Saturday, September 18, 2010

Need for Psychrophiles

With our morning shower water going into the biodigestor at 32 C each day (after the long piping temp drop), the effluent water coming out of the insulated 1000 liter vessel today is still only 25 C which explains why gas production rate is low. But this underscores the need for psychrophiles, given that their production optima is at 25.

September 18 at 12:45pm
    • Thomas Henry Culhane Ambient temperature outside today is 16-17 C, colder at night.
      September 18 at 1:22pm ·
    • Charisma Acey Are the psychrophiles the ones living in the snow in the mountains?
      September 18 at 3:49pm ·
    • Thomas Henry Culhane
      yep, and I'm hoping we can mount an expedition to Kilamanjaro and the Mountains of the Moon in Uganda to harvest indigenous African varieties for a truly home grown (emphasize "grown") solution to waste management. I submitted a proposal y...esterday with Alton Byers and Ken Banks to National Geographic that included alpine biodigestion; if we don't get the grant we will submit elsewhere. Alton is a montane ecosystem specialist who does a lot of expeditions to Kilamanjaro for conservation. As you know, I think working with Africa's biodiversity is the future of the continent. Europe is kind of lame in the biological department (as is much of America) which is why they harp on energy intensive electrical-chemical-mechanical solutions to everything. The biological revolution and its evolutionary efficiencies is what is going to make Africa and Central and South America and tropical Asia leap ahead in my opinion, but we have to get people interested in it.See More
      September 18 at 4:00pm ·
    • Charisma Acey Agreed! Do you already have ideas for where else to submit for grant funds? I'll do some searches in Community of Science once I'm back.

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