10 replies to this topic

[SpleenBeGone]

Came up with this: http://i.imgur.com/nd32H.jpg

Probably can't see it very well, so here's a run down. It's a 3 story greenhouse that takes up a 50'x50' area at the base. Each level as 5, 2 foot tall, 4 foot wide, and 46 foot long fish tanks, which will be covered with plant mass for an aquaponics setup. The tanks will be able to support about 22,000 pounds of fish. (slightly over, under good conditions).
The sides have angled mirrors to make use of the most sunlight possible in the tiers. The top tier, getting the most light will grow plants that need the most sun, with the middle tier getting less, and the bottom getting the least. Plants would also be organized inward on the bottom two tiers, with the outside most rows getting the most light and the inner rows getting the least. All of this would provide 2760 square footage of growing space (more than the building footprint). Given standard planting practices, this could provide up to 27,600 pounds of edible product per growing season. This could also be increase through more modern plant strings and more compact farming.

Between each row, the walkway will be a tank of clear plexiglass, 1 foot tall. This will first, give a way for more light to travel down, and second be the area to grow algae. Given this layout, it could provide about 4170lb of algae ever 4 days or so, enough to be refined into 200 gallons of bio-diesel which would produce around 25kw of power a day.

The entire thing would be self sufficient, and, given a conservative two grow seasons per year could feed about 58 people at a constant. The energy produced would be enough to not only run the facility, but power between 8 and 15 homes.

On top of all of that, I haven't done the math yet, but I imagine a biomass of that density would do a lot for the carbon emission and such.

[Calvary]

Jesus, shame great minds find it hard to get investment, you'd be minted for something like this.

[SpleenBeGone]

I'm going to figure up the finer points and put it on kickstarter to see what happens.

[Zashiki_Warashi]

You really got a great mind going on there; you need to cash in on it.

[SpleenBeGone]

Most of my "great mind" stuff goes to making potato cannons and the like. >.>

[Calvary]

Get on board my Sahara Solar Farm idea and we'll be rich beyond our wildest dreams!?!!

[SpleenBeGone]

Didn't they make a movie about that? >.>

Also, panels or molten sodium?

[Calvary]

Panels, it's more expensive but more lucrative in output. I had a plan on business, involving hiring locals and paying then wage rates that you would expect if you lived in the west (£6.08 an hour minimum over here). Unfortunately, I imagine I'd need 100s of millions of investment and banks just aren't giving that kind of money to 17 year olds.

[SpleenBeGone]

Yeah, a major solar farm would probably cost about half a billion.

[Calvary]

Which sucks, I wanted to call it empathenergy and give it to people at really low prices. And I wanted to pay the Africans really good wages too.

[SpleenBeGone]

Those are two things you'd have a really hard time doing up front, since your investors would want return.

It'd be best to start one in a country that can afford to pay more, then use those profits to build another.