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Drones that can plant 100k trees a day
- westurner 9y ago> It’s simple maths. We are chopping down about 15 billion trees a year and planting about 9 billion. So there’s a net loss of 6 billion trees a year.
- Profragile 9y agoA very good way to absorb atmospheric carbon is to plant new trees and cut down and use old ones for anything else but burning it.
- loverofthings 9y agoNow, the question is, which industry sector cuts the largest percentage of trees. Now, answering that question, is there a way to do the same thing without cutting trees? Answering that question and then executing a business plan is probably worth billions. Planting trees to combat 6 billion trees lost every year is a pure expense, no profit to be made at all. At least not if you won't cut them down a few decades later.
- qznc 9y agoThis is a regional thing [0] though. We need to plant the trees in Latin America, Caribbean, and Sub-Saharan Africa. The rest of the world is gaining forests. [0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/23/deforestation-where-is-the-world-losing-the-most-trees/ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/23/deforestation-whe...
- westurner 9y ago"This Biodegradable Paper Donut Could Let Us Reforest The Planet" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16261101 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16261101
- RobertRoberts 9y agoI think this kind of thing is funny for us westerners. I recently found this tech has been used in arid countries for possibly hundreds or thousands of years. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ollas+gardening&t=lm&iax=images&ia=images https://duckduckgo.com/?q=ollas+gardening&t=lm&iax=images&ia... I do realize the ollas are for more permanent gardens, but it's the same concept. I do hope the paper version gets used, there are plenty of places that could benefit from it.
- thatswrong0 9y ago> Then the most efficient planting pattern for that area is calculated using algorithms. Code and algorithms you say?[0] [0]: https://i.redd.it/ytdyqbyzjkky.png https://i.redd.it/ytdyqbyzjkky.png
- cwkoss 9y agoWhen my code crashes, it's usually because I forgot the algorithms
- averagewall 9y agoFrom the video, they can't actually plant 100,000 trees. One drone only carries 300 seeds so you'd need a lot of them to get 100,000 in one day. Reminds me of that "1,000,000 rounds per minute" machine gun that fires every bullet almost simultaneously then it's empty after one burst.
- bb88 9y agoI'm skeptical. Trees already are pretty efficient at making seed pods, what they lack is the ability to fend off predators from eating the seedlings.
- wisdomdata 9y agoExactly. Create the right conditions with little grazing pressure and reduced weed competition and regeneration will often happen naturally. There may be technical solutions to bump this along but for most situations this will not be it. Where replanting is being conducted in the third world and this drone is used instead of local planters it might increase community resentment and disengagement. Working with communities on more sustainable livelihoods and helping them understand the reasons why it is better for everyone if some areas are left un-grazed for periods and allowed to regenerate is not easy but without local buy-in nothing will last.
- innagadadavida 9y agoYou also need to water them and generally take care during early stages. You need to estimate how much of the 100K perish on a yearly basis due to these factors. Sounds like a kid put this together for a school project.
- Terr_ 9y agoYeah, this reads like one of those "technologies in search of a problem" pieces. > The system’s engineers estimate that their method is about 10 times faster and only 20% of the cost of hand planting. But is planting even the slow/expensive part, as opposed to other land-management issues? Is a "mass seedling boom" even a good idea for the emerging ecosystem in the first place? > possible to plant in hard-to-reach areas that have no roads or steep, inaccessible terrain. So then how'd they get deforested in the first place? Both agriculture and logging would leave infrastructure. Wildfires? Forest ecosystems have their own interesting lifecycles for that.
- samuli 9y agoThe planting part could easily be solved by law. At least in Finland after cutting a part of forest, you'll need to re-plant it and create a maintenance plan for the forest to regrow. The maintenance plan helps to protect the new growth to be eaten e.g. by moose and elk.
- platz 9y agowhy couldn't we do this before with RC planes
- roryisok 9y agoBecause they can't hover
- King-Aaron 9y agoThey sort of do, just with seeds instead of saplings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_seeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_seeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_drones https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_drones I think the real advancement here is the autonomous component of it.
- ovi256 9y agoVCs would not throw wads of cash at a business plan that uses RC planes. But have it use quad-copters, and boom! They make it rain. It's the novelty of it, basically. We're not yet inoculated, as a society, to the charm of quad-copters.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoAt this point, it's not about quadcopters, it's just about the name. "Drones". The new sexy name for RC planes and helicopters/multirotors.
- DrScump 9y ago1 per second would only be 86,400 a day... and that assumes zero flying and positioning time, zero loading and reloading time, zero fueling time, and flawless, instant decisions.
- onion2k 9y agoAssuming the drone is only planting one tree at a time...
- DrScump 9y agoHow many surviving trees do you propose to get out of one seedling pod? (Hint: their own video says a max of 300 pods every 18 minutes, then reloading and repositioning. And it can only work in daylight.)
- onion2k 9y agoOne. That's why it makes sense to plant several in each pod - tree sapling survival rates aren't 100%. It makes sense to plant many more trees than you expect to grow to maturity.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoThen I think they are cheating their numbers if they count multiple trees per pod. :P
- onion2k 9y agoIt might not match your expectation that "number of trees planted === number of mature trees" but that's because you're assuming things that they're not saying. You can't reasonably make an incorrect assumption and then claim to be cheated when it's wrong.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
- firefoxd 9y agoI hope they are not talking about those 15 to 20 min flight time drones.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoI could see it work. They only need to plant, and go back to base... Could use multiple drones, some working, some getting recharged/batteries replaced.
- roryisok 9y agoI see a lot of skeptical comments on here and I suppose that's healthy, but generally I find news items like this encouraging. We need to find more ways like this to use technology to fight deforestation, pollution and the erosion of the natural environment.
- philipps 9y agoI agree that it’s encouraging to see engineers and scientists focus their efforts on important societal issues. However, we need to find more thoughtful ways to use this technology. A good place to start is trying to deeply understand a context and need, before coming up with a solution. We just ran a workshop in Jordan with engineers who want to develop education technology for refugee learners. On the first day we took our teams to NGOs who are working with refugees and interviewed the learners. As a result most team scrapped their initial ideas. I wish learning to analyse a challenge through the lense of the user was a more integral part of engineering education.
- mstipetic 9y agoWhat makes you think that these companies didn't go through that process?
- TeMPOraL 9y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16264127 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16264127 Also, the usual rule of thumb: "drones". Flying means constantly expending energy to fight against gravity. Unless the particular problem solved requires flying (to e.g. reach otherwise unreachable spots), solutions involving flying machines are almost always bad. And I don't see anything in reforestation that requires flying. This is doubly important if you're trying to make the world a better place, instead of just making a quick buck. If all you care about is money, you can make it so that someone else pays the energy costs. But if you truly care about doing something good, then you have to factor them in (they almost always involve non-renewable sources and pollution) and ask yourself, if your plan is even a net improvement for the world.
- RobertRoberts 9y agoWhen I was in 8th grade in Oregon. We went to a clear cut site to plant trees. We had to dig a very small hole and put the seedling into it. They had little burlap bags around them with a bit of dirt around the root ball. There was twine tied to keep the bag closed. The ground we had to walk through was like a world war I trench zone with massive holes, ripped up trees, rocks, pits, it was a mess and hard to climb through. It was fun as a kid. But there was no way you could just throw trees everywhere and have them grow. That being said, I can see how drones could do this with a tech change in how they are planted. Each drone has a few seedlings, the seedlings are in a pod that is weighted (keep it upright during planting) and self-sustaining (ie, plenty of dirt, water retention polymers, etc..) so they could be set on _top_ of the ground. (maybe some hex-shaped carboard box thing? lol) Then drones get brought in with a big giant ass truck, you have 1000 drones, they make many multiple trips, recharges. It's possible.
- qznc 9y agoThe article says "a drone loaded with germinated seeds fires (!) pods into the ground at a rate of one per second". The video makes it look like the drone will just fly over the terrain. Maybe the pods fall from say 10m and that is enough to get them into the ground (and not kill them)?
- RobertRoberts 9y agoWell, I missed that part somehow. :P But those are seeds not seedlings, maybe a downside to the change in planting technique from the past. I guess I can see how it would be cheaper/easier to fire seeds all over the place though. I don't think 10m (or even 100m) would get them into the ground. In my experience, the ground is a lot of rocks, roots and some dirt all in a big mess. Especially where there's been logging. But there's also a lot of upturned dirt, so who knows. The best way to find out is to give it a shot. Can't be hard to fund a trial run. I bet it cost more to make the 3d video than to actual try it out and record the drone doing the work. :P
- beagleman 9y ago
- ForFreedom 9y agoPlanting 100K trees a day is an awesome idea, has anyone thought where the water is going to come for these trees?
- carlmr 9y agoDoes this only have to be used in areas strapped for water? I mean they mentioned Oregon, which gets pretty good amounts of rain naturally.
- HenryBemis 9y agoTL|DR: same place where the trees that were previously here were getting their water. I don't think the article is about planting trees in Sahara or Gobi. It would be more useful in the replenishment/repair after a fire. Silly example, but in the U.K. (almost everywhere on this island) it rains 4629362619 days per year! (or it feel like this much:) I do understand that U.K. forests are not diminishing as they are on Amazon but I think (not sarcastically) they are called Rainforests. I guess it depends on the reason for the deforestation. If it is just for timber, then a cheap solution to repopulate the area would be taken up by the lumberjacks themselves (so they can go back in 10-20-30 years and collect again and repeat the cycle). If the deforestation is simple to create more land for crops/living areas, then this is irrelevant.
- black_puppydog 9y agoSomeone needs to explain to the target audience here (politicians, I guess, since this is coming from the WEF?) that "proprietary algorithms" is NOT a good thing. One might argue about if or if not it is necessary, but for the customer, it is always a limitation on what they can do with the product they supposedly bought.
- gregknicholson 9y agoAh! So they're selling a service, not a tool.
- sharemywin 9y agoLet's see 10x faster. About 1/5th the cost as a person: http://www.johnswope.com/?p=83 http://www.johnswope.com/?p=83 And a 20% savings. looks like a 10x margin to me...
- wklauss 9y ago"It’s simple maths. We are chopping down about 15 billion trees a year and planting about 9 billion. So there’s a net loss of 6 billion trees a year." ehhhhhmmmm no. It's not simple math. Or if it is, those are the wrong numbers to pick. Trees can reproduce themselves without human help and there are around 3.04 trillion trees in the world so a lot of potential for these net loss figures to be waaay off. As far as we know, the number of trees in the world is actually growing. Higher levels of CO2 and the arrival of plastics and aluminium have contributed to reforestation of large areas of the world (we used to make everything out of wood). There are more trees now than there were 100 years ago. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in the US, forest growth nationally has exceeded harvest since the 1940s. Same goes for Europe. The story might be different in Asia and certain parts of South America but in aggregate numbers I'd bet that we have net growth.
- cup-of-tea 9y agoIt should be pretty obvious that trees can't reproduce anywhere near as quickly as we can pull them down. It's simple maths that the net loss due to human activity is 6 billion. Trees will reproduce at a higher rate than they die if they have the space to do so, but why do you assume that they do? The problem is those trees were pulled down to make room for other things and the trees can no longer replace themselves in that area.
- wklauss 9y ago> It should be pretty obvious that trees can't reproduce anywhere near as quickly as we can pull them down. Of course not, but they do reproduce and can do quite fast for animal propagated tree species. We are talking about 3.04 trillion trees. Even if the natural germination rates are low, it would still be significant enough to make a difference in the assertion this article uses as introduction. Like I said, a lot of things have to be taken into account, including local deforestation and its effect on desertification. Higher averages temperatures are forcing forests to move to higher latitudes, but they are also clearing areas of growth that are not yet inhabited by humans and were far too cold before for trees to propagate to. I'm not suggesting that there's not a problem with the way we use our forest resources, just that the oversimplification of the starting premise of the article doesn't help at all.
- titzer 9y agoWhile I like the general idea here, to improve the environment with technology, it'd be better to use drones to pick up trash. Trees will plant themselves but trash just accumulates and gets ground up by erosive forces. Also, people need jobs. Give them jobs planting trees and picking up trash. /can't see the forest for the trees.
- finnjohnsen2 9y agoNothing personal, but I disagree with pretty much everything you say :) Firstly you're staging a false dichotomy. We can use both these kind of drones if we want to. "Trees will plant themselves" < so they are idiots? "people need jobs" is played every time we replace a brain dead job with some kind of effective innovation. There are no examples of us going back. Fortunately.
- pvaldes 9y agoJust reducing the load of roaming cattle in natural areas and reintroduce predators if needed in natural parks, will do much more for much less money. Birds plant trees much better than drones and wolves are critical to allow the saplings to survive their first five years. We could feed an army of planting tree drones and cover each inch of mountain with seedlings just to give an expensive yummy snack to sheeps and goats.
- titzer 9y agoI don't understand why you are being downvoted. Well, maybe I do, but I want to believe that HN is not so techno-obsessed that they can't fathom what you are saying. I agree. Let's not plant a lot of trees that goats and cows will just eat up.
- lnsru 9y agoWhat about wheeled robot for this task? Something like Curiosity to access remote areas and use a drone to refill the seed container. Afaik it’s not enough to drop a seed on the ground and wheeled robot could drill small hole to put properly seed inside. Nice application, but who pays for this?
- swarnie_ 9y ago>A drone loaded with germinated seeds fires pods into the ground My reading of this implies the seed ends up underground. A drone seems like the best answer here to get maximum accessibility and speed. Reaching 100k a day with a wheeled robot would be tricky.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoWe're really talking fleet of drones vs. fleet of wheeled robots here; wheeled robots, even if slower in deployment, will be able to carry more seed pods (reducing turnaround time) and will be orders of magnitude more energy-efficient - i.e. cheaper to operate and better for the planet. As cool as flying is, I'm all for ground solutions on this one.
- stblack 9y agoReforestation scenarios are always very rough terrain. Everything that isn't marketable, which is a lot, is left strewn about.
- DoctorBit 9y agohttp://gafw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/UGA4799073-clear-cut.jpg http://gafw.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/UGA4799073-clear-...
- lxglv 9y agoThere was a discussion almost 3 years ago regarding drones, that are able to plant 36K trees per day. There was also a reference to the 1970s planting machines, that are much simple in mechanical design and are able to plant 10-20K trees per hour. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444521 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9444521
- RobLach 9y agoI'm just speculating about the economics here, and it kinda sounds like a high-school daydream solution, but I feel like you could artillery an area with some munitions filled with seeds and just rely on the natural rate of survival given a uniform-enough distribution of an airburst shell. Some quick insomnia driven commentbox math One 155mm shells has about ~11kg of payload capacity and a range of 25km. [0] 100 panderosa pine seeds is ~4g [1] 11kg means 275000 seeds / shell. You'd plant pines at density of around 1000/acre [2] The biggest question is seed survivor rates of being planted by artillery but let's consider a survivorship of 2%... 275000 * 0.02 = 5500 Surviving trees, or effective planting over 5.5 acres / shell. A modern autoloading artillery can launch ~70 shells per hour. [3] You'd have an effective planting rate of 385 acres / hour. Or 1.54 km^2 / hour. 13400 km^2 / year. With a single artillery that has a radius of 25km you get an area of 1900km^2. Survivorship is a major bound here Seed Survival Rate: 2% 9,504,000 trees / day 13400 km^2 covered / year But at 1% 4,752,000 trees / day 6700 km^2 covered / year In any case 100k/day seems quaint when you can plant nearly 10 million. Assuming 2% survivorship, covering 1900km^2 at 1.54km^2/hour you can plant the entire effective area in ~55 days, as long as you keep loading the thing. Comparing costs to this drone An Archer artillery unit is ~$4,200,000 [4] 1 155mm shell is ~$500 [5] It takes ~37 shells to plant 100k trees which means ~$19000 for munitions. Using that $400 million dollar fund entirely for this idea The fund intends to protect 5 million hectares, or 50000 km^2. [6] Let's say we want to finish this endeavour within 2 years, and assume our effective time spent planting versus moving and getting the project off the ground is 50%, so we get 1 effective year of dedicated planting time. One artillery piece can plant 13400km^2 / year. 50000km^2 total area / 13400km^2 coverage per year = ~4 pieces of artillery. Let's buy 3x what we need so we can just flip them out when they break down and have some spares in case repairs/maintenance take a while. 12 pieces of artillery is ~$51,000,000 You need ~46 shells to cover 1km^2 50,000*46 = 2,300,000 shells 2,300,00 shells at $500 / shell = $115,000,000 for munitions Artillery + munition cost is $166 million. Throw $10mil each at R&D + Testing, Logistics, and Administration/Staff and you're at $196 million with more than half of the fund left over. Hmmmmmmm...... I dunno it feels like it would be worth taking a couple million USD to borrow an Archer from Sweden and rig up a burst shell to see if it works at all. It has some precedent: there have been some shotgun shells filled with seeds before that actually worked [7] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M795 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M795 [1] https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/olympia/kids/WASeeds.pdf https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/olympia/kids/WASeeds.pdf [2] https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs141p2_021966.pdf https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs141p2_0... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Artillery_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archer_Artillery_System [4] http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product2819.html http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product2819.html [5] http://www.pmulcahy.com/ammunition/howitzer_rounds.html http://www.pmulcahy.com/ammunition/howitzer_rounds.html [6] https://www.weforum.org/press/2017/01/400-million-fund-launched-in-davos-to-stop-tropical-deforestation-and-boost-farming/ https://www.weforum.org/press/2017/01/400-million-fund-launc... [7] http://www.businessinsider.com/flower-shell-shotgun-gardening-2013-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/flower-shell-shotgun-gardenin...
- kapauldo 9y agoIt's like love canal. The company does the damage and the taxpayer foots the cleanup bill.
- echlebek 9y agoSeed pods ain't trees. There's a reason that when forestry companies replant trees, they are planting seedlings that have been cultivated for planting purposes. They aren't just shoving seeds into the ground and hoping for the best. It's a very good idea to make planting trees cheaper. I've often pondered robotics for tree planting. But will it be as cheap as human labour in terms of stems that make it to maturity? Hand-planted seedlings have a fairly good survival rate and tend to be well spaced, even if the planter is relatively negligent. Typically, the planted trees will need to be thinned later on, because so many survive. As it stands, it costs a licensee $2-$3 CAD per stem to reforest an area. Typical densities are 1400-1800 stems per hectare. That's actually pretty cheap. Mature trees at harvest are worth thousands. Source: worked as a tree planter for three seasons, have friends in the forestry sector.