Tag: agriculture

Agrivoltaics

Using vertically mounted bifacial modules allows for more arable land. And if you don’t know what bifacial solar panels are, they can collect solar energy from both sides of the panel. This type of installation would work particularly well in areas that suffer from wind erosion, since the structures reduce wind speeds which can help protect the land and crops grown there. The bifacial panels also can generate more power per square meter than traditional single faced panels and don’t require any moving parts. Then there’s also the option of mounting panels on stilts, which allows farming machinery to pass underneath. In this design you have to maintain a certain clearance between rows to protect the stilts from the machinery, so there is a modest arable land surface loss, usually 3-10%.

2022-09-14: A similar thought process is to combine solar with dams.

Utilizing even small tracts of water can yield outsized benefits. EDP’s Alqueva array, for instance, takes up just 0.016% of the reservoir total surface area. The relative footprint is even smaller when taking into account the reduced need for transmission infrastructure, as the project can plug into the dam’s pre-existing lines.

Moreover, panels and water can have a symbiotic relationship. Modeling the effects of floating panels on water reservoirs found that floating solar panels could reduce evaporation of the water beneath them by 42%. Conversely, solar panels lose generating capacity as they heat up, and the water helps keep panels cool — and 10% more efficient.


2023-06-26: Luminescent Solar Concentrators strike a good balance of energy / agricultural performance.

The idea of Agri-LSC is to allow visible light that crops use for photosynthesis to pass through the panel, while capturing wavelengths of light that are unusable for plants, like infrared and ultraviolet, and converting them into electricity or even transforming them to aid with crop growth. UbiGro is a transparent film that implements a method of LSCs to increase yield for everything from strawberries to cannabis by 20%. They recently teamed up with the solar module company Heliene to add UbiGro film to solar panels, simultaneously generating electricity from low light while aiming to increase plant yield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?ww-_U7_oQbY?t=325

Haber-Bosch

50% of the nitrogen in our bodies came from the Haber–Bosch process. It’s in every protein and every strand of DNA. Ponder that — “50% of the nitrogen in your blood, your skin and hair, your proteins and DNA, is synthetic.” The Haber-Bosch process catalyzes the production of ammonia (NH3) from N2 and H2 gas. We need “fixed nitrogen”, available to our organic chemistries as atomic nitrogen. It is the limiting factor for the growth of all food. While nitrogen gas is about 80% of our atmosphere, not one atom of it is available for our use when tightly bound by the triple bond of N2 gas, the strongest chemical bond in nature. It is sequestered all around us. In nature, N2 is liberated to atomic nitrogen in small amounts by lightning strikes (it needs 1000°C) and slowly by nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil. Hager argues that if we reverted to relying on just those natural sources, 3b people would die of starvation in short order — our soils simply could not produce enough food for the mouths now on Earth. The Haber process consumes 4% of the world’s natural-gas production and 1.5% of the world’s energy supply.

2021-11-30: There’s a potential replacement:

The process is as clean as the electricity used to power it, and produces around 53 nanomoles of ammonia per second, at Faradaic efficiencies around 69%. The highest reported previous efficiencies for ammonia electrolysis sat around 60%, with the exception of 1 other lithium cycling approach that managed 88%, but required high temperatures of 450 °C. The team says it’s massively scalable, capable of operating either at industrial scale, or in extremely small on-site operations. “They can be as small as a thick iPad, and that could make a small amount of ammonia continuously to run a commercial greenhouse or hydroponics setup, for example.” This kind of distributed production model, as we explored looking at FuelPositive’s modular, container-sized ammonia production units, would have additional benefits in that it would eliminate the distribution and transport that contribute significantly to the financial and emissions costs of the current ammonia model.

2022-05-04: What happens when you think you can do without Haber-Bosch.
2022-07-22: The same team was able to improve ammonia electrolysis further, with 3x yield and nearly 100% energy efficiency.

We investigate the role of the electrolyte in this reaction and present a high-efficiency, robust process enabled by compact ionic layering in the electrode-electrolyte interfacial region. The interface is generated by a high-concentration imide-based lithium salt electrolyte, enabling stabilized ammonia yield rates of 150±20 nmol s-1 cm-2 and current-to-ammonia efficiency closely approaching 100%.

RNAi pesticides

If you could introduce dsRNA into a pesky pathogen—a particularly irritating fungus, for example—you could instruct that pathogen’s cells to destroy its own mRNA and stop it from making crucial proteins. In essence, they could switch off genes within pathogens at will. RNA crop sprays could have some major advantages over the current toolbox of chemical-based pesticides. Microbes break down RNA in the soil within a couple of days, which lessens the problem of environmental buildup. And because RNA sprays would target genes specific to individual species, there is—at least theoretically—a much lower chance that other organisms would get caught in the crossfire. Even 2 very similar species have enough genetic differences that it’s possible to make RNA sprays that target one bug while leaving the other one alone. Resistance is always a concern. “It’s unavoidable. But we will do everything we can to make sure that growers use the products the way we believe minimizes that risk.” Growers might be directed to use dsRNA only at certain times of the year, and that since RNA breaks down so quickly in the environment it’s less likely that pests will be exposed enough to develop resistance. RNA sprays will likely be mixed with existing pesticides—attacking pests from several angles rather than taking a single one-spray-to-kill-them-all approach. “It’s [reducing] the number of ag chemicals that are used, but not full replacement of them”.

Transforming Civilization

We’re on the cusp of the fastest deepest most consequential transformation not just of any 1 sector yes but also of civilization. Over the next 10 years we’re going to have a convergence that is going to disrupt the 5 foundational sectors of the economy.

Disruption happens when there is a convergence of technologies. That convergence opens up a new possibility space. 11 years ago Tesla and other companies came into the ev space and solar companies and so on. That’s when the opportunity space opened up.

In 2014 I projected the cost of lithium-ion batteries out to 2030. I’m told that that looked insane: $150 per kWh by 2021 is not going to happen. I was told that 100s of times. Guess what, it ended up being a little conservative, it’s actually below that.

In 2014 I said that by 2020 there would be 300 km electric vehicles that would be cheaper than the median new car in America, which of course at the time sounded insane, not going to happen. Folks were predicting 2040s, 2050s before that would happen. Guess what, it did happen.

Internal combustion engine automobiles are going to be wiped out in the 2020s. 95% of passenger km will be electric by about 2030.

If we start today and we finished by 2030 in America it would cost less than $2t to build a 100% solar wind and battery system. Over 10 years that’s less than 1% of GDP.

Milk is 3% solid proteins. All you need is to disrupt that 3% to disrupt the dairy industry. By 2030 the cost of proteins which are brewed locally will be 80% lower than animal proteins so we expect the dairy industry to be pretty much bankrupt by 2030 and livestock meat will follow.

If we put together 3 disruptions, there are dramatic implications. Because the cost of all of these foundational sectors are going down by up to 10x over the next 10-15 years. The cost of the “American dream” in terms of what we consume for energy, transport, food and so on will be $250 a month. This will give us an opportunity to end poverty, inequality, environmental degradation and so on.

Rural change

Increasing farm productivity has been the dominant force shaping rural America over the past 150 years. Improving transportation has offset some of the population decline (and its ill effects) by improving access to jobs and services, especially near cities. Improved communications, increasing acceptance of remote work, and new transportation options are poised to turn every rural community into a bedroom community for cities, providing more income opportunities. Physical transportation systems like VTOL taxis, electric airplanes, and HyperLoops take things to the next level by providing access to in-person city jobs and services. As the cost of animal protein declines, farming and ranching will see shifts. High-density grazing can increase the productivity of grasslands, reducing the demand for feed from cropland. It also produces healthier cows that need less finishing in feedlots to taste good. Further farm consolidation and conversion of cropland to grazing land seem likely. The impact will vary widely by location. In Georgia, where cotton is the dominant crop, and Atlanta is a powerhouse city, negatives will be few and far between. High plains land that benefits from improved grazing techniques could flourish. In an isolated river valley in Iowa with land ideally suited for industrial production of corn and soybeans, things might not be so pleasant for big farms. Life could improve for the median resident that has more income earning options. The worst-case scenario is that demand for traditional animal products falls while improvement in work options ends up being limited. The worst-case scenario seems much less likely with StarLink coming online and COVID-19 normalizing remote work. While farm operations will probably consolidate, the average land parcel size could decline as every rural community becomes a bedroom community. Small plots could proliferate. If farming and grazing acreage declines, negative environmental impacts could result. In previously forested places, a return makes sense. But in the high plains, residents may have to organize roaming ruminant herds or prescribed burns to maintain their prairie and prevent desertification. Things rarely change very fast in rural communities, but the coming decades could be a lot more fun and pleasant than the past 15.

Potassium Pools

Potassium ions are vital for the functioning of all living cells. The transfer of potassium ions across nerve cell membranes is necessary for normal nerve transmission; potassium deficiency and excess can each result in numerous signs and symptoms, including an abnormal heart rhythm and various electrocardiographic abnormalities. Fresh fruits and vegetables are good dietary sources of potassium. The body responds to the influx of dietary potassium, which raises serum potassium levels, with a shift of potassium from outside to inside cells and an increase in potassium excretion by the kidneys.

50% more Food

Humans have an enzyme called FTO that demethylates N6-methyladenosine through oxidation. It’s part of a large family of enzymes that do this sort of thing using an iron atom in their active sites, along with molecular oxygen. Plants, though, don’t have an FTO homolog – they have some other enzymes that can demethylate this substrate, but not like FTO itself. So the team behind this paper wanted to see what would happen if you engineered the FTO enzyme into plants. In rice and potatoes, the crop yields went up by 50%. Grain size in the rice plants didn’t change, nor did the height of the plants – they just produced a lot more rice grains in general. How does this happen? The plants’ root systems were deeper and more extensive, and photosynthetic efficiency went up by a startling 36%. Transpiration from the leaves was up 78%, but at the same time, the plants of both species showed significantly higher drought tolerance. These are highly desirable traits, and it’s worth noting that a lot of this extra biomass is coming from increased usage of carbon dioxide from the air.

Now we just need to crush the GMO luddites to roll this out.

Clothing started agriculture?

Archaeologists and other scientists are beginning to unravel the story of our most intimate technology: clothing. They’re learning when and why our ancestors first started to wear clothes, and how their adoption was crucial to the evolutionary success of our ancestors when they faced climate change on a massive scale during the Pleistocene ice ages. These investigations have revealed a new twist to the story, assigning a much more prominent role to clothing than previously imagined. After the last ice age, global warming prompted people in many areas to change their clothes, from animal hides to textiles. This change in clothing material, I suspect, could be what triggered one of the greatest changes in the life of humanity. Not food but clothing led to the agricultural revolution.

Siberia is the future

A great transformation is underway in the eastern half of Russia. For centuries the vast majority of the land has been impossible to farm; only the southernmost stretches along the Chinese and Mongolian borders, including around Dimitrovo, have been temperate enough to offer workable soil. But as the climate has begun to warm, the land — and the prospect for cultivating it — has begun to improve. 20 years ago, the spring thaw came in May, but now the ground is bare by April; rainstorms now come stronger and wetter. Across Eastern Russia, wild forests, swamps and grasslands are slowly being transformed into orderly grids of soybeans, corn and wheat. It’s a process that is likely to accelerate: Russia hopes to seize on the warming temperatures and longer growing seasons brought by climate change to refashion itself as one of the planet’s largest producers of food.