I recently saw plans for multi-level farms similar to parking garages on world changing and began to think about using these for production of ethanol. What I thought might be a cool idea would be to just use ordinary tupper-ware or plastic storage boxes fill them with dirt and fertilizer and then cool them using a solar cell and a coolant system from a low power fridge (their all over Asia and run usually under 12v hence in the range of a mid-price solar cell). You would grow sweet beets in them with a minimal cooling system to simulate winter and speed up production. (I'm under the impression from an article in Wired about cold-water farming and grape vines that you can force plants to harvest several times a year by faking the seasons, but I'm not sure if such is the case for beets). Additionally becuase the beats are only harvestable around every 30 - 50 days, the solar panel could charge a small zinc-air batter (or really any type of battery) that could churn a trough inside the container that forces the beats out through a small slit in the box similar to the large harvesting machines used today. The result would be a fairly-self-powered stack-able box that could provide beets used for ethanol.It's advantages over traditional farming, the process of harvesting is automated and vertical. Stack a few hundred and every 30 days you could harvest a good amount of beets.
The main problems
A. Cost. Even low power cooling systems with massive insulation are still fairly high power, additionally a 12v solar panel still runs around 120 USD and up even that many sugar beets still wouldn't produce that much ethanol.
B. fertilizer and seeding boxes in the air (although arguably the boxes could dump some dirt and simply funneling seed and fertziler wouldn't be to hard.
C. power, even with solar cells the boxes would still have to draw off the grid or another power source, hence the amount of fuel expended per box might make it less of a value than traditional means.
Still the more I look at it, the more possible it seems.
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just occured to me the main problem isn't with the amount of food products that can be produced for ethanol. It's the fuel consumption in the actual process of turning the products into ethanol. One of the problems is that the food has to be mashed. If the farms were built high up enough and over an ethanol plant then the food could actually be pre-mashed just by falling into the machine. One part of the process could be reduced. Also in winter when the beets don't need to be cooled the solar could go towards assisting in the process of production. I don't know. Might work.
A recent report by a reputable scientific group analysed the energy consumption in producing ethanol and it seems that it consumes far more energy than it offers. It is a futile and unnecessary process.Seehttp://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1894&e=1&u=/ap/20050717/ap_on_bi_ge/ethanol_study
that's actually the point of this post.to reduce the amount of energy needed to produce ethanolto make it actually worth harvesting. According to that reportit takes about 1k in gas per acre for ethanol. Take the powerout of the harvesting or reduce it and the process becomes sustianable.also, the report has been disputed. it was put together bytwo long standing critics of alternative-fuels.
peace,a
additionally I am discussing beets which are considered a more effecient plant for ethanol than corn or grass which that news story reported on and the beets are harvestable multiple times a year. Corn is well known as an energy in-effecient way of making ethanol hence the reliance on sugar cane in brazil.
peace,A
Yes, but what if nobody likes to eat beets? I don't know many who do (although I love 'em)