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The US military has a plan to make food from thin air

5 points by integrale 5y ago

_Microft 5y ago
Twitter is a referrer for which FT unlocks the paywall, e.g. via this link here: https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1469540052183171077 https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/146954005218317107...
stevenalowe 5y ago
Zero info on the process, progress, etc. PR puff piece
- gus_massa 5y ago
  The main idea is to cultivate bacteria instead of plants, but if they say it in this way it doesn't look so futuristic. The problem are: * How big should be the device to keep the bacterias inside. They grow, but no infinitely fast. For plants in 2D you need like a 100mx100m (300ftx300tf) to survive [1]. Yo can try to stack them in 3D. Using a few shelves I guess you can multiply the efficiency of the surface x10, and be optimistic and assume bacteria are 10x more efficient than plants. So you need a 10mx10m (30ftx30ft) room to cultivate your bacterias. That's like 9 normal rooms in a home, much bigger than a replicator in Star Trek. * You must keep the house-sized bacteria block with only good bacteria, and keep all the bad bacteria away. Specially if you try something more advanced as discussed in the article to use genetically engineered bacterias to get food that does not taste horrible. It is possible, but you must be very cautious every time you open it. * Plants come with their self building solar panel. So you save a lot of construction. Cultivating bacteria need a lot of energy, so yo must cover the farm surface with soar panels, or wind turbines, a nuclear power plant or burn enough oil. [1] https://homesteading.com/subsistence-farming/ https://homesteading.com/subsistence-farming/
JSeymourATL 5y ago
Remarkable implications for Agriculture-- and how we live. > Food has become central to defence types as part of the changing nature of war, which may be less about missiles and more about the resilience of highly technical, connected systems, like agriculture. All of which leads to Darpa, where Jahn’s newly announced food security programme is launching with the goal of completely upending how nutrients are produced and distributed. If the agency is successful, not only will food security dramatically improve, but agricultural carbon emissions could be cut to a tiny fraction of what they are today — basically to whatever it takes to power the appliances in your home.

5 points by integrale 5y ago

Twitter is a referrer for which FT unlocks the paywall, e.g. via this link here: https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/1469540052183171077 https://twitter.com/FinancialTimes/status/146954005218317107...

stevenalowe 5y ago

Zero info on the process, progress, etc. PR puff piece

gus_massa 5y ago
The main idea is to cultivate bacteria instead of plants, but if they say it in this way it doesn't look so futuristic. The problem are: * How big should be the device to keep the bacterias inside. They grow, but no infinitely fast. For plants in 2D you need like a 100mx100m (300ftx300tf) to survive [1]. Yo can try to stack them in 3D. Using a few shelves I guess you can multiply the efficiency of the surface x10, and be optimistic and assume bacteria are 10x more efficient than plants. So you need a 10mx10m (30ftx30ft) room to cultivate your bacterias. That's like 9 normal rooms in a home, much bigger than a replicator in Star Trek. * You must keep the house-sized bacteria block with only good bacteria, and keep all the bad bacteria away. Specially if you try something more advanced as discussed in the article to use genetically engineered bacterias to get food that does not taste horrible. It is possible, but you must be very cautious every time you open it. * Plants come with their self building solar panel. So you save a lot of construction. Cultivating bacteria need a lot of energy, so yo must cover the farm surface with soar panels, or wind turbines, a nuclear power plant or burn enough oil. [1] https://homesteading.com/subsistence-farming/ https://homesteading.com/subsistence-farming/

JSeymourATL 5y ago

Remarkable implications for Agriculture-- and how we live. > Food has become central to defence types as part of the changing nature of war, which may be less about missiles and more about the resilience of highly technical, connected systems, like agriculture. All of which leads to Darpa, where Jahn’s newly announced food security programme is launching with the goal of completely upending how nutrients are produced and distributed. If the agency is successful, not only will food security dramatically improve, but agricultural carbon emissions could be cut to a tiny fraction of what they are today — basically to whatever it takes to power the appliances in your home.