Impressive work—I especially liked the graphs. For humane space colonization, rather than photosynthesis, it would be far more efficient to use solar or nuclear electricity for direct chemical synthesis of food or powering electric bacteria. One non-space colonization motivation would include agricultural catastrophes. Outside a catastrophe, it would likely be more fossil energy intensive than growing plants, but maybe not than producing animals. And it would be far less fossil energy intensive than artificial light growing of plants, which people are working on.
From my book: “Synthetic food production refers to using chemical synthesis. Sugar has been synthesized from noncarbohydrates for decades (Hudlicky et al., 1996).
Hudlicky, T., Entwistle, D.A., Pitzer, K.K., Thorpe, A.J., 1996. Modern methods of monosaccharide synthesis from non-carbohydrate sources. Chem. Rev. 96, 1195–1220.”
I didn’t write much because I don’t know enough about catalysis to say whether it can be ramped up quickly in a catastrophe. But for space colonization, that is not an issue.
Impressive work—I especially liked the graphs. For humane space colonization, rather than photosynthesis, it would be far more efficient to use solar or nuclear electricity for direct chemical synthesis of food or powering electric bacteria. One non-space colonization motivation would include agricultural catastrophes. Outside a catastrophe, it would likely be more fossil energy intensive than growing plants, but maybe not than producing animals. And it would be far less fossil energy intensive than artificial light growing of plants, which people are working on.
Cool, thank you! Have you written about direct chemical synthesis of food or can you recommend some resources to me?
From my book: “Synthetic food production refers to using chemical synthesis. Sugar has been synthesized from noncarbohydrates for decades (Hudlicky et al., 1996). Hudlicky, T., Entwistle, D.A., Pitzer, K.K., Thorpe, A.J., 1996. Modern methods of monosaccharide synthesis from non-carbohydrate sources. Chem. Rev. 96, 1195–1220.” I didn’t write much because I don’t know enough about catalysis to say whether it can be ramped up quickly in a catastrophe. But for space colonization, that is not an issue.
Awesome, thank you!