• FistfulOfStars (edited 9 years ago)
    +3

    This is fascinating, and I hate to be a downer, but I have so many questions about this.

    I am not understanding the benefit of this over land-based indoor growing operations. I presume electric light is required, and maintenance and harvesting will be significantly more difficult and costly.

    Even the high levels of CO2 could be replicated in a land-based indoor grow space using sequestered CO2.

    I'm a big proponent of permaculture design, aquaponics experimentation, alternative growing methods, and find this experiment incredibly interesting, but not terribly compelling. It feels more like an art piece.

    I personally see the future developments in local, automated residential growth systems, decentralization of supply chains, and intentional community design, as being far more pragmatic.

    Am I missing something?

    • melanoleuca
      +3

      I too would be interested to see a cost and environmental analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of this kind of set up. I imagine that using carbon dioxide available in the ocean would be more energy (and perhaps cost) efficient than CO2 treatment in a greenhouse. But I also imagine that there would be substantial costs (and carbon expenditures) related to maintenance and harvesting of these plots. I wonder if those two balance out? I would also be concerned about the environmental impact on the sea floor ecosystem.