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| Joined: | Mon Nov 21st, 2005 |
| Location: | California USA |
| Posts: | 6399 |
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825 South First Ave
Barstow, Ca 92311
760-256-2649
josf.kelley@verizon.net
The Human Environment
by
Joe Kelley
The human environment is a power struggle to win or lose by some measure not dictated by one single human being, rather that measure is a power shared by each member of our species. Some examples of that measure stress the importance of gaining power so as to gain more power. Some other examples add an important qualifying measure of winning where the gain must not be realized at the expense of innocent victims.
A few examples of winning the power struggle to gain more power, while avoiding the injury to innocent people, can be easily illustrated. Humans are now focusing attention upon three such power producers and the first involves the power of producing food, the second involves the power to produce motor fuel, and the last involves another power to move things by motor vehicle.
Food growth is growing vertically these days. The idea is just beginning to grow into full production. This method of vertical growth bypasses many problems associated with insecticide costs and climate control. Food is produced inside modular buildings or greenhouses where physical space is economically employed and plants are efficiently deployed. Seeing one of these greenhouses in action can eliminate much skepticism and ignorance. The actual growth rate of this type of industry depends upon the growth of accurate understanding concerning how this type of industry works and just how profitable it is for our species and our environment. I can confirm only the basic facts. The initial cost of one modular unit is competitive to any food production output by conventional means. What that means, in simple terms, is anyone can become a farmer based upon the affordability of one modular production unit compared to the output of that one unit. How much does it cost to grow food at home compared to the affordability of purchasing food by conventional means? The physical space required in order to begin farming by this new production method is much less than conventional farming requirements and so too is the comparative initial investment costs less at home on a home farm compared to farming on a big corporate farm. The new way is cheap and easy. The old way is expensive and difficult. The new way yields a high return on investment. The old way can barely keep up with the demand for food; people are starving for God’s sake.
Suppose a number of people are inspired to grow their own food with the new vertical farming method and some of those people live in an apartment building, there space is very limited. Other people live in a residential area where a portion of their property could support one or two green house units. This comparison can be seen as a new step in the farming industry since most people reject the idea of growing their own food because the capacity of their environment cannot support a powerful farm. An apartment resident can grow a few items in the kitchen, near a window, not much more. The residential home owner may have enough room to be a farmer with the investment of one modular greenhouse unit. A rural living setting can afford to quadruple the modular unit investment and thereby increase yield by more than a factor of four due to the nature of economies of scale. All the investment costs required in starting one modular unit with water, labor, construction, shipping, etc. are divided among four units instead of one and that relationship extends onto larger farms employing multiples of modular units, out in the country.
The investment in a home food farm is almost too good to pass up and the cost to benefit ratio is already growing larger, going upwards in benefits and downwards in costs from the current ratio of high prices for low quality food. The home farmer can gain more power from the initial investment, more power in food supply compared to less power lost in investment money, time, and energy. Less power in while more power is produced. That is the human power struggle in action. We are winning. No innocent people need suffer in this growing industry. More power is gained and power is used to gain more power. People are fed. People have more power since they can eat and work at this type of winning power struggle. The home grown supply of food eventually surpasses the cost of building the farm. How much does food cost now? Food is power. Try surviving without it. The flow of food power can offset the purchasing power needed to start this industry at home, almost any home on the planet. Everyone must either grow food or pay for it. Some may live on charity; many die without charity, without food, and without the means to produce food. Purchasing power in the form of money is soon repaid in the savings of food prices with this type of new industry. Conventionally produced food prices climb and the investment in home grown food gains even more power.
Next on the list is a home grown supply of motor fuel based upon the same method of vertical food growth within a modular greenhouse industry. One unit, one modular greenhouse, can compete with the price of gasoline made with petroleum. The initial cost in money for a home growing modular greenhouse will soon be offset by the fresh new supply of food or motor fuel from each modular unit purchased. The reasons why this type of modular bio-fuel can compete are the same reason why modular food production can compete, and win. The costs for home fuel production and home food production are lower than the output capacity of each unit, in time. Home food and home fuel production are profitable ventures that prey on no innocent victims. The output or yield of algae motor fuel per modular unit is higher than contemporary bio-fuel made with sugar or corn, per acre. Less cost and more output.
Algae, rather than sugar or corn, provides the plant life for algae bio-fuel production. The enclosed environment inside the modular greenhouse reduces the costs of production because it is a controlled environment. Vertical farming employs more volume of surface area for each square foot of ground, and each acre of land can house multiple modular units all lined up in rows. This economy of physical space adds to the power of profitability. Production volume grows ever greater amounts as the eventual yield is much more than the costs spent in initial investment and much more than all other costs involved including labor costs over time. Algae yields more than ten times the output per square foot compared to the government subsidized ethanol products such as those fuel supplies now marketed in Brazil where sugar is the plant and sugar plantations provide the supply of biomass. American industry has also invested some power in open farming for biomass motor fuel; one example is bean oil fuel. Nothing can compete with algae which is the fastest growing plant on the planet.
The added benefits of Algae fuel multiply during its production since more land is available for edible food farming and less land is used up producing motor fuel with vertical algae fuel farming in modular units, compared to open and conventional bio-fuel farming.. Algae growth also consumes carbon dioxide. Ambient air is circulated through the algae growth process where the algae feeds upon the carbon dioxide contained within the ambient air. As more home food growers diversify with additional home fuel production, the plant life consumes more carbon dioxide. The Earth may run out of CO2 if this industry continues to expand exponentially beyond reason.
The end result is lower costs for both food and fuel. Lower costs are realized in the form of lower monetary costs as well as lower environmental costs while output yield increases. Lower costs are also realized as people bypass the middlemen. Food and fuel are grown at home or much nearer to home, less transportation costs are realized even while fuel costs lower with higher quality algae fuel.
Job growth will also increase as higher demand for greater supplies of modular greenhouse units inspire more people to flock to that new and growing industry. Current prices of modular units will lower from an already competitive cost as greenhouses move into mass production produced by massive numbers of workers. A shortage of workers may ensue. Competitions between providers of modular greenhouses, constructors of greenhouses, and maintenance personnel skilled at working on greenhouses will seek to gain market share by offering the highest quality at the lowest cost. This is a job growth industry. Where will all the new workers come from?
Next on the list is the growing electric car industry. Algae producers provide less costly fuel for internal combustion engines in cars, trucks, electric generators, and other industrial applications currently running while the introduction of the electric car into the stream of the human environment reduces the demand for motor fuel. Home fuel producers will eventually need to convert home fuel greenhouses into modular food production greenhouses due to the lowering demand for motor fuel as larger supplies of electric cars flow through the human environment. Eventually motor fuel demand will decrease as more electric cars come online to a point where the excess supply of green motor fuel will lower the price of green motor fuel to a point exceeding the cost of production; somewhere around one dollar per gallon, when that happens people will choose electric cars over the expensive one dollar per gallon green motor fuel car costs. Electric power will be cheaper. Out with the old and in with the new. Meanwhile, the demand for electricity increases as electric cars, trucks, and other electric power applications proliferate the human environment.
That brings into view another item like a clear view of the ocean from a mountain top on a sunny Sunday. Solar panels have long since passed the economic profitability threshold to a point where new business models now involve providers who rent homes from people who merely want to reduce their electric bills. The home owner calls up the solar panel provider and agrees to pay less for electricity. Who can not afford to pay less for electricity? Instead of sending a large amount of money to the utility company the customer sends less money to the solar panel provider. An enterprising home owner who currently makes his own food, his own motor fuel for sale, and sports an electric car, is a person who may not want to rent his home to the Solar Panel Provider Company. He or she can cut out that middle man and run another new electric power company from home – do it yourself.
That completes a cycle of human environmental industry that is currently being powered into reality. Home owners are now beginning to invest power into the creation of more power. There is more power to be produced in modular greenhouses that make food, fuel, and consume carbon dioxide. There is plenty of power in the sun for making things move. These current realities are not front page news. Not yet. Which page are you on?