http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110648&org=NSF&from=news (http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=110648&org=NSF&from=news)
G'day all,
While we are on microbes, can someone remember this: In the 1970's I bought a book where some experienced microbiologist claimed that all of the world's energy and food needs can be met by huge microbiological cultures. He proposed amongst other things growing a certain diatoma that was so rich in oil that when extracted could supply enough oil from a culture in a medium sized lake to satisfy the demands of a nation. It was a main stream bestseller at the time.
Someone stole my copy and at the moment I cannot even remember who wrote it and what it was called.
Perhaps the penalty of growing old :-) Alzheimer's here I come :-)
Hans von Lieven
Hans:
I used to know what alzheimers was....but I have forgotten. Is that a bad sign? (Grin)
Bill
Quote from: hansvonlieven on November 13, 2007, 10:21:30 PM
...all of the world's energy and food needs can be met by huge microbiological cultures.
Wee beastie pie anyone? LOL!
I finally remembered what the book was called and who wrote it. Maybe Alzheimer's isn't on the cards yet.
Here is the website that goes with the book: http://www.brianjford.com/wmicpow1.htm
Hans von Lieven
Quote from: ResinRat2 on November 14, 2007, 01:16:06 PM
Quote from: hansvonlieven on November 13, 2007, 10:21:30 PM
...all of the world's energy and food needs can be met by huge microbiological cultures.
Wee beastie pie anyone? LOL!
Well Dave, makes a change from drinking beastie-piss, also known as alcohol, which we have been drinking for millennia. :-)
Hans von Lieven
:D ;D :D ;D :D ;D LOL!!! :D ;D :D ;D
hehehe well Hans at least it seems your Altzheimers fears were unsubstantial eh? ;)
Don't worry, it's probably something else... a friend of mine tends to say "in a very busy city, traffic is also stalled most of the time. same thing with the mind. A very busy mind tends to have less room for trivial matters." :)
Thanks for the link, very interesting.
All joking aside, this is actually a very interesting idea.
Near my house there is a stagnant lake that is about the size of 50 meters or so across. Every year it gets a thick, thick layer of algae on it. It probably could feed a good number of people a year.
Can you imagine large farms that grew and harvested this type of idea. We probably could easily feed the world, but I just think women wouldn't go for it. Microbe stew probably wouldn't go over good in the kitchen BUT... if some innovative MEN master chef's could come up with an array of tasty dishes, it could probably be marketed right.
Wow! Eat microbes, save the environment. What a concept.
Thanks for this information Hans.
Well it is an old idea to use kelp, algae, and yeasts as food sources... And an idea used quite often in sci-fi stories of the 70s and 80s... "Soylent Green" is one of them I seem to recall ;) (only in that story and movie it turned out to be a lot less effective than claimed)
Already yeast protein is used to produce vegetarian meat replacements like Quorn.
It is not a bad idea... But the world food "problem" is not actually one of a net shortage of food products. There is enough food to feed the world. The problem is that certain world regions have an excess amount of food and even destroy it to keep prices up locally, while other world regions have a shortage. It is mostly a logistic problem: if we could get the excess food supply transported to the regions with a shortage at affordable rates, there would not be world hunger.
So in the end it seems to come down to fuel and labour cost...
Which I feel boils down to the same thing: energy.
That's why I am more interested in obtaining energy in usable fom (electricity, hydrogen) directly from microbes, algae, etc.
However, the idea of oil derived from large masses of microbes does not at all sound bad either. It may not be very eco-friendly as it would still mean we'd be burning oil to run engines on, but it could be extremely cost-efficient.