The Three Square Foot Diet - minimal footprint?

I have been working on projects to increase the sustainability for people who choose to do so. It isn't enough to make it possible at great expense, to make it available, or to make affordable. What is necessary is to make it practical, attractive and compelling. Here is a math concept, to come up with minimum numbers. A population of 200 billion could easily be sustained on Earth if we lived at 100 times this number. Establishing an estimate of a minimum is useful for understanding and measurement.
After some debate with a physicist friend, a great deal of personal confusion and much study I found out that hydroponic lighting companies lie to us, with an anthropomorphic lie. Our eyes prefer green light, possibly due to a lot of time spent in a green environment surrounded by plants. Green light is the brightest, and we have the most receptors to green light. Plants have a bias toward red and blue light, building the most receptors to these wavelengths. Blue makes them get taller, red makes them get shorter, squatter and release flowers and fruits. Some require a certain amount of daylight, some can grow 24/7, others can complete all of their life cycles in permanent light but only grow 18-20 hours per day.
If we give these plants the kind of light they prefer best, less electricity is needed to grow them. I'm still experimenting with ratios of red to blue light, and different species, but it is possible to grow strawberries year round with only $2 per year for a few servings per week. I began thinking, "What is the minimum amount of space necessary for someone to live?" The 2002 estimate for the United States was using 24 acres per person, and there only exists 13 acres per person available in the national borders. http://www.sustreport.org/news/footprint2002.htm
How small can it be? Well I studied different means of making food, clothing, shelter, etc. I have studied transportation overhead, and space travel. Space travel is interesting because you only get to use what you take with you. How much do you need to bring for how long? NASA even calculates the cost, weight and space of the replacement light bulbs. One proposal for saving space, and providing necessary systems involved using spirulina as septic treatment and as food. I still don't know much about the former, but for my own health I take spirulina as a treatment for diabetes. Food I do know about.
The medicinal amount of spirulina necessary was rather expensive. If I were to buy a bottle of 180g dry at the store, it would be between $25-33 depending on brand and store. Ordering 5 pound bags was less expensive, at $150-180 per bag. ($139-183/Kg and $66-79/Kg) My best price would still cost me $450 per year at my lowest medicinal dose (20g/day). So, I'm growing my own.
Peak absorbtion matching peak emission LED lighting for growing plants (registered patent pending) would be the most energy efficient way of producing plants. My calculations indicate that it is 20 times more efficient than sunlight, based on growing tests and using commercial quality silicon solar cells (experimental quality solar cells makes it 40x more efficient than sunlight). The balancing complete nutrition, ease of digestion, completeness of digestion, and exponential growth make spirulina platensis the hands down winner. It is also safe to eat in large quantities, which is a good thing. It lacks Vitamin C and a few mineral salts. It is actually a bacteria (and technically not an algae) that makes cell walls using proteins, essential fats, and performs photosynthesis. Spirulina can provide a life support system, waste recycling and food all in one. Adding tomatoes, spinach or seaweed would all be ways of creating a complete nutritional diet. By dry weight, spirulina is 70% protein. Wikipedia and Nutrition Data disagree about vitamin B12, while Natural Ways does an in depth analysis of spirulina. Eating 180g of spirulina per day only yields 280 calories, so wheat, flax or rice should be used to increase calorie intake. Marshall Savage is quoted with much different numbers, and eating only spirulina was suggested.
To produce 180g of spirulina per day, Antenna Publications (link dead) recommended a 4 square meter growing pool, holding 1000 liters. Partial sunlight was recommended to avoid heat and UV, and LEDs produce neither. With 5.5 (North American) solid hours of sunlight per day the population doubles every 2-4 days. We should see greatly increased growth rates under LED lighting at sufficient intensity. The main limitation noted by many commercial and research growers was a lack of CO2 in the water, sodium bicarbonate is used but aerobic bacteria and/or air infusion are possible alternatives. Any closure of systems cycles making a closed ecology is obviously a good way of providing necessary materials, maybe a single organism can supply the necessary CO2. I like the idea of air infusion the best, absorbing instead of releasing greenhouse gases is my preference.
So how do the numbers pan out? What is the minimalist lifestyle? I don't have great numbers for solving carbohydrate production, maybe there is an aerobic bacteria that eats cellulose (like yeast) that could be paired with another algae that uses cellulose for cell walls. Rice production in the US is around 6500 pounds per acre (difficulty on getting data sources that don't remove feedstock from worldbank.org) or about 1.6 pounds per square meter per year, about 1700 calories per pound, or 2730 calories per sq m. Aiming for about 1000 calories from rice (which is a lot of food without processed grains) comes out to 133 sq m of rice per year. That makes the total for food production 4 sq m for nutrition (using sunlight, not high efficiency LED), 133 sq m for carbohydrates. I would need to look again, but I think NASA planned on bringing grains if they grew food on a trip to Mars. In any case, 137 sq m per person is much better than 97,000 sq m per person.
I'm going to grow vegetables, berries, herbs and spirulina and buy my grains. Without dairy, which I may crave less with more spirulina, my food bill may be $5-15/month using 2 shelves and 6 square feet. I normally eat meat and previously suffered trying to be vegetarian, but eating wheat berries and brown rice I just haven't wanted meat. With Earth based cooling, good window based heating, a solar panel, laptop and growing my own nutrition I can produce net positive energy to pay off infrastructure costs. I would still need to buy grains, and insulin.
Right now, lacking real data on several points and just as a guess, I would place the minimalist footprint at around 50 square feet bunkbed style, or 100 square feet living single - plus buying carbohydrates. A good sustainability metric would tell us how long living like that would be necessary to pay back the infrastructure cost of the laptop, solar power system, LEDs for food, etc. Other techniques, like building higher rather than expanding cities, working from home, not needing cars, shared kitchens and other suggestions (flax fiber or corn plastic clothing) would make this minimal number a complete estimate, and not just a place to sleep with food to eat.

Measuring Sustainability: Scope and System Levels

The first challenge of measuring a system to determine if it is sustainable is one of scope. We must define what interactions, and therefore what subsystems, are internal and external to the system we are measuring. We could measure a small abstract part of a system, but if the system we measure is not capable of all systems necessary to life, then how can we say it is sustainable? Our first objective is therefore to determine what is necessary for a system to be alive, or totipotential (capable of carrying out all necessary activities for life).

There are several definitions for claiming that something is "alive" in science, but more study has indicated that these are not hard requirements but rather guidelines. Based on one rigid definition or another, it is possible to say that one insect species is alive, and a very similar insect is 'not alive'. The challenge we face has already been solved by a great mind in systems science, who was adept with biology, social science, biochemistry, organizations and writing these concepts in way that was well defined and easy to understand. James G Miller wrote "Living Systems" after a great amount of research, and it is considered a monument in systems science.

Miller described a means of documenting our living processes using subsystems. Each subsystem was an abstract, performing simple operations like matter-energy storage, or outputting information. In his original text, there were 19 subsystems that processed matter-energy and information. Several years later the Timer subsystem was added to schedule and coordinate subsystem activities.

Another major concept was "shred-out". Each living system existed and interacts on several levels, Miller used examples of cell, organ, organism, group, organization, community, society, supranational system. With somewhat arbitrary selection of levels, each level used representatives of all 20 subsystems. There were few exceptions in some situations, e.g. organs do not directly reproduce, but organisms reproducing creates more organs. A cell reproduces through chromosomes and DNA/RNA and mitosis or meiosis. If a subcellular level was evaluated, one could note that organelles (similar in function to organs of an organism) do reproduce and are created based on use.

There are many interactions between system levels, a person makes a presentation to a group or organization using their mouth, etc. But it is also interesting to note that the other subsystems used to convey information, ranging from blackboard to video presentations, office productivity software used to make slides, and the projector are often owned as assets by the group or organization.

When attempting to measure the sustainability of a system, it is critical to associate the measurements to the appropriate level. A subsystem or suprasystem may die, fail, or change in a way that the connected living systems can no longer depend upon it. Noting these dependencies may allow the system we are measuring to survive beyond a critical failure. For example, a village lives on an island with a volcano. The Community of a village is dependent upon the island to provide it with a structure to live. If the volcano explodes, that does not mean the community (village) was unsustainable, that it did not have adequate government, food, supplies of food, etc. Noting that the suprasystem (island) was possibly unstable, a plan for evacuation and relocation could be created. In case of an emergency, a well functioning system (village) may make adequate emergency plans so that it persists beyond a critical change (volcano eruption).

Next time I will write about the different levels I propose for measuring the sustainability of human activities. I have also created some vector graphics as icons for systems modeling in Dia, an open source modeling application. (Living Systems with pretty icons and an easy to use free application.)

Unfortunately, adoption of Living Systems for creating models did not take off. I suspect that promotion and an easy to use tool were the two primary reasons it was not widely adopted. Here is a larger picture of the icons I made, one for each of the 20 subsystems.

Teslamotors car

The premise:
Electric cars are potentially sustainable, can use any source of fuel to make the energy, and are economically viable per mile. Teslamotors.com has created a sports car that uses lithium-ion batteries to power their EV. Original Article
Stated facts:
0-60mph in 4 seconds
250 mile range
2.53km/MJ electric performance
over 100,000 mile or over 5 years before replacing batteries
$7 per 4.6Wh li-ion battery (wholesale, 100 unit, small size)

This all looks incredible, the holy grail of electric vehicles with high range, great power, etc. $90k for a sports car puts the EV out of most consumers reach. The next model is part of their overall plan and will cost about half as much. The third model will have even lower costs. So far so good. But... you need to replace the battery. Time to do some math.

Calculated facts:
45KWh battery storage
$67,000 wholesale small unit per battery pack (This is just a comparison, because Teslamotors.com isn't announcing how much battery replacements cost and they haven't mentioned it anywhere.)

Stipulated figures:
$15,000 estimated replacement cost for the 45KWh battery pack on the CEO's corporate blog as a comment. $15k seems reasonable considering the economies of scale (1/4 for large consumer with a big battery).

Every 5 years you need to pay $15k? For 100,000 miles that is 15 cents per mile. If gas is $3 per gallon, and you get 30 miles to the gallon, you are spending $4.50 in battery costs to go the same distance. The power may only be 5 cents per mile but the battery costs 15 cents per mile. Total cost would be $6 of electric-battery compared to $3 per gallon of gas, 30 mpg.

According to battery experts you have to pay for those batteries whether you drive or not. Keeping them cool will help, but they still degrade. The same blog comment quoted earlier claims that the batteries are in a sealed temperature controlled environment. Increasing the efficiency 10 fold using nanotechnology would help quite a bit, but there may be extra cost for those batteries. If we estimate double the cost, 5x the lifetime (they may have estimated against typical use, and not controlled environment use), that puts the cost of the battery at 6 cents per mile, lasting 25 years or 500,000 miles using the above numbers. (11 cents per mile total, same as paying $3.30 per gallon 30mpg at the pump.)

Maybe in 5 years we'll have a nice middle ground between cost, durability and range. Perhaps that middle ground is 20 year batteries, 500,000 miles, $5000 cost, 150 mile range, with 30 minute recharge. If the electricity costs are 2 cents per mile, that brings the cost per mile to 3 cents. Compared to the $3 @ 30mpg tank of gas, that would $0.90. Drive for 2 hours, stretch your legs or eat for 30min, back in the car for another 2 hours.

My estimate based on the numbers provided, is that electric vehicles cost too much in batteries. Hydrogen costs too much electricity and storage (price is coming down, storage is a challenge being handled), and ethanol is rarely a net positive producer (especially when the fact petroleum based fertilizers are used is included).

What transportation do I recommend for daily commuters? Same as Bush Birth Control: Don't. Live where you work, walk or bicycle, build smaller more compact cities, and ship cargo by electric train. If we take trips, use fast electric trains (150-200 miles per hour, no time spent circling). I'll post details about other transit soon.

(anti) Global Warming Petition - parry, riposte

Global Warming Petition

"We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.

Parry
First off, you can have a bachelor's in poetry and be able to sign this petition. It is marketed as a petition of scientists, but it is really a petition of college graduates. Considering that most college graduates can't calculate the price of an "$18 pair of pants, 20% off" ($14.40) this group of "scientists" doesn't hold a lot of weight with me. I'm going to contact OISM.org and ask them about this. I'd visit in person since I live in Portland, Oregon but OISM is in Cave Junction, the middle of nowhere. (Actually, it is the junction of two highways, Redwood Hwy and Caves Hwy near natural caves. It is further than the middle of nowhere.)

On to the petition wording itself. I will nitpick only once here, the Kyoto Protocol wasn't written entirely in Kyoto 1997. The official history from the horse's mouth, shows the document compiled in Bonn, Geneva and Kyoto then adopted at the end of the year in Kyoto December, 1997. Signatures began in 1998.

"The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, ..." So it appears they concede the concept of greenhouse gases, and then claim that limiting them will harm the environment. Human production of greenhouse gases, that cause the greenhouse effect, would harm the environment how? Plants need human smog, fire extinguishers and coolants to be released into the environment? Obviously no plants existed prior to the year 1900, because without human greenhouse gases they were harmed.

"...hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind." The first phrase might be plausible, but historic evidence indicates otherwise. When Robert Heinlein was asked to speak about the social effects of NASA, his researchers, wife and himself traced NASA as the initial research for miniaturizing electronics, life support systems used in hospitals, lasers, national defense systems, nutrition research and much more. In my understanding of research and development, funding new ideas and products leads to more new ideas and products. There are two main ways industry can cut down on emissions. The first is to close up shop and go home, stop making products. The second is researching new ways of making the same things. I'm simplifying the requirements of the Kyoto Protocol, and a commodity based market for emissions would make it so the worst polluters needed to pay more. (If the amount is too low, the low prices encourage pollution.) Doing so would attach a financial value on decreasing emissions. A more fundamental understanding like the one Dupont adopted would increase profits. Their annual goal is produce 10% more using 10% less, every year. They achieve this by increasing efficiency. Dupont realized they purchased the chemicals that left their smokestacks, and by decreasing waste, they increased profits. So far it has worked very well and they have met their goals. (Exhaustive facts and figures anyone?) If research and human ingenuity are exhausted, then cutting back emissions by decreasing production may be the only option, but I'm more of a pragmatic optimist when it comes to increasing efficiency of very wasteful processes developed in the late 1800s through 1950s. (I looked up recipes for cement, etc. We already have the cost effective formulas to drastically cut greenhouse gases, we just aren't using them.)

"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." I do need to agree with the statement in its entirety, based on the key words "convincing scientific evidence" and "catastrophic". I think misspelling the word "gases" sort of detracts from the impact of their statement. On the other hand, there is plenty of evidence that greenhouse gases do increase temperature, see below for my riposte. Personally, I haven't seen convincing scientific evidence that a huge asteroid hitting the Earth would cause catastrophic heating or damage to the Earth or its climate. The math I saw for an NSA competition estimate the effects of a huge asteroid hitting the Earth said that most of the heat would dissipate into space, and the impact would be negligible. If the ice melts and/or becomes clouds, evidence would support a runaway positive feedback loop. That evidence is not convincingly catastrophic. Short version: they avoided the issue completely by using extreme language.

"Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth." This is partially true. Plants favor higher CO2 density (Advanced Life Support - NASA page 40) of 0.120kPa (1,200ppm) compared to Earth nominal 300-400ppm (NASA says 350-400ppm in the document based on CO2 levels in the past 50 years, but historic records indicate much lower quantities were present in the past.) The fact that plants (which use CO2 for photosynthesis) can survive with more CO2 is not the question, or the issue. The issue is: do greenhouse gases cause global warming? Is global warming a "bad thing"?

Riposte
They avoided the issue almost entirely, but is this a claim that greenhouse gases do not convert light into infrared radiation which is received in the lower atmosphere as heat? That would require changing a few chemistry books, and proving this is bad has little to nothing in common with observed wind and climate patterns. Global warming (aka tropospheric heating effect) is affected by changes in the atmosphere as infrared and UV light interacts with particles and molecules as they react. http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=142 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_effect along with "Living in the Environment" 13th Edition G. Tyler Miller, Jr page 448.

For reference, the majority of greenhouse gases emitted from human activity are:
Carbon Dioxide, 50-120 years in the atmosphere, relative warming to CO2: 1
Methane, 12-18 years, 23 x CO2
Nitrous Oxide, 114-120 years, 296x CO2
Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), 11-20 years (65-110 year in stratosphere) 900-8300 x CO2
Hydro chlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), 9-390 years, 470-2000 x CO2
Hydro fluorocarbons (HFCs), 15-390 years, 130-12700 x CO2
Halons, 65 years, 5500 x CO2
Carbon tetrachloride, 42 years, 1400 x CO2
(I'd be suspicious of any gas with chloro or fluoro in its name.)
Source: "Living in the Environment" 13th Edition G. Tyler Miller, Jr page 448.
Betting that greenhouse gases don't warm the Earth is a long term bet. We are betting that for the next 20-400 years that the gases we release today won't cause any significant or harmful environmental change. Nitrous Oxide is created any time atmospheric temperature is over 400 degrees F. Any form of combustion or strong heating, even electric heaters or burning hydrogen, releases greenhouse gases.

"Recent measurements of carbon dioxide amounts from Mauna Loa observatory show that CO2 has increased from about 313 ppm (parts per million) in 1960 to about 375 ppm in 2005. The current observed amount of CO2 exceeds the geological record of CO2 maxima (~300 ppm) from ice core data (Hansen, J., Climatic Change, 68, 269, 2005)" That is a huge observation! The highest recorded CO2 level before the current era was approximately 300ppm. We are 25% over that amount, and 75% over the previous range of 200ppm-300ppm (variance of 100ppm, currently 75ppm over previous maximum.)

We know that CO2 reacts with light from the Sun to release heat and increase temperature. We know that the concentrations of CO2 and other 'greenhouse gases' are increasing in concentrations in the atmosphere. We know that the Earth is increasing in temperature, 0.5 Celsius since 1960. (Science 308, 1431, 2005)

What is the big stretch? The fact the oceans have not risen makes sense, since melting of floating ice doesn't increase water level. Try it in a cup of water. Now add an ice cube, did the water increase? When the ice cube melts, does the water level change? Now imagine adding an ice cube 3km tall and larger than the state of Texas. Additionally, it is currently below sea level and sitting on mud, so ocean water may break it up and cause it to be free floating once the open ocean connects with it.

The only bit of science necessary to know that global warming is happening is a ruler. Go measure the ice. Greenland is melting. North pole is melting. South pole is melting. Yes, increased rainfall has (slightly) increased the ice pack in some areas, but in many more the ice pack is retreating. The retreating ice pack far outweighs the extra snowfall.

A ruler measuring ice says the Earth is melting ice. What effect can that melting ice have? Order of magnitude estimates calculate that a single ice shelf, WAIS, would raise sea levels approximately 3-6 meters, or 10-20 feet. If all ice currently on land melted and flowed into the ocean, the sea level (order of magnitude estimate) would rise by 50 meters. That is approximately 164 feet. Maybe some of those 'scientists' should answer two questions: How much ice is there on land? Would human life, industry and the environment be negatively impacted if that ice was in the ocean?

Add a Keyword = Success

Maybe this shouldn't annoy me, but it does. Any politician can push an agenda through if they simply label it sustainable. Any no name article gets press if it mentions "sustainable" in the title. Here is the culprit I'm staring at right now:
RAND - Arts and Culture in the Metropolis: Strategies for Sustainability
The essence of the article focuses around the idea that government should provide funding for the arts because it increases the economic attractiveness of the city. I like the arts, but I don't think they should get public funding. If we had more disposable income we might pay more for events, music, etc. Our current focus on consumerism leaves little room for aesthetics, and they are maintained by tax dollars.
There is a valid excuse here. The valid idea is that spending $10,000 on some project will increase the attraction and generate tax revenue exceeding $10,000. Due to rippling effects, the increase in revenue is hard to calculate especially when complications such as general economic growth and interrelated systems prevent direct measurement. For $10k city money to repaid in taxes, there would need to be $525k in increased revenue.
I do agree that for subsystems (like the arts) to perpetuate they must be supported by the system as a whole. I am uncertain if government should take the primary role in this regard, it would be useful if RAND published their findings publicly.
If Google: sustainability site:rand.org is any indication, RAND seems to believe that "sustainability" means continued support for a specific project, and not a balanced budget, corporate or social responsibility. I'm picking on RAND here, but this sort of things bothers me because people take a hot concept, and then paint it like cologne over anything that stinks. Even worse, they were funded to do it.
Why not fund groups that actually do math, like theWatt: The Efficiency and Sustainability of Driving

New Blog, Topics

Here is a new test blog, created specifically for my goal of daily writing. The blog should focus on my social, cultural, technological, sustainable and science related activities. I might add some philosophy related to one of these topics, but I shall try to tie it down and make the entry about something real.

A few topics have been floating in my head, I will make my first post as a summary of what I have so far:

• Sustainability Metrics, a comparison on various ways we measure unsustainability or quantify certain properties of systems
• Confucius/Tradition vs Social change
• Oil, Hydrogen, Biodiesel and other ‘fuels’; failings and advantages
• Living Systems Theory, a method and framework for evaluating all systems in real time/space
• Self Education, categorizing information and providing whole, complete explanations and tutorials
  
• Entropy slide of industrialized civilization, the use of ‘catalysts’ and shortcuts that are consumed
• Legal barriers to reusable containers
• Leading by Example, necessary early adopters and valid case studies
• Economic falsehoods, legal fictions and contradictions divergent from reality
• Interpreting Statistics, and how to lie with them
• Information theory, the pertinent aspects to information and how it is processed
• Quantifying meaning, the impossible dream
• Ideological prejudices, selecting behaviors and the only vote that counts
• Defining Systems Failure, an analysis of a hidden premise
• Specialized scopes, what are we really talking about?
• The value of Bidirectional Information, evaluating sources, connecting webs of information
• Commodities and Resources, discrepancies with the real world
• The Value of Currency, what is your money worth?
  

There are a few topics I have been meaning to write about. I will come back tomorrow and get the ball rolling! If you have any specific interests, let me know.