From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Jun 14 2003 - 15:21:23 MDT
On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, Gary Miller wrote:
> Could these solar ponds be multipurpose say for Aquaculture (fish
> farms). We are being told that fishing yields are way down.
You could structure them in multiple ways but it costs you
something. Normally you want the bacteria to grow to fill
the pond, then switch to methane production mode at the
maximum possible photosynthetic efficiency, only using
some small fraction of energy to recycle proteins that may become
damaged by UV radiation, free radicals, etc. Most of the
CO2 they consume will be going into the production of
CH4 (methane).
Now, you can leave them in replication mode, siphon off
some constant fraction and put them into a pond with
shrimp that find them quite tasty. Or you could engineer
a more complex ecosystem that produces fish of some type.
But you are going to have to sacrifice methane production
to produce the biomass for food. (You can put the carbon
into methane or proteins/carbohydrates/lipids, but not both).
I do have this interesting image in my mind of acres
of land covered in solar ponds with windmills in between
the ponds. This all producing electricity, methane and shrimp.
Robert
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