I wonder
a. How expensive this food is compared to regular food b. How many people the warehouse used can feed in a year c. How big the warehouse is in cubic feet d. Will China use this to reduce its agricultural imports from what it sees as a hostile West? e. How expensive would it be to set up such a warehouse on the Moon?
]]>Following the same fall in manufacturing costs as solar PV simply due to scale of production. No new tech needed, but when new tech arrives...
]]>What I find more interesting/useful, though it's still focused on fresh produce rather than staple crops, is the solar powered seawater desalination plus greenhouse growing of Sundrop Farms in South Australia.
Desal and Solar Prove the Perfect Tomato Source
In the two months since it started growing its 440,000 climbing truss tomato vines under 20ha of glasshouses, foreign-owned Sundrop has used no fresh water from rivers or underground aquifers, no pesticides and, once its solar thermal tower is commissioned, will use 90 per cent renewable solar power, heating and cooling that it has created on-site.
]]>Wrong. https://medium.com/@dirk.bruere/diy-solar-electricity-the-true-costs-597a2a23a1f3#.pfqctccro
Of course, numbers are wrong since prices have fallen since 2012 when I costed it. "So, $140 of PV in London will get you 150 kWh x 25 years = 3750 kWh at a price of 140/3750 = 3.7 cents per kWh" That is, of course, if you fit the panels yourself and use all the electricity yourself. If you want mains connection just multiply that number by 20x
]]>If you want to synchronise with the external grid, then you will need a solid-state synchronising gadget, which IIRC are not that cheap or easy to get hold of in the UK. However, if you can get one, then it is again, relatively easy. Turn all power in house off. Break in to power leads on your side of the meter. Insert connections & test for leaks. Re-start.
BEFORE you begin all of this, of course you must read round the subject for details, especially the legal ones.
But it should not be really difficult. [ However, I say this a someone who completely re-wired his 1893 - fitted for electricity in 1907 house, about 20 years back. ]
]]>Labor and inspections are a big part of the expense
]]>"An MIT spinout is preparing to commercialize a novel rechargable lithium metal battery that offers double the energy capacity of the lithium ion batteries that power many of today's consumer electronics. Founded in 2012 by MIT alumnus and former postdoc Qichao Hu '07, SolidEnergy Systems has developed an "anode-free" lithium metal battery with several material advances that make it twice as energy-dense, yet just as safe and long-lasting as the lithium ion batteries used in smartphones, electric cars, wearables, drones, and other devices."
]]>OK, didn't realize the original was a CT comment. It's not all soft and cuddly puppies, where I live in exurban USA, you get the same problem as in (South) Dallas,the dumped puppies and Feral... I had a developing Dog PACK in my neighborhood. The "Leader" has now been leashed, but I still can't walk in my own "neighborhood" after dark without a stick in hand. Experimental anthropology verification of the territorial theory of Dog commensalism, but the one acre lot is not the same as a farmstead down in Michoacán.
]]>About the only wonder-battery tech I've actually seen delivered and shelf-ready after the press releases had stopped has been Toshiba's SciB cells which have piss-poor capacity in terms of Wh/kg compared to regular lithium-X but incredibly good thermal capabilities and very fast charge rate (0% to 80% in 6 minutes) without that inconvenient "bursting into flames" deal or active liquid cooling. They're also very expensive compared to lead-acid or lithium.
]]>All of which means that hell really is other people and the the Everett-Wheeler Many Worlds Theory gets to seem a little bit too real from this POV. After saying that I just say what I say everyday, nah, that's insane.
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