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If I were a large investor, I would put some money into working out how to farm food inside. Not just a glass house, but an air tight box, with a complete ecos

If I were a large investor, I would put some money into working out how to farm food inside. Not just a glass house, but an air tight box, with a complete ecosystem inside. From the fungus in the soil, to bees for pollination. We need to understand how it works and how to manage it.

pertymcpert 7y ago
Uhm. You will need to input some carbon into the system because otherwise the plants won't be able to obtain raw materials to grow and actually produce food.
- chronolitus 7y ago
  http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-garden/ http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-g...
  - pertymcpert 7y ago
    Right, so? Where did the plants get the carbon from to build their organic structures?
    - jay_kyburz 7y ago
      I imagine that in some distant future we are going to have to have near perfect recycling. Human waste, and even our bodies will have to go back into these closed ecosystems. I wonder if the energy from the sun is enough external input to sustain human life.
      - chronolitus 7y ago
        It's certainly possible, since earth doesn't need much external input other from sunlight to sustain life. The question is, how scaled-down a self-sustaining ecosystem can we create and manage, which is capable of sustaining human life?
    - chronolitus 7y ago
      (assuming the story is true), the amount of carbon in the bottle is unchanged. Life has to destroy old structure and recycle materials to build new structure. What certainly needs to be added is energy (from the sun) to power the cycles. In this comment's grandparent referring to researching viable, man-made, self-sustaining biomes - which should then be robust to changes in external fauna/flora and conditions, I believe the idea is either to have the human become part of the biome (i.e. the carbon in your waste gets recycled) or to add materials when food is removed in some non-intrusive way.
fillskills 7y ago
Indoor farming has really taken off recently. Infarm, Bowery, Plenty etc have raised a lot of money this year. Hope they continue to grow. Though i am not sure how many crops can scale to indoors and at what scale

pertymcpert 7y ago

Uhm. You will need to input some carbon into the system because otherwise the plants won't be able to obtain raw materials to grow and actually produce food.

chronolitus 7y ago
http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-garden/ http://www.pickchur.com/2013/02/53-years-old-sealed-bottle-g...
- pertymcpert 7y ago
  Right, so? Where did the plants get the carbon from to build their organic structures?
  - jay_kyburz 7y ago
    I imagine that in some distant future we are going to have to have near perfect recycling. Human waste, and even our bodies will have to go back into these closed ecosystems. I wonder if the energy from the sun is enough external input to sustain human life.
    - chronolitus 7y ago
      It's certainly possible, since earth doesn't need much external input other from sunlight to sustain life. The question is, how scaled-down a self-sustaining ecosystem can we create and manage, which is capable of sustaining human life?
  - chronolitus 7y ago
    (assuming the story is true), the amount of carbon in the bottle is unchanged. Life has to destroy old structure and recycle materials to build new structure. What certainly needs to be added is energy (from the sun) to power the cycles. In this comment's grandparent referring to researching viable, man-made, self-sustaining biomes - which should then be robust to changes in external fauna/flora and conditions, I believe the idea is either to have the human become part of the biome (i.e. the carbon in your waste gets recycled) or to add materials when food is removed in some non-intrusive way.

fillskills 7y ago

Indoor farming has really taken off recently. Infarm, Bowery, Plenty etc have raised a lot of money this year. Hope they continue to grow. Though i am not sure how many crops can scale to indoors and at what scale