ammonia, on-site, which is an energy intensive process [1]. [1]https://www.scidev.net/global/agriculture/news/solar-ammonia-process-may-spur-fertiliser-revolution.html https://www.scidev.net/global/agriculture/news/solar-ammonia...
- lightedman 10y ago
  Another alternative is the seawater they're getting comes loaded with nitrates already from fertilizer runoff or naturally-occuring sources of nitrate leaching.
white-flame 10y ago
Aquaponics (fish + plants) is a more closed cycle, where the plants can feed the fish, and the fish byproducts can add plant nutrients to the water, if the right fish/plant combinations & balances are used. If this greenhouse system did not require an external nutrient supply, that would also be a noteworthy innovation. Note that people are asking if the nutrients are coming from the coconut husks, or from composting leftover tomato plant matter, specifically because it only said sun & seawater are used. Anybody who grows anything is interested in reducing inputs to their plant systems, and greater feedback interactions among their biodiversity.