Electro-agriculture: Revolutionizing farming for a sustainable future
17 comments
·October 25, 2024goda90
Would a heterotrophic adult plant have all the same micro-nutrients that a photoautotrophic adult plant has? I can imagine while one might grow lots of cellulose, maybe there are chemicals that just end up never being made by the plant cells or taken up via the roots in those conditions.
I'm reminded of suggestions to point a fan at hydroponic herbs in order to enhance flavor. Just water, air, light, and dissolved nutrients isn't enough for them to be delicious. The plant needs some degree of stress or variation while growing.
haccount
It's technically impressive in a way but it's also a dystopian hellscape enabler technology.
The article even takes the opportunity to mention that It could be useful during "solar geo engineering events and nuclear winter". What kind of insane geo engineering event is envisioned where food crops cannot grow under natural sunlight and all food we eat is from GMO plants and mushrooms only?
Did I mention the health inspiring carbon-monoxide step in the electrolysis process to produce the food for the plants? I did now.
zemvpferreira
A thousand atomic bombs are a dystopian hellscape enabler technology. Food that can grow without sunshine is a dystopian hellscape survival technology.
You could not have this more backwards.
EDIT: Unless you mean that someone would launch 1000 nukes on the belief that they could survive the impending hellscape only because of electro-ag mushrooms which is a possibility I strain to believe.
haccount
Harvesting Monsanto™ Dark-gro™ leafless GMO tomatoes with a cold LED headlamp in an underground bunker to the background hum of the electrolysis system that churns out megawatts worth of carbon monoxide feedstock.
Not dystopian?
Windchaser
I think he's saying that the nuclear winter is the dystopian scenario. The technology that allows you to survive the dystopia is not, by itself, dystopian. The technology that creates the dystopia (like nuclear weapons) are dystopian.
Worth noting that this same technology could let us reduce US agricultural land use by ~80-90% and rewild those same lands. Is having vast tracts of unspoiled wilderness "dystopian"?
mometsi
Look at lucky Mr haccount here, with his fancy brand-name produce. You call that dystopian? Here we just slurp our 10% white vinegar straight out of the acetate reactor for 300 kcal per liter.
nomel
> What kind of insane geo engineering event is envisioned where food crops cannot grow under natural sunlight
For off-world, being able to dig a big hole, plug the leaks for atmosphere, and grow plants in it seems like it could be useful.
Aspos
For those wondering what electro-ag is: convert CO2 into acetate—a carbon-rich compound that can fuel crop growth without sunlight.
westurner
"Electro-ag"
"Electronic soil boosts crop growth" (2023) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38767561#38768499 :
> Electroculture
> "Electrical currents associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal interactions" (1995) https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=3517382204909176031...
Electrotropism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrotropism
Windchaser
Hmm, this article is about using electricity and CO2/H2O to make chemical feedstocks that would grow plants. The plants would "eat" the chemical feedstocks, instead of "eating" light.
It's not about using electric fields to direct plant growth; that's a different thing
westurner
Perhaps electro-agriculture is an all-encompassing term, or a new usage in this context
haccount
What the op article suggests is using GMO plants that no longer use photosynthesis but instead drive their metabolism based on products derived from CO2 electrolysis and simple chemical man made compounds.
Plant-made plants, like industrial chemical plant-made.
westurner
Is that more efficient than [solar-powered] industrial production processes that synthesize directly from CO2? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40914350#40959068
What about topsoil depletion and compost production?
metalman
could,bla bla bla,algea,Cupriavidus necator,bla bla extremophile bacteria,bla bla,could,fungi,bla bla,yeast,could,bla,might,may,bla,bla,electro-ag feedstock,bla bla,could,Genetic engineering approaches can be taken to enhance plant acetate metabolism.31 In other organisms, acetate utilization has been improved by overexpressing bla bla,might,acetate,acetate,acetate,acetate,bla bla,could trying to make bugs look good,I think
I'm not completely sold on it, but one of my friends is adamant that this approach powered by hydrogen deposits make all of our climate change issues non-issues. I just wouldn't want it if it isn't done equitably
https://www.usgs.gov/news/featured-story/potential-geologic-...