I'm hesitant to share this because it's completely unverifiable in any way I'd be comfortable documenting. Not my life, not my secrets to tell.
I had a close friend who did undergraduate research in a fisheries department.
They had been researching plant selection for aquaponics to increase the yield of tilapia. They had a filtration system that pushed tank water through a bed of plant roots. The plants would be harvested, processed into fish food, and fed back to the fish. On top of this platform, they'd experiment with different plant combinations to measure the impact on water quality and protein conversion.
They were seeing very high protein conversion with their plant choices (numbers high enough they gave me pause at what it would mean for society, but if I tried to throw out a number now I'd certainly get it wrong).
Recycling energy like this reduced the amount of food you'd have to put into the system, and the plants handled a good portion of the filtration for the system.
At some point, a large agriculture business with strong ties to the department offered a large grant that was understood to be contingent on this project being discontinued.
The project was abandoned and my buddy dropped out of his degree program.
I had a close friend who did undergraduate research in a fisheries department.
They had been researching plant selection for aquaponics to increase the yield of tilapia. They had a filtration system that pushed tank water through a bed of plant roots. The plants would be harvested, processed into fish food, and fed back to the fish. On top of this platform, they'd experiment with different plant combinations to measure the impact on water quality and protein conversion.
They were seeing very high protein conversion with their plant choices (numbers high enough they gave me pause at what it would mean for society, but if I tried to throw out a number now I'd certainly get it wrong).
Recycling energy like this reduced the amount of food you'd have to put into the system, and the plants handled a good portion of the filtration for the system.
At some point, a large agriculture business with strong ties to the department offered a large grant that was understood to be contingent on this project being discontinued.
The project was abandoned and my buddy dropped out of his degree program.