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AIRSCAPE FARMING WITHIN ALGAE POND GREENHOUSES
By Jim Miller

We now change the purpose of the pond cover and ponds to the seawater greenhouse concept and a vertical farm. By combining the uses, we grow fuel and food using the same structure and thus conserve capital and reduce the carbon footprint even more.
Here is the design:

  • Bamboo. We use the “engineered wood” concept which is already in use in the bamboo industry: Small strips of bamboo are machined in a rectangle using the thickness of giant bamboo as much as possible as the depth, then the width should be about 1.27 to 2.00 centimeters and as long as we need for the arch of the pond cover. These strips are formed along the same arch as the pond covers and glued together with a resin made from plants and/or animals.

  • These bamboo struts are stronger than steel by weight, are low carbon, can be formed along any arch, are about 2.46 cm thick and about 7.62 cm wide.
  • The panels are now one meter in width, or less so if the engineering calculations so indicate. The strut is still the spline between the lateral edges of the panel but now can bear considerable weight.
  • We still use the concrete or concrete and foam curb or stem wall. As we erect the pond covers, as each panel is nested, shoulder to shoulder, the strut is placed in the lateral cavities of the panels and the panels brought together. We can use a plant/animal based glue or a silicon adhesive (with remains flexible to allow for expansion and contraction) to fix the panels to the struts. A simple “T” bracket receives each distal end of the strut and is lagged to the footing if the stem wall is foam, or if the stem wall is concrete, to the top of the stem wall.
  • On the inside of the ponds, we can drill through the struts and install eye bolts in a row along the length of the pond. Instead of ponds 10 feet wide, I would widen the ponds, lengthen the panels and raise the height of the medial length of the pond cover to about eight feet or more above land grade. This added height would better accommodate the hanging plant system. By increasing the thickness of the panels, we would also increase the thickness of the struts, thus increasing the weight bearing structure and also the insulation value of the panels as well as the heat capacity of the anti-freeze. Also, by having layered panels, we will also increase the thickness of the strut.
  • While on the subject of the anti-freeze, we can color it so that the only light which gets through is the red, far red and blue spectra, which is what plants need. The solar radiation of the UV, IR and other spectra are thus “trapped” by the anti-freeze for heat absorption purposes, warms the anti-freeze which is then transferred to the thermal energy flywheels.
  • In order to access the airscape system, we build a simple floating platform, using soyfoam which is pull along with a cable system and an old fashioned sailing vessel spoked wheel. This platform will have small rubber-tired wheels along the side to run against either the inside of the stem wall or near the upper edge of the pond trench.
  • The support system would be made out of natural fibers, such as hemp rope which, when it is replaced, the old rope can be ground up and put in the compost system.
  • The hemp rope system involves a heavy line inserted through the eye bolts and running parallel to the run of the 500 feet. Smaller hemp ropes trail down from the header (trail ropes) and are tied to several horizontal courses of rope (course ropes).
  • The bags are zip-lock type made in the shape of a “dew drop” (cone-like with a hemispherical bottom) and a large grommet installed in the upper flap-edge of the cone. The zipper closes around the stem of the plant, thus mostly sealing the bag. A drip line is inserted into the bag, next to the plant stem. A clip attaches the grommet to the trail rope at suitable intervals, vertically. The overflow comes out of the bag between the stem and the drip line and eventually into the pond to help feed the algae. The plastic bags can be made from soy or other biomass such a lignum, and thus would be ground-up after each use and fed to the compost system.
  • If this system promotes too much unwanted mold, then we need to lead the overflow to a drain tube which collects the nutrient-rich waste water and pipes it to the outside crop lands for disposal. We do not want to contaminate the Chlorella with unwanted algae and bacteria. We would have the bags made with suitable connecting ports for the supply and drain tubing.
  • Much of the vertical support system remains between harvests such as the hemp and the water supply and drain tubing. Harvest involves un-clipping the bag, dumping the water into the pond, (or into a funnel which eventually conveys the drain water to the outside crop lands) and gathering the “fruit”. In the case of vine tomatoes, some of the stems are left on among four or five tomatoes, as part of the packing. Since most of the harvest is ready to eat, we can package the products in clam-shell containers made from soy, while on the float platform and then put them in “retail cardboard cases”, ready for shipment and display to the retail customer. Many retailers have chosen this “warehouse” type of display, such as Winco, Costco, and many discount big box stores.
  • Within the greenhouse, with a pond width of about 3.66 meters, we could easily accommodate four vertical sets of suspended plants which would put the sets about one meter apart so workers could stand between the sets. The course strings would keep the vertical strings more or less equally distant laterally. As the float is pulled along the pond, ladders and short scaffolding (made of engineered bamboo) installed to pass between the vertical “walls”, would allow workers vertical access.
  • The floating platform (“pond boat”) would have a deck of engineered bamboo and the float would be of soyfoam, coated with a plant/animal resin.
  • We would grow our own giant bamboo and have our own lumber mill and strut jigs so we can make the struts and decks for the pond “boat”. The jigs would be in the form of a hydraulic press so as to create a very uniform, high density structure for the struts and deck. We could also make sheeting (OSB) to be used to close the end walls of the ponds and other uses. Bamboo is so flexible when green, we could probably make an automobile body out of it – the world's first bamboo car – something on the order of the classic Volkswagen. By cross-layering such as is done in making plywood, but on a curved surface to begin with, we can greatly increase the strength of the engineered bamboo. Other shapes come to mind, such as boat hulls and decks, airplane struts with soy-based fabric coverings. We could copy one of the old Bi-planes and sell it as a crop duster and use it for our pastures and field crops. We will install a turbo-prop engine and power it with biodiesel. Of course the cars and planes are painted green and our logo is applied on each side or front and back as the case may be.
  • This system would especially fit the climates between 40 degrees north and 40 degrees south. By using the multi-layered GE Lexan panel, we could adapt this system for cooler climates.
  • There is a problem. We need to adapt the Seawater Greenhouse idea of using condensate as our fresh water. Yet we need to travel the length of the pond with no condensate walls. So, we need to design a system for the condensate pipes and finned radiators such that they can be spaced along the length of the pond every XX meter so as to harvest the water vapors produced by the plants and from the surface of the pond. Were the apex of the covers to be ten to twelve feet high, we would have plenty of room for the condensators and still have head room for the workers on the boat platform to pass under the condensators. Since heat rises and the highest concentration of vapors will be along the inside of the covers, putting the condensators at this height makes sense.
Conclusion:


We have come a long way. NREL's failed experiment in Roswell, New Mexico, with the open race track pond, led to the Earthrise recto-linear sets of open ponds in Calipatria. Our closed pond system growing only algae and taking up potentially valuable “other crop” lands and depending on well water, is now capable of producing its own distilled water (still need a water source elsewhere) and can use the air space for airscape cropping. We use hemp and bamboo, both renewable resources and plant/animal glues. We use soyfoam. Keep in mind that giant bamboo can grow four feet a day and is very easy to grow and has few enemies. We can look forward to having our worker cooperative cum ecovillage with multiple sources of income: food, fuel, distilled water, structural bamboo and multiple bamboo co-products (siding, flooring, drain pipes, scaffolding, ladders, struts, car and boat bodies, aircraft components, etc.)



Respectfully submitted,


James E. Miller, B.A., B.S., J.D.

May 9, 2008 jimmiller@algable.com Landline: 541-757-9797 Cell: 541-971-0403 Skype: jimmiller5417


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