Sunday, October 16, 2016

Fwd: [shrimp] Sustainable aquaculture and other unicorns.



---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: 'Durwood M. Dugger' ddugger@biocepts.com [shrimp] <shrimp@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Sun, Oct 16, 2016 at 11:45 AM
Subject: [shrimp] Sustainable aquaculture and other unicorns.
To: shrimp@yahoogroups.com



 

Patrick and Dallas,

I would point out to you that the sum total of the current global anthropogenically impacted environmental situation - is the absolute result of individual decisions directly and indirectly, whether the voter or the politicians and or bureaucrats they tolerate. It would unrealistic, to think that good will alone will change the status quo.

Regarding the lack of both human and indirectly aquaculture current lack of sustainability: Silly social definitions of sustainability don't count on a planet of finite resources. Real human sustainability only comes when the human population their necessary critical resources and planetary ecosystems are in a stable balance. Technology is not going to offset human overpopulation nor bring the necessary environmental balances. I recommend and interesting read on this subject for those who think technology will save our species again - as it admittedly has in the past. TechnoFix 
is a 2011 book - "Techno-Fix shows why negative unintended consequences of science and technology are inherently unavoidable and unpredictable, why counter-technologies, techno-fixes, and efficiency improvements do not offer lasting solutions, and why modern technology, in the presence of continued economic growth, does not promote sustainability but instead hastens collapse."

I've just completed helping put together some college graduate courses on anthropogenic impacts on the marine environment. It has produced some rude awakenings for me with regard my previous hopes that current environmental mitigation efforts might help. As it turns out population and consumption more than cancels all current mitigation efforts and then some. (see Key Findings: https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/unfccc/sbsta40/SED/1_blanco_sed3.pdf).  Being able to continue to avoid basic biological paradigms that unerringly have caused population collapses in other species that grew past their critical resource availability on a planet of declining, ever diluted, increasing costly critical resources (primarily energy) has only temporarily delayed the human species collapse, not removed the possibility or the probability.

At present human civilization survival depends on finding and replacing fossil fuel energy and all other current energy sources and finding one capable of supplying global energy demands at costs far below present energy costs - even considering present reduced petroleum fuel costs. The 1% solar (http://cleantechnica.com/2015/06/12/solar-power-passes-1-global-threshold/)
and the 3.7% wind (http://www.gwec.net/global-figures/wind-in-numbers/) that currently contributes to global energy production are not going to be enough to off set fossil fuel energy replacement - either in quantity or cost of energy - ever. Additionally the bio-energy sources widely touted as renewable and sustainable are only renewable as long as petroleum and NPK are around to produce them at the scales needed for commercial reality - and consequently are far from sustainable.

We need and energy source that satisfies global energy demands, we need one that changes the economics of recycling critical resources both at the raw product level and the molecular level. Anything less than this will ultimately result in a food shortage/economic/chaos collapse of global civilization.

The points Dallas makes are absolutely correct regarding the higher efficiency of aquaculture over land based meat production. As resource scarcity raises costs higher than present (essentially when we go through the additional petroleum reserves that fracking technology has provided), RAS at huge integrated and economically optimized scales will surpass land and open ocean based aquaculture systems in economic efficiency. This higher economic efficiency is because RAS is the only food production concept wherein all the nutrients are already contained/entrained within the system making them much more economically efficient to recycle into other side stream income products. 

L. (P.? which is it now) v. shrimp are an ideal first candidate species for this kind of integrated economically optimized RAS because of their omnivorous feeding habits and their ability to help constantly move particulates in recirculating systems preventing them from adhering and becoming anaerobic (and reducing comparative circulation energy costs). The RAS system has higher comparative efficiency as well because it already has the majority of the "sunk" costs (in properly designed systems) necessary to efficiently convert liquid and solid wastes into side stream incomes, with only minor increases in capital - compared to land based poultry, swine and dairy.

Touching on the subject of food wastes, like much popular media data - it isn't necessarily accurate. For example unused food from restaurants and institutions (hospitals, military bases, an other concentrated food use centers) are generally counted as wastes, when in truth they are generally recovered by swine farmers. Same with spoiled vegetables at scale. Sometimes, blemished vegetables are counted as "wastes" only to have those same vegetables show up at the local farmers markets and road side sales. How much of the current "food waste data" is accurate is very difficult to determine, but it is quite obvious the real numbers are actually much lower. Additionally, the ability to reduce waste at scale below current levels within realistic economic boundaries is also exaggerated and even more difficult to change under current and aging infrastructure. The economics to change that infrastructure are also not available as more and more money is spent to pacify human overpopulation with no necessary contributions. It's a difficult and troubling problem. There are no easy solutions.

One of the more surprising revelations in my recent research activities was to discover that much of the current conversation on climate change is driven not by real climate concerns, environmental concerns, not by social concerns, but rather by basic economics of the global governments needs for additional tax revenues. If you research "carbon taxes" one of the first consistency you find in their government support is that the governments primary interest in them is to solve government debt, especially social service debts. Like most past environmental taxes, basically specific problem taxes in general, only a minor amount of carbon taxes will be spent on reducing CO2 emissions and research for economically viable alternative energy solutions, and I guarantee you none will be spent on trying to reduce human overpopulation which by definition becomes the primary driver of all anthropogenic impacts. This just another indication of the lack economic reality we have in our ability of solving our many problems. There is hope of course. The simple hope is that we will actually do something about our problems rather continue to support the status quo.

Best regards,

Durwood M. Dugger, Pres.
ddugger@biocepts.com
BCI, Inc.

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Posted by: "Durwood M. Dugger" <ddugger@biocepts.com>
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