Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Parkinson
I've been thinking lately wouldn't it be cool to have a box or a tank of some kind that you just shovel waste into and it puts out some kind of edible gloop and maybe clean water. While I am dreaming let's have generate enough heat to power small appliances, eg charge the phone battery etc.
Then have them so cheap that you could drop them into disaster areas, meanwhile the rest of us would keep one in a cupboard in case we had a local emergency. Though if it were algae-driven you'd have to feed it sometimes or it would die.
|
NASA would love to have a box like that as well. The technical term is "closed ecological life support system" or CELSS.
http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3g.html#cess
The idea is to reproduce in miniature the situation we have on Earth.
Human urine, faeces, and exhaled carbon dioxide are fed to Spirulina algae. The algae consumes the wastes along with energy from sunlight, and makes more algae along with exhaled oxygen. Humans then inhale the oxygen and eat the algae. Then you repeat the cycle.
As a rough guess, about 12 liters of algae will produce enough food to feed one person, every day.