LifeSynthesis | CE Agri

CE Agri

BIOTECHNOLOGY SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING

AUTHORED BY Richard Nelson for Life Synthesis

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW

CE Agri is a Life Synthesis biotechnology under development by Life Synthesis, which is a global network of cooperative businesses collaborating to build a sustainable future. CE Agri will be developed as an Open Source technology through the work of pre competitive research and development FEED Collaborative? and this proposal has the goal of establishing a Norway/EU Consortium that would work in association with SINTEF, the National science and technology agency of Norway. Together with the FEED Collaborative?, Life Synthesis propose to receive support from government programs for CO 2? abatement that would provide funding contributions in support of our program to develop the CE Agri Process and for establishing Pilot Plants in Norway, the UK, Malaysia, China, Turkey, Ghana, Spain and the USA that will lead to commercialization of the process.

The Life Synthesis approach is to adapt the built environment across the global urban and rural sectors to serve the goal of Ecological Life Support and more specifically to apply the Sola Roof concepts to enable plant photosynthesis based energy conversion to become integral features of roof systems worldwide. As a step in this direction, the CE Agri technology is a special purpose controlled environment building, which is similar to a commercial greenhouse, but which has none of the energy liabilities inherent in the existing greenhouse industry. The specially designed CE Agri buildings will be constructed of transparent roof covering systems which are designed to provide a “solar controlled environment” for both Plant and Algae Mass Culture. As a further goal Life Synthesis calls for this capability to become standard features which will be integral with all homes and buildings. Residential communities and buildings of most types can be adapted to this construction and benefit from reduced capital cost and very low operational energy consumption. As a result there is a large net surplus of renewable energy produced by these buildings, even when located in extreme climatic regions. While conventional buildings are the source of the majority of the CO 2? atmospheric increase, these CE Agri equipped buildings, including large scale Agriculture, Water and Energy Projects will all contribute to the removal of CO 2? from the global atmosphere.

CE Agri is a comprehensive solution to the problem of Climate Change and Global Warming since it addresses all relevant renewable energy supply issues connected with production, cost and land availability factors and our approach has a proven capacity that is further enhanced by our Open Source methods. The prospect, which is quite realistic, is to enable the production of liquid and gaseous Bio Fuel? in sufficient quantity to replace the present rate of all fossil fuel consumption and to expand current levels of supply in pace with population growth and development of the global economy that will allow prosperity for all. At the time that Biofuel production is able to provide all energy supply expansion, then the draw down and combustion of fossil fuel reserves will come to an end and as the production of Bio Fuel? increases further to meet most primary energy demand then the accumulation of CO 2? due to combustion of fossil fuels will stop. The next phase is the production of Bio Fuel? at a rate that is surplus to energy needs, so that CO 2? concentration in the atmosphere will stabilize and even be reduced.

The CE Agri program compared to other “energy paths” is safe, secure and non intrusive since the system is located on roofs or buildings where systems may operate largely unnoticed. Additionally, our Bio Fuel? energy systems require no new distribution infrastructure investment. The Bio Fuel? energy is accessible and affordable and therefore equitable and socially responsible because its application will not only deliver energy but also remove the causative factors which lead to poverty and hunger. CE Agri is the only energy supply proposal that would have a byproduct of producing shelter, food and water in abundance while creating comfortable and productive living, working, recreational, agricultural, commercial and industrial controlled environment space. Thus our technology produces investment in a sustainable form of community development where distributed wealth is produced that will circulate and accumulate in local communities and which can be re-invested in ethical and sustainable enterprises. Our goal is an energy future that can continuously enhance the further benefits and rewards for those who adopt it, and these new built environment patterns and lifestyle transformation we refer to as Eco Living; a lifestyle that can build a sustainable future.

THE TEAM

Business Partners

Richard Nelson, inventor and founder of the Life Synthesis Network

Mr. Nelson is the originator of the Liquid Solar and Liquid Bubble Technology, generally referred to as Sola Roof. During the past couple decades Nelson’s innovative technology for building construction and solar controlled environment processes have received extensive government research support in Canada where this system was first developed. A decade of R&D lead to the construction and operation of several large scale field test projects a few of which are still operational today and prove the important energy saving and climate control capability of the basic inventions. At this time Mr. Nelson is bringing more Open Source advancements to the new business consortia, now centered in Norway but with a Global support network, which includes the informally linked Sola Roof community with more than 900 members, worldwide.

Mr. Nelson will apply his extensive and advanced knowledge of transparent building cladding systems, structures and processes for energy efficient controlled environment systems to the work of coordinating a private sector business team with excellent backgrounds in building innovations and commercialization of building technology. Nelson has invited a special group with compatible and complementary business operations to be members of the CE Agri Consortia, which will supply both technical and financial support to the pre competitive development work leading to commercialization of the CE Agri technology:

• SINTEF Raufoss Manufacturing, NCE Raufoss, Norway
• Todd Ecological?, USA
• Life Synthesis Manufacturing, Kuching, Malaysia
• Lim Shrimp Organization, Singapore/Shanghai, China
• maxfordham, London, UK
• Schumacher College, Dartington, UK

University Collaborators

Dr. Saffa Riffat, Head of the School of the Built Environment at Nottingham University

Dr. Riffat will lead the pre competitive development activities from his base at the SBE at Nottingham University. The SBE will assign scientific and technical staff to the pre competitive activities, which include two small scale Proof of Concept Projects and production of a Proposal for Pilot Plant Funding to be submitted for support to EU funding agencies. The SBE will draw on its depth of scientific and technical expertise in controlled environment and ecological architecture to implement well targeted investigations with the purpose of achieving dramatic breakthrough in building concepts and building envelope integrated control systems for transparent structures.

Dr. Riffat will coordinate the collaborative work of other Universities and of government and private institutions and agencies. With the purpose of addressing the issues of freshwater supply and development of renewable energy resources in the Gulf Region, Dr Riffat will engage with University partners in the Gulf States region, Malaysia and the USA

• University of Oslo
• University, Oman
• University, Malaysia
• Cornell University, CEA Institute, New York, USA

Government Participation

• SINTEF, Norway
• Hort Link?, UK
• Carbon Trust
• Ministry of Science and Technology & Innovation, Malaysia

CE Agri is an efficient and sustainable technology for producing renewable resources through biotechnology; especially:

ENERGY

CE Agri is a closed, enriched CO 2? atmosphere, controlled environment crop production system. As such, our process utilizes proven but not mainstreamed innovations based upon the Sola Roof concepts to establish an energy efficient process for maintaining the temperature, humidity and other factors for optimum crop production within the required specification.

Existing greenhouse technology operations suffer from an extreme tendency to overheat in the hot climates or summer season due to a lack of radiative energy control over the glazing and conversely in cold climates and during the extreme winter conditions the prior technology has very limited capability to provide sufficient insulation to prevent extreme heat loss and therefore production may be required to shut down during mid winter or, if not, then the result is a very high heating cost.

Our solution to this recognized problem is the provision of low cost and efficient climate control process, which uses the Liquid Solar Controlled Environment process, which includes dynamic Liquid Bubble Technology for heating and cooling of buildings constructed with a highly transparent multiple skin envelopes. These methods, which have been invented by Mr. Nelson and proven by the Sola Roof community in various field test projects in the USA and Canada and the Far East, have not yet been commercially utilized in the UK or in any other place in Europe. The enhanced and Open Source Life Synthesis methods are based upon the Open Source Sola Roof method, which is an order of magnitude improvement (ten times reduction in heating and cooling loads) over any state of the art methods for greenhouse heating and cooling in Holland or any other advanced countries.

However, not only is our technology a minimal consumer of energy for heating and cooling, but the CE Agri process is a significant producer of renewable energy in the form of Biofuel, which includes the following possible sustainable energy products: Ethanol from starch, Methane from plant biomass, Bio Diesel? produced from vegetable oil from Mass Algae Culture. The operations require only 2 to 3% of the energy produced, which is expected to be as high as 400 Kw per M 2 per annum in the high sunlight regions (say: 6 Kw/day/M2).

The CE Agri process can produce multiple fuels and crops while also housing fish farming and livestock, which means that a project can generate several income streams while the incremental cost of each process is reduced due to the integration of the optional systems. Thus the overall investment will achieve a remarkably high profitability.

WATER

The CE Agri process is the first in the world to utilize the phytomechanisms of plants for the purpose of producing “Freshwater from Seawater”. In our non ventilated, controlled atmosphere growing environment none of the transpiration moisture is lost, since our closed system uses the liquid cooling/chiller process to maintain the inner skin of the building envelope at the necessary dew point temperature to condense all the transpired moisture that is generated by the crop leaf canopy system. Therefore production of pure water is a direct consequence of our climate control method which removes the solar thermal gain by removal of transpired moisture from the closed environment. The water production is a bi-product of our crop production method and such production has almost no incremental cost yet is a high value result.

In our “Freshwater from Seawater” projects the CE Agri process will use halophytes (such as seawater hyacinth) which can be grown for biomass to be used as livestock or fish feed and will produce pure water from the uptake and transpiration of seawater and in addition there are many salt tolerant plants that can be grown in brackish water or other crops grown to provide a stage in the treatment of waste water. The CE Agri process, which in operates continuously (producing a suitable crop), is capable of producing 10 Kg of water per square meter per day, or 1 cubic meter of water per 100 M2 daily. All the energy not used for photosynthesis is transformed into pure condensation, which is typically about 2,000 Kw of thermal energy utilization per square meter per annum.

In addition it should be emphasized that the plant production itself will not waste any water resources since the deep or shallow pond growing method (which is typical) will retain 100 percent of the crop production water (the nutrient water) because this is a totally enclosed Hydroponic system – and with the capture of all the transpired moisture there is actually no loss whatever – except for the export of the wet weight of the crop. Since the crop biomass is also recycled then only the export of a wet biomass or harvest and export of the fruit of a crop can account for a consumption of the local water resource.

NOVEL AND MORE EFFICIENT CROP PRODUCTION

CE Agri is designed as a balanced Ecological Life Support process that can be configured to produce any kind of food, feed or fiber needs by growing higher plants with a floating raft production while concurrently producing the Algae harvest as a primary energy crop. Since the food crops will also produce pure transpired water and described above, then it is possible to supply an abundance of the essential resources for communities to be self reliant and have a secure and sustainable supply of water, food and energy and a surplus for trade and a prosperous economy. Therefore, where food is now a limiting factor, then the CE Agri projects can be operated to produce abundant food. Every CE Agri installation will continuously produce a large resource of biological nutrients, which is the byproduct of harvesting oil from algae. There is no limiting factor on productivity other than the specific solar energy potential of a site.

For example, large scale shallow pond hydroponic growing has produced a consistent yield of 500 heads of lettuce per square meter per year. Hydroponic production of potatoes has produced 200 metric tones per hectare per year. The CE Agri methods will produce a vast increase of yield of various crops over the best results that are achieved today. This can be done even while reducing the operating costs of production. Only our costs for computer monitoring and automation are higher than typical, while other capital costs are in line with the most competitive greenhouse structures.

If food supply is secure then projects can be designed to produce energy or other biotechnology crops where the whole plant can be harvested as biomass or specific flowers, fruit, seed, leaf and root tubers are harvested; including methods that do not destroy the plant but allow a fast regeneration and multiple harvests from successive regrowth. The CE Agri process will also support production of mass cell cultures, tissue culture and micro-propagation, “plug production” and transplant production for the horticultural and nursery industries.

Most of the downstream biotechnology industry is dependent on finding sufficient supplies of natural source feedstock as an input to the various high value extraction industries. Currently, most consumer product industries such as the food, drink, cosmetic, pharmaceutical, nutriceutical and vitamin/supplement manufacturers have difficulty sourcing sufficient steady supply natural plant material of high quality and purity. In every category of industry (for example industrial oils, emulsions, paints and inks) demand exceeds the supply of natural source products. Thus our controlled environment technology system, CE Agri, is the answer to the present supply shortfall. With production that is year around and yield that can exceed field production or current greenhouse production by an order of magnitude (in some cases producing more than 50 times the yield as is possible with field crops) we have the key to the development of the entire biotechnology sector.

GROWING MEDIA

Conventional, intensive greenhouse crop production operations, such as the Dutch “grow bag” methods that use, for example drip irrigated rockwool or other synthetic or organic media such as peat, makes great demands on resources, including energy, water, fertilizers and require consumption and disposal of large quantities of growing media. Our goal is to make the CE Agri method of Biomass Crop Production largely independent of such consumable items. This will base our technology on renewable resources and provide the foundation for building a truly sustainable industry which not only achieves extreme efficiency but also moves beyond this goal to achieve a vast rate of production rather than consumption of renewable resources while minimizing any dependency on the consumption of slowly renewable resources like peat based composts or synthetic growing media that cause land fill disposal problems.

Our solution, the deep or shallow pond hydroponic growing systems are not yet common in Europe but are in use in large, commercial lettuce production operations in Canada and China, where individual projects of up to ten hectares have been operating successfully for a number of years. Our Open Source version of these systems is an advanced concept that is well adapted to Biomass Crop production, which can use natural floating crops or the flotation raft method for non aquatic plant production. The great advantage of the flotation crop production is realized by the fact that the shallow or deep pond is an ideal “liquid thermal mass” – where, in the CE Agri process the flotation pond is integrated with the Liquid Solar Controlled Environment system that is mentioned above.

HARVESTING SYSTEMS

CE Agri Open Source harvesting systems includes both novel crops and methods, with particular emphasis on labor-saving techniques (e.g. automated systems, robotic harvesting and handling, biological and physical sensors for timing operations) – our facilities fulfill the expectations of the “Intelligent Buildings” of the future. The more so, because the CE Agri process is more a crop production machine than it is a building and in such case we can optimize the entire automation processes around the maximum productivity of the crop(s) that are cultured. This approach will also ensure that our workforce is skilled and occupied with management of the production process and not burdened with requirements to perform mechanical and repetitive labor. We also place an emphasis on creating a comfortable work environment that provides all the necessary health and safety conditions for our production team.

The further advantage of the flotation crop production method is the use of robotic harvesting of the biomass. The aquatic plants (grown as biomass for feed, biotechnology extracts and energy production) are harvested by roaming robots, while the high value food crops are moved with conveyor mechanisms to the point of harvest and replanting. All of our Open Source crop production systems are continuous operations with no down time and a constant rate of harvest and replanting. We have three energy crops that produce an order of magnitude more biofuel per area of production than the previously known field crops:

Oil Production from Mass Algae Culture for Bio Diesel? plus another energy crop: Starch Production from continuous, non destructive harvesting of potato plants – for Ethanol and freshwater Biomass production from aquatic plant culture – Methane and freshwater from saltwater using seawater and saline water tolerant crops Food, fiber, feed, and fuel biotech crops – with crop residues also producing methane

This continuous, all season production is the most important factor for successful marketing since we can contract for a constant supply of produce for any market or customer, where our volume and quality of supply is assured and is not interrupted due to seasonal heat or cold. This also produces the highest rates of utilization of investment and increases the profitability over other suppliers that have shut down periods. Such continuous production is also a key to developing a stable and skilled work force for the biotechnology sector.

CE Agri provides many production options for growing food, cut flowers, feed, fiber, plant biomass, mass cell cultures, mass algae culture, micro propagation, plugs and transplants and potted plants for the horticulture industry. The automated hydroponic systems can be set up for deep and shallow ponds as well as ebb and flow and aeroponic growing.

EFFICIENT, ENVIRONMENTALLY ACCEPTABLE AND SUSTAINABLE

Land quality and soil conditions do not limit the selection of sites for CE Agri projects. We can operate on saline sites and use brackish water. We can operate directly from seawater and produce freshwater. Since there is a zero consumption of fresh water the systems operating on seawater and brackish water (or waste water) will supply the freshwater requirements and once these are met then there is a continuous surplus of pure water, which is produced continuously and can be exported at a rate of 10 liters per square meter per day in regions with bright sunshine. Systems can be optimally designed for production of freshwater from seawater or they may treat the pure water production as a bi-product of operations that are focused on plant biomass and Oil from Algae biomass. Additionally, plant biomass can be optimized for specific crops, which are not easily grown in that particular location or time and therefore have a high value. Targeting specific high value food or biochemical, biomedical or other biotechnology crops will sometimes reduce other side benefits of the CE Agri process.

There are vast areas of arid land and land depleted or lost to salination due to conventional agricultural practices that also have high sunlight value and proximity to ocean cold water resources in many regions, such as the Gulf States, South Africa, North Africa and southern California are examples of sites with cold coastal waters and abundant sunshine that provides opportunities for large scale CE Agri projects. The Life Synthesis program will include the rehabilitation and restoration of land to prior fertile and healthy condition. There are no negative environmental consequences of using the CE Agri technology and the operations are sustainable for the foreseeable future. The net present value of the energy system is many multiples of the embodied energy, which is break-even within one year on a Bio Fuel? production basis but is much sooner when considering total energy utilization, including freshwater production.

All the materials used in the construction of the CE Agri plant are recyclable and for the subsequent generations of product, a “cradle to cradle” analysis shows that the embodied energy cost is dramatically reduced. Thus the renewal of a plastic roof cover using recycled material is a very important factor in understanding the sustainability of CE Agri. At some point in the future conversion of hydrocarbons to polymers, will more resemble the paper industry where the great majority of the feedstock for new material is derived from existing paper that is in circulation. An additional consideration is that the hydrocarbon resources created by the CE Agri process that are subsequently used to synthesize polymers and other long used and ultimately biodegradable (or consumed but not combusted) hydrocarbon stocks have thereby sequestered atmospheric CO 2?. Further our energy production subsequently consumed for production of aluminum components of the structure is CO 2? neutral; and again the “cradle to cradle” reuse of aluminum once created is the most positive of any recyclable material.

Our building system is so lightweight, portable, reusable and recyclable that, in itself this represents a breakthrough in the building sector, whose environmental impact now accounts for about half of all CO 2? creation. The weight reduction, which is from 10 to 100 times lighter than other roof and building envelope systems, can enable users to meet goals for reduction of Global Warming by reduction of CO 2? creation connected with the embodied energy of buildings. Also, since our technology is hydrocarbon based but CO 2? neutral we offer an easy transition from fossil oil to renewable oil (from algae) that is produced by the CE Agri process. Therefore it is possible to have sustainable expansion of energy use in economies where populations are growing and standards of living also need to improve. In fact our operations are environmentally beneficial; so that our technology has a negative environmental footprint and the more area of projects we create the greater is the benefit to the planetary ecology.

PEST AND DISEASE CONTROL

The ideal of a totally enclosed and controlled environment system is the avoidance of natural pests and disease vectors. No other large scale system exists that can operate with this advantage due to the fact that CE Agri is the only process permits the very low energy control of climate within the growing space without any need for ventilation. Therefore the interior atmosphere is completely controlled and managed to promote completely pest and disease free conditions. This is achieved through the action of UV, which is able to enter the growing space, and the circulation and filtration of water and air on a continuous basis. Entrance into the facility is managed carefully and entering some areas would require sterile procedures and clothing. Robotic automation is another strategy to maintain pure cultures. Hepa filters can be used because there is no external ventilation required and therefore there will be no gross particulates in the controlled atmosphere. Air change can be as slow as one volume per day.

INTEGRATED CROP MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (ICMS)

Prevention of biological vectors from entering the system is the first priority, however to the extent that problems may still arise we are able to introduce natural biological controls and intentional use of beneficial insects (for pollination) and other agents are more easily managed since they will not be able to exit the greenhouse environment. The atmosphere in the crop growing space is maintained at a regulated temperature and humidity and the avoidance of elevated humidity conditions is another advantage of the CE Agri process.

An additional degree of protection from harmful vectors is the use of sterile feedstock and using plantlets that we will produce in-house using sterile, disease free micro propagation techniques. The work and production space will be arranged in zones of increasing isolation so that the most sensitive stages of production are protected whereas the last stages of growing that take a larger area and are connected with the harvesting, packaging and shipping zones are permitted more access.

CE Agri pest and disease control systems, which integrate the use of a range of advanced technologies, are designed to optimize inputs in order to maintain product quality and enhance the environment. These technologies include selective breeding and micro propagation to increase plant resistance, the use of biological control agents, behavior- and physiology- modifying natural agents (such as scents), bio-pesticides with novel modes of action and novel application methods, diagnostic kits for virus diseases, and key quality factors in pre- and post- harvest produce, sensitive monitoring and forecasting systems for insect pests and diseases, and methods for determining and predicting plant requirements.

TECHNOLOGIES TO ENSURE THE AVAILABILITY OF QUALITY PRODUCE AT TIMES REQUIRED BY THE MARKET

The reliable availability of produce is very important to the large supermarkets that now dominate the retail market. The great majority of the ever-increasing year-round demand for both edible and ornamental produce of a high quality is satisfied by imports, since the local producers are shut down for part of the year. CE Agri will avoid such shut downs and will tend to localize the food supplies of all types.

Studies will include methods for increasing the market share of CE Agri produce include:

• understanding the causes of seasonal and other variation in product quality
• modeling the supply chain
• understanding weather and climatic patterns on supply and distribution planning

CE Agri technology will enable extension of the seasonal supply of high quality produce by:

• manipulating factors, such as plant acclimatisation to our controlled environment; including: quality and duration of light, temperature, and ambient gaseous mixtures
• improving harvest, storage and shipping and point of sale technology
• incorporating the best quality traits into varieties which perform well under local conditions

CROPS TARGETED TO PROVIDE NOVEL OR IMPROVED FOOD PRODUCTS (INCLUDING PROTECTIVE AND BENEFICIAL COMPONENTS OF DIET)

Plant production will be studied for the identification of features at the cellular or molecular levels, which determine qualities of horticultural produce required by the processor and consumer - and strategies for the enhancement of these features. Our processes include the mass cell culture of specific plant cell types that are responsible for producing desired secondary metabolites, including flavors and scents, color and texture, pharmaceutical and nutritional, health and wellness food and drink additives and supplements.

REDUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OF WASTE IN PRODUCTION AND PROCESSING

This includes the reduction of waste during processing (higher quality raw materials, more efficient cleaning/processing equipment) technologies to use what waste is produced (e.g. composting for growing media - see above), and the optimization of biochemical inputs (biofertilisers, biopesticides) to reduce environmentally damaging outputs (e.g. integrated pest and disease control systems - see above, closed recirculation systems for protected crops) and to assure that food and other products are safe and free of any toxic substance. Since CE Agri products are not produced in the natural soil we would not expect to obtain an “organic” certificate but we would work towards a new standard for “biological” food production which is free from chemical biocide use during production or storage.

EXPLOITING GENOMICS FOR IMPROVING HORTICULTURAL CROP QUALITY AND PRODUCTIVITY

Genomics based technologies and the data arising from the genome sequencing will facilitate the definition of quality traits and crop improvement. The CE Agri program would encourage applications that exploit advances in these areas (such as the development of marker genes or quantitative selection criteria) in horticultural production. This priority also clearly impacts on a number of those others listed above. CE Agri programs and production operations follow the cautionary principle and will never utilize or work on Genetically Modified forms of life since they are not proven safe and all of our goals for excellence in growing and serving humanity can be achieved without engaging in potentially dangerous practices.

The CE Agri near-term objectives will be fully demonstrated by our Pilot Plant project:

• Produce freshwater from seawater, brackish or waste water, using Solar Energy
• Produce Biomass for conversion to Bio Fuel?, including Oil from Algae
• Offer improved greenhouse technology for the sustainability of the horticulture industry
• Improve knowledge and understanding of processes and factors which determine the performance of the horticulture industry
• Enable access by the horticulture industry to innovative ideas and technology by teaming our business consortia with a global group of research institutes and university departments
• Through the Life Synthesis Network we will promote wider awareness of the benefits of advanced horticultural techniques/ methods especially to SME's.

PROBLEM STATEMENT AND TECHNICAL APPROACH

Field agriculture practices are not sustainable and they are not kind to the natural ecology. This statement is easily verifiable – since in all parts of the world the area of land that is used for productive agriculture is decreasing rapidly. Soil is depleted and eroded and nutrients are lost and everywhere the water table is falling, while deserts expand and old growth forests disappear. Agriculture practices are inefficient and exploitive; for example, over half the land area in the USA is used for agriculture including 500 million acres of grazing land and 400 million acres of field crop production; using about 3.5 acres per capita (without considering the import/export of food). Extensive, field agriculture is also dangerous; it succeeds by using billions of tons of toxic synthetics and is dependent on petrochemical inputs that have a very negative impact on the planetary ecology and biodiversity. Our ability to continue to produce a sufficient supply of food in an era of depletion of fossil fuel resources is definitely at risk.

Intensive biotechnology is an alternative, sustainable system for provision of abundant life support resources that would at the same time reduce our total land to less then the current urban land (for example, about 66 million acres in the USA); a reduction of 10 times. This projected sustainable urban land use will be about one acre per household, but even so the biotechnology solution will continuously supply sufficient energy and resources to assure every family a better quality of life than currently attained by the USA and this standard of living will be accessible to everyone. Thus the era of biotechnology is not simply a new technical capability – it is a new lifestyle that is founded on a sustainable, ethical enterprise which is not exploitive and can indefinitely support growth and prosperity.

We cannot count on Nature any more. We surpassed her limits a few billion persons ago. Life Synthesis is fully committed to delivering knowledge-based products and process by which we can multiply the productivity of nature, not a hollow promise for a better future ahead, but a “Hyper Natural” capacity to deliver needed results. Such a deeper understanding of how we can "do better than nature can do" will save the planet from exhaustion and ultimate collapse of planetary life support systems. The scenario of "overshoot and collapse" is evident now and lack of action threatens irreversible damage. Therefore, our very survival hangs in the balance. Ecological collapse is on the horizon and population collapse would result from polluted and depleted soil and water, climate change disruption, energy scarcity, social and political disturbance and conflict, and the shut down of the world economy. Our vision is an alternative future where, even though world population grows, we are able to build a sustainable and successful future for all – not a nightmare future that will result in a horrendous "die-off" of the poorest of humanity.

The truth about Agriculture: it is petrochemical dependent!

Food, feed and fiber crops are already exhausting the land and converting much of it into desert worldwide. For the sake of the economics we no longer use crop rotations. Year after year chemical fertilizers are used to supply the nitrogen that the higher plants cannot make for themselves. Organic mater in the soil is "burned out" and the soil structure is destroyed. Mono crops destroy the ecology and result in a massive wave of extinctions through loss of habitat.

The "natural" limits to growth were exceeded at the beginning of the last century when western European countries first began to mine and import vast quantities of fertilizers from deposits of bat dung that was found in the Americas. These resources replaced the normal 4 year crop rotation that is called for by traditional agriculture. Together with the non-sustainable exploitation of the "new world's" soils we survived the first world population explosion that preceded the First World War. Thereafter, we were saved once more by the new Chemical Industry who was able to bring into production processes for the massive conversion of petroleum resources into ammonia based fertilizers. This carried us through to the 60's when crop science brought us new varieties of our staple food and feed crops that are especially responsive to fertilizer use. We then converted the world agricultural production to these types of plant varieties (supplied by the seed industry) and now the entire world is “hooked” on petrochemical fertilizer use and biodiversity is lost. Now the soils around the world are burned out and contain little organic mater - resulting in terrible erosion. The agriculture sector receives 300 Billion in direct subsidies worldwide as well as huge indirect energy subsidies to support these non-sustainable practices.

One can see from the Biomass Crops data (follow the link) that biomass is already the largest renewable solar derived energy source in the USA. All of these energy crops, including forestry, compete for land. Some of them are not net energy producers but they are supported by government subsidies. None of them have the conversion efficiency attained by the CE Agri advanced Mass Algae Culture and Controlled Environment Agriculture crop production. None of the existing sources can co-exist with urban expansion (which is unavoidable due to population growth). Only our CE Agri process has the potential to harness the photosynthesis process without land-use limitation since these systems are specially integrated with the roofs of buildings and offer the opportunity to bring about a new urban/rural vision of our “built environment” called Eco Living. CE Agri is a very high producer of net energy/food/water and will result in energy conservation and efficient distributed production and use of these resources.

THE SOLUTION: CONTROLLED ENVIRONMENT AGRICULTURE

The Protected Agriculture market is very significant and growing sector of the agricultural industry. Currently, there is limited capability of the shelter products that are available to offer adequate shelter from extreme climatic conditions, and therefore they do not provide complete enclosure or year around climate control. One large application is concerned with shading and protection from extreme heat -- for which purpose shade cloths and nets are utilized. Another large sector is concerned with frost protection and extended out of season production in the cold season -- for which purpose crops are produced under light plastic greenhouses or movable membrane curtains that close over the crop at night. Moveable curtain systems are used so that the cover may be gathered horizontally in order to open the covering material during the day; avoiding overheating and permitting more sunlight to reach the crop below. All of these technologies allow protected crop production to continue when conventional field production must cease due to the severity of the climate. Such out of season production allow the grower to supply a locally produced crop delivered early or late season crop that will fetch a premium price.

Sheltered agriculture serves multiple proposes:

1. Protected Agriculture, including shade and net structures and moveable curtain systems for ornamental nurseries, fruit orchards, high value field crops and forestry nurseries

2. Plastic Greenhouse applications, including low-cost enclosures enable enhanced productivity growing high value food and horticultural products during extended seasons, at locations that are close to the consumer.

3. Retrofit Applications including secondary shelters may be built over the exterior of existing greenhouses, warehouses or other large roof areas needing an upgrade of their insulation and heating and/or shading systems.

The above markets will be serviced by our technology; however, we are advancing the concepts of sheltered agriculture beyond what is currently known and practiced to a new degree of Controlled Environment Agriculture (“CEA”), which will be the most significant development of the new century. CEA will enable massive expansion of the biotechnology sector which in turn can solve the problem of Global Warming, which is said to be the greatest challenge facing all of humanity. Our CE Agri process is a Open Source CEA technology, where plants are grown in closed atmosphere conditions that enable an order of magnitude increase in yield and productivity as compared to existing greenhouse technology; and as much as 50 times the yield of field crop production.

The CE Agri strategic goal is to focus on the opportunity to lead the biotechnology sector and provide the ULTIMATE production technology for key biotechnology applications. This means that our technology will produce pure cultures and top quality plants and plant products (extracts) as are demanded by the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, health food and drink industries that seek to supply products that are based on natural ingredients for health and wellness. These industries need a large volume of supply of pure, high quality plant products that are produced continuously and cost effectively. Such conditions and requirements cannot be met by field production or existing greenhouse methods.

More specifically, the CE Agri Development Consortia will target the use of our CE Apps production systems for two important operational bi-products, which are the production of FRESHWATER and BIOFUEL. Both of these processes are integrated with our CE Agri facilities and they will, in themselves, generate a strong return on investment and so off-set the investment cost of a completely enclosed, closed atmosphere growing system. CE Agri technology has some similarity to prior greenhouse technology and our facilities can grow food and horticulture crops that are currently produced by the greenhouse sector. However no greenhouse products, even the best equipped from leaders like Holland, can serve the needs of the biotechnology industry as can the CE Agri product.

Since the Biotechnology industry is the important KEY to our future prosperity it is absolutely necessary that it be implemented with a sustainable technology approach. The CE Agri product provides that leap in concept and technology that will build an industry that is self sufficient and will not suffer from the effects of the depletion of non renewable resources. Thereby the Biotechnology industry will be able to grow without limits and without negative environmental or ecological impact based on its capacity to produce large surpluses of renewable resources – both water, Bio Fuel? and Bio Synthetics? (polymers from renewable hydrocarbon resources) – and where Bio Fuel? is used, whether combusted for transportation or, ideally, converted to electricity by fuel cell, such consumption is completely CO 2? neutral.

CE Agri TECHNOLOY: How does it work?

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION OF “CLOSED” CE ENABLED BY Sola Roof

The CE Agri product is a CEA facility covered with a “stressed skin” which forms the “building envelope”. This building envelope is transparent and it is made from thin flexible sheeting material applied to the structure as modular, pre-engineered and prefabricated panels that assemble together to form large roof areas. This building envelope is secured to a structure design that will optimize the use of transparent or translucent films and fabrics where a multi layer roof cover is designed to provide, at the mid- span of the modular panels, a rainwater drainage system.

The CE Agri process and structure is a Open Source technology that offers significant cost savings and engineering advantage over the state-of-the-art arched frames and tunnel type structures that are typically used to carry the plastic film crop covers. Our structure makes good use of the tensile strength of woven and laminated films or coated fabrics.

Previous technologies for Protected Agriculture include shade structures and movable frost protection covers have a very seasonal use. At other seasons the shade curtains and/or covers must usually be removed. There is a significant labor associated with removal and re-covering and there is no return on investment associated with the structural system during seasonal shut down. Therefore there is an opportunity to greatly improve on the year-round effectiveness of such Protected Agriculture investments. Our goal would be to deliver a year-round effectiveness in respect to both shading (for hot climates) and temperature protection (for cold climates) that will greatly boost crop yields and income. The CE Agri crop cover system will outperform previous systems and provide an alternative to conventional greenhouses. Multiple crops and extended harvest season are possible due to the advanced “liquid solar controlled environment” processes incorporated into the CE Agri system.

The Retrofit Applications would employ the same product system as used for the Protected Agriculture applications mentioned above. Essentially, the CE Agri system is installed over the conventional roof system. The CE Agri pole structures erected between rows of tunnel greenhouses or over row crops or nursery beds. The exterior skin is hung above the existing structures so that there is no interference from the conventional structures, which are thereby enclosed with a continuous cavity space that can be insulated with the Bubble Tech? system. Since the liquid bubble insulation both have such very low dead weight this system can be used without increasing the engineering specifications for the existing roof system. The retrofit also provides a shading system. Using the liquid bubble shading system also provides cooling and reduces the rate of ventilation required to prevent over heating.

CE Agri for New Construction is proposed for development and investigation to take place at NCE Raufoss, Norway. The first, investigative stage of our research and development will use simple and reliable specifications for the structure since we would like to minimize unknown factors so that the fundamental innovative concepts can be proven. The cover material would comprise a set of prefabricated, modular roof panel sections that lay flat and are delivered as small volume packages. Along the center line the material is sealed, which creates a double layer cover and forms a cavity space extending on both sides of the center line of the Column rows. The cover system is formed of multiple sets of these double skin modular panels, which for the Proof of Concept project will be a standard 6 M width but only 20 M in length, while, in full scale projects the panels would be 100 to 200 meters in length.

The CE Agri Structural product will use woven polyethylene fabric or polymer coated scrim fabric (respectively referred to as “Poly Fabric?” or Sola Fabric?), which are manufactured using multi-layer extrusion lamination and Open Source coating processes. These flexible, thin sheet materials are referred to in this technical disclosure as a “skin” or “covering material” used to form the multi skin covered CE Agri structures and the entire covering system is referred to as a building envelope. The building envelopes that we are mostly concerned with are highly translucent or transparent. Both of these types may have high light transmission through the building envelope but the translucent skins will scatter the light and create diffuse lighting, while the more transparent skins will transmit “beam radiation” which creates shadows. In this document we refer to both types as being transparent in relation to opaque skins which will not transmit light by virtue of the mechanisms of absorption or reflection. It has been found that maximum productivity of plants is produced by diffuse lighting, which produces no shadows.

The CE Agri roof cover can carry considerable live loads including snow and rain water. However, the snow melting systems that are integral with the roof are essential for the safety of a CE Agri roof, which has a feature of critical importance -- excellent roof drainage that is provided through the modular roof panel assembly. Melt water and rain water does not travel far over the outside roof cover and immediately, when it reaches the center span, the water passes along the gutter assembly to a down pipe at each column row that conducts the flow to the rainwater storage tank. The rainwater does not need to reach the outside edge of a large roof area. The rapid drainage of water through the stressed skin roof system eliminates any potential for ponding; which is a problem for some previous greenhouse designs. Ponding is a serious condition that adversely deflects the roof cover in a manner which prevents proper drainage. The previous greenhouse systems, called “gutter connected” have structural gutters where the results of ponding can be catastrophic since the film or membrane cover will elongate and suffer permanent damage or cause structural failure and collapse of roof system.

Whenever our lightweight structure is used in regions with high snow fall, a snow melting process must be utilized to melt snow as it falls on the roof system so that there is a limited accumulation of snow on the film or membrane roof cover. The melt water is then drained through the gutter system as is rainfall. Backup systems and emergency power must be provided to ensure that the snow melting process will be reliable and available at any time that it might be needed. As a further fail-safe, if heavy snows load accumulates over the CE Agri roof, then connection at the gutter may be designed to give away so that the snow may fall through and thereby avoiding any damage to either the stressed skin or the structure. Of course in localities where snow accumulation will never occur, such as the tropics, sub tropics and arid deserts such features need not be incorporated into the gutter design.

The structural members supporting the stressed-panel roof system are a system of deep open web joists, which span the building bays of the structure. They are attached to the column by bolted connection provide a means to disassemble the structure if it might be necessary to relocate the project or reuse the components. The bottom chord member column connection resists the upward lift of wind forces that may occur due to the action of high wind velocity over exterior skin. The gutter system is held by skin tension at the mid span of the stressed skin and follows a general roof slope is given for drainage along the rain gutter and along the base chord member from column to column provides the soap liquid (or cooling liquid) gutter with sufficient slope to insure the proper drainage of soap liquid, cooling water from the stressed-panel roof system. Generally, the building bay width (10 M typical) is provided by the free span of the joist assembly. One long modular roof cover panel (100 to 200 M typical) may span across a few bays. On the other hand the rain water and cooling water drain connections are generally at the column rows and thus the distance between these drainage outlets is the same as the building bay width.

The interior skin extends from the mid-span gutter connection to the interior base chord member. Cooling water may also be sprayed and distributed by nozzles located within the cavity space onto the interior skin and must drain from the cavity space along the base member to the lowest elevation, which is at the column connection. These drainage mechanisms let the cooling water and/or rain water to drain quickly at the column rows where collector pipes will catch the liquids coming down from each stressed skin panel module and brings the rainwater to a cistern and the soap liquid or cooling/chilling liquid to the liquid thermal mass reservoir.

The roof cavity is normally at sub atmospheric pressure and is either filled with bubbles when shading or insulating is required, or is simply filled with air for transmission of maximum sunlight through the modular roof panel system. The complete Sola Roof system performance is obtained by installing the inner liner sheet for separation of the water cooling and bubble systems.The CE Agri system can be utilized to create very low-cost large area controlled environments as an alternative to conventional greenhouse construction. If used in snow load zones, it is assumed that the snow melting process which may be incorporated for snow melting as quickly it lands on the modular cover.

We can anticipate that the development of CE Agri will itself be a task that should quickly move ahead toward a successful conclusion. Indeed, the CE Agri processes and structure are suited to very large volume production and constitute the key component of this modular product system. Additionally, other structural issues and attachment methods appear also to be straightforward and we may have a good level of confidence in regard to solving these details rapidly and effectively.

CE Agri TECHNOLOGY: What are the Benefits?

The “Green” movement created an important focus on the human impact on nature and the imperative of conserving natural biodiversity and working towards zero pollution. However, our 6 billion population, must place a burden on the planet’s natural, life sustaining resources and the question is now asked by the “deep green” people: has the current population and consumption rate already surpassed the ecological “carrying capacity”, which may lead to irreversible collapse of global “life support” – a question that is calling individuals and societies to account for their “human footprint”. Analysis shows that our billions of footprints add up to a crisis, since we need the equivalent of several planets to support our current level of consumption of natural resources. We are living on borrowed time the natural capital of the future generation because the growth of our economy is based on exploiting non renewable resources, especially water, soil and fossil fuel.

Therefore it is certain that air, water and food resources are in a state of crisis. And while GHG and the Global Warming crisis (discussed below) – is perhaps the greatest challenge of the future – it is clear that access to clean freshwater is already the greatest global disaster. This statement is supported by the evidence that bad water (and lack of water to grow food) is largely responsible of 30,000 deaths per day – mostly children. What is more remarkable is that our state of art engineering solutions for delivery of clean water is likely to fail and not meet acceptable standards even in our developed nations – where the deficiencies of our physical and chemical means of treatment and the infrastructure of supply are already perceived as a risk to health and where water delivery by utilities are likely to be of substandard quality or actually be dangerous to health.

In the light of the failure of Green and Deep Green thinking to go beyond the problem analysis, Life Synthesis calls for a new paradigm shift: the “Blue Green?” solution. These solutions form the underlying foundation of the CE Agri products and one of the key concepts is to develop “living structures” which means that our primary processes are biological and the structural and mechanical engineering use a “biomimicry” approach to their design. Blue Green? will become a symbol for Eco Living and all that implies in the same way that “Green” is now a recognized symbol for environmental issues and those products and technology that are “environmentally friendly”. People are said to be “green” and the Green Political Party is a world movement, however at its core the environmental movement has floundered and lost direction. The Green Movement has not been able to build on a platform of growth and prosperity but the new Blue Green? is a dynamic and hopeful vision for a sustainable future where expansion and increasing consumption are possible because the Eco Living methods will not deplete or exploit “natural capital”. The Blue Green? solution produces Hyper Natural? capital that can increase abundantly and can be cultivated to grow at pace with our needs because it is based on renewable natural resources, which, show every potential to supply the escalating needs of humanity without encountering limits to growth.

Please consider that if our dilemma is restricted “limits to growth” then it is reasonable to learn from the growth mechanisms of nature and realize that biotechnology is fundamentally different then previous technology. When we work with plants we can employ the phytomechanisms, which means “the growth mechanisms” of plants. It is necessary to comprehend that agriculture as we practice it now has little understanding of ecology and is practiced as a mechanical and chemical technology – in deed modern farms are sometimes referred to as “food factories” and the harvest is the product to which all efforts are directed. The paradigm shift that we propose is one where the process (of living systems) is of greater importance than the product (which is no longer living). By focusing on the process we can learn how to work with the powerful phytomechanisms of plants, we can harvest from living plants continuously without destroying them and we can perfect our knowledge of culture rather then killing. We can reject the concept of introducing toxic, poisonous and destructive inputs into our CE Agri process. Our knowledge of building closed, controlled environments enables the creation and maintenance of ideal conditions for growth and the Hyper Natural? production of an abundance of renewable resources is the bi-product.

Our mission is to deliver biotechnology solutions – not the misunderstood popular concepts of biotechnology – but the serious and practical solutions for ecological life support – to thereby multiply natures’ abundance through our knowledge and the application of appropriate technology. The benefits of our biotechnology solutions are presented in the sections below in relation to five global crisis situations: freshwater, energy, global warming, sustainable economy and shelter.

Freshwater Crisis: Plants Produce Abundant Pure Water

Living plants have a wonderful phytomechanism called transpiration that assures that plants will not overheat in the sun. The plant leaf canopy as a living system has the power to remain at a steady cool temperature of about 22 to 24 C even in bright sunlight and no mater how hot the surrounding air and environment. This capacity of a living leaf canopy to reject solar thermal energy is based on two conditions: a supply of water to the plants and an atmosphere that is not saturated with humidity.

This is a remarkable capacity to absorb directly the entire solar spectrum; use the Photosynthetic Active Radiation (the “PAR”) and transform all the other radiative energy that is absorbed but not used for photosynthesis into transpired water vapor. This cooling process maintains the leaf temperature while throwing about a cubic meter of water into the air as vapor per day per 100 square meters of leaf canopy area. The waste “thermal energy” of the sun is therefore transferred in the form of non sensible latent heat – a cooling process that is unmatched by any manmade mechanical cooling system.

This power of plants to produce water vapor from solar energy was not truly appreciated until NASA investigations into Closed Ecological Life Support Systems discovered this ideal biotechnology system to support long term space missions by using closed atmosphere, Controlled Environment Agriculture systems. Therefore in our CE Agri process we rely on the transpiration process to provide the cooling mechanism for the removal of solar thermal gain from our plant growing environment. This is accomplished by the Sola Roof liquid cooling process which maintains the inner skin of the transparent cover at the desired dew point temperature. This causes condensation of transpiration by the inner cool skin and thus removes the moisture produced by plants. The vapor condenses, forming a film of water on the inside surface which flows by gravity to a condensation collection gutter for use as pure, freshwater. Since the CE Agri is a closed atmosphere system we need to remove moisture continuously from the controlled environment at a rate that is in balance with the rate of transpiration generated by the plant leaf canopy.

The condensation is produced directly in proportion to the solar radiation and sunny locations where 100 square meters of CE Agri process will typically produce 1 cubic meter of pure water per day. Some locations may produce about half as much water – but this is sufficient to meet household needs for one family. Plants can be grown in water quality that humans cannot consume without health risk – however the transpired moisture the plants produce in a CE Agri process will be pure and provide more than sufficient renewable resources of safe drinking, cooking and general needs that is produced sustainably day after day. The plants can use recycled wastewater, greywater, saline and saltwater for growing halophyte crops and with such a sustainable, biotechnology method to make Freshwater from Seawater, the supply of pure water is unlimited.

To put that in some perspective, let us say that current urban land use in the USA is about 25 billion square meters (3% of the land area) for about 100 million households, and if we allocate 100 square meters per household then we have need of 10 billion square meters of CE Agri process to produce all the pure water needed for all families, either in the their own homes or in local projects. This means that the production is widely distributed and little or no water supply utility investment is required. If the CE Agri process is an integrated part of our built environment as a general practice then the incremental capital cost is very low and the operating cost will consume less that 10 % of the CE Agri Bio Fuel? production. Not only pure water but also a comfortable controlled environment is produced with lower energy input that is normally needed for heating, cooling and lighting. Water is a necessity of life and if our “living structures” operate to continually produce sustainable supplies of abundant water then by following this pattern the global water crisis is solved.

In large scale CE Agri projects for Freshwater from Seawater (see slide presentation) there is vast, closed atmosphere culture of halophyte plants that are floating aquatic plants – or seawater tolerant land plants that are grown on a flotation system. These projects produce freshwater that is used to grow freshwater plants with flotation growing systems and other hydroponic systems including aeroponic growing systems and these crops also produce more pure water. Thus there is a large through put of water production from the condensation of transpired moisture. Additionally the total drinking water supply will also include the recycling of treated waste water, which can be one of the main supplies of water into the system. Specialist seawater production are totally dedicated and specifically designed for production of Freshwater from Seawater (see the Slide Show Presentation).

In summary, for a very small energy cost connected with chilling the inner skin of the CE Agri structure using cold water resources, which include ground water and deep lake or seawater, or closed system chilled water, the CE Agri process is enabled to grow plants for energy biomass and/or operate a mass algae culture process which is integral with the operation of the plant growing system. This system continuously produces 10 times the energy consumed in operations and produces a large volume of pure freshwater by transpiration, which is a bi-product of the cooling the closed atmosphere liquid cooling. 100 square meters of CE Agri process will produce 1 cubic meter of drinking water quality from various water quality inputs, which is more than sufficient supply and recycling capacity per household. Crops with leaf canopies for optimum transpiration can also produce biomass for hydrocarbon energy and/or for a combination of energy, food, feed, fiber, biochemical, biosynthetic, biopharmaceutical or cosmetic, food and drink additive and nutritional, health and wellbeing supplement. Many extracts can be produced from whole plant, seed, flower, fruit harvest or mass cell culture of selected cell lines. Pure cultures are easily grown and optimum conditions, including CO 2? enriched leaf canopy atmosphere and O2 enriched root zone growing systems are used to produce a yield that will exceed that of field culture by as much as 50 times and greenhouse or protected agriculture by a factor of 10 times.

All of these results are sustainable and do not rely on non renewable resources. Nor do they require the use of additional land resources since the CE Agri process can be integrated with urban land use and will result in a reduction of total urban land use while bringing a quality of life and standard of living that is advanced over today’s most prosperous societies. The biotechnology breakthrough envisioned for our CE Agri process will usher in a new millennium of prosperity for all of humanity and put an end to the concept of the scarcity of basic resources for life support.

Energy Crisis: Plant Photosynthesis is the Solution

Micro algae are the best option for producing Bio Fuel such as Bio Diesel? in quantities sufficient to completely replace petroleum. While traditional Biomass Crops have yields of around 50-150 gallons of Bio Diesel? per acre per year, algae can yield 500 - 4000 gallons per acre per year. The Vegetable Oil from algae can be converted to Bio Diesel, which is a renewable energy fuel that can be produced from a number of sources including animal fats, algae-sourced oil and vegetable oils by lipid transesterification. It has very similar energy density as compared to petroleum-based diesel, and can be used as a complete replacement or as a mixture of petroleum and Bio Diesel?. Because Bio Diesel? is a renewable fuel, can replace petroleum diesel in current engines, and can be transported and sold using the current infrastructure, it is one of the most realistic candidates to replace fossil fuel as the world's primary transportation and electric power generation energy source.

In addition, Bio Diesel is less flammable and practically non-explosive (flash point 150°C for Bio Diesel? as compared to 64°C for petroleum diesel). It is also biodegradable, non-toxic, and significantly reduces toxic and other emissions when burned as a fuel. There are many advantages to Vegetable Oil as compared to diesel refined from non renewable petroleum for conversion to Bio Diesel, as follows:

• Bio Diesel? reduces emissions carbon monoxide (CO) by approximately 50% and carbon dioxide by 78.45%.
• Bio Diesel? contains less aromatic hydrocarbons: benzofluoranthene: 56%; Benzopyrenes: 71%.
• It also eliminates sulfur emissions (SO 2), because Bio Diesel? doesn't include sulfur.
• Reduces by as much as 65% the emission of particulates (small particles). Bio Diesel? does produce more N Ox emissions than petroleum diesel, but these emissions can be reduced through the use of catalytic converters. Petroleum diesel vehicles have generally not included catalytic converters because the sulfur content in that fuel destroys the devices, but Bio Diesel? does not contain sulfur.
• It has a higher cetane rating (less knocking) than petroleum diesel
• Chemically, it is a fuel comprised of mono-alkyl esters of long chain fatty acids. The transesterification production process removes glycerol from the oil.

Pure Bio Diesel? (BD 100? or B100) can be used in any petroleum diesel engine, though it is more commonly used in lower concentrations. Some areas that have mandated ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) petroleum, which changes the natural viscosity of the fuel because certain materials have been removed. Additives are required to make it properly flow in engines, and Bio Diesel? is one popular alternative. It has been observed that ranges of Bio Diesel? additive as low as 2% (BD 2 or B2) have been shown to restore lubricity. Also, many municipalities have started using 5% Bio Diesel? (BD 5 or B5) in snow-removal equipment and other systems.

Global Warming: Plants Remove CO 2? from the Atmosphere

Under the Carbon initiative, the energy suppliers and industries that are generators of GHG will be required to "capture CO 2?" and deliver it to sequestration processes. This means that vast quantities of CO 2? will be liquefied right where they are produced. Fuel Cell electrical power generation will produce pure CO 2? as a waste gas, while combustion systems will require separation of CO 2? from the flue gases. Our proposal is to use liquid CO 2? to enrich the air in CEA biomass and mass algae culture so that the rate of photosynthesis is enhanced – and this will maximize the production of renewable Oil from algae and/or plant biomass that will produce Methane or by growing starch crops (using the algae nutrients) which are harvested continuously to produce Ethanol.

In the case of algae culture the purpose of the CO 2? enriched growing environment is not just to enhance the growth rate, but in this case to dramatically increase the proportion of oil produced, so that it is not necessary to pyrolyze the dry algae to obtain a biofuel. An alga culture in an enriched CO 2 environment is unusually high in percentage of lipid (vegetable oil), which can be as high as 60 percent. Most algae production has been done in open air ponds and “race way” production systems which will not contain and use the CO 2 efficiently. However our closed CE approach will not let any of the CO 2 escape into the atmosphere since our algae culture is isolated within the CE Agri cavity space. Composting the crop residues will return CO 2? into our CEA system. The overall cost/benefit of this process is improved by having number of different ways to get CO 2? from the air, from aerobic digestion of compost and from combustion of any of the biofuel used for local power generation. CO 2? supply is not a concern but getting a high enough yield of oil per square foot of algae tank, and establishing a more or less continuous process, that the first and biggest challenge. The great thing about the algae is that it needs no petrochemical fertilizers to grow. It can synthesize proteins by pulling N2 from the air (micro bubbles that are in the water). That is why turbulent flow is so good for rapid growth. It gives access to light, CO 2 and N2 - which is all that is needed for growth (necessary minerals are in the sea water). The entire biomass is edible or can be converted to other products. Land area is not needed - every home and community could be self sufficient in energy and organic nitrogen (that can be fed as a "green manure" to the higher plants). The algae byproduct is so large that it is said that people would not eat so much algae - but the answer is to use the algae as a nutrient to grow other plants and produce the feed for fish farming and poultry production. This gets us off the petrochemical dependency of "modern" agriculture that is completely reliant on petroleum derived nitrogen fertilizers. Please let me remind the reader that today's agriculture accounts for about 16% of our petroleum consumption (tractors, fertilizer, chemicals, and refrigeration and transportation to market) not including the cooking of food (which is some countries is a big item of concern).

Our technology builds on the Open Source Sola Roof methods which are built around liquid thermal mass system that usually provides a reservoir at ground level (a tank or below ground cistern) of an appropriate volume in relation to the roof area. To modify this process for algae culture we will circulate the algae culture water (containing both nutrients and algae) to the CE Agri transparent envelope, where it flows over the surface area of the inner skin of the roof as a thin film. This thin film will directly absorb only about 20% of the solar thermal energy because it flows over a thin, flexible and transparent roof membrane, but the flowing liquid can carry the algae to the roof (the algae are free floating in the liquid) where the algae are well exposed to sunlight for a few seconds and absorb the PAR radiation. Algae that are in ponds are not exposed to the PAR, except when natural motion brings them within a few cm of the surface of the pond. This is a slow process and accounts for the lack of productivity of the natural pond. The CE Agri design overcomes this problem by using a low energy circulation system that conducts the algae to the roof cavity system, which is designed to give a maximum but brief exposure of all the algae to the PAR (Photosynthesis Active Radiation) and the algae have a cellular mechanism to absorb sufficient radiant energy to use for several generations of cellular division (multiplication) which is the special Phytomechanism (growth mechanism) of algae.

The algae that have been exposed to the sun while flowing over the roof will drain with the liquid (by gravity) back to the reservoir where the multiplication will continue even though the algae are not in the sun - this is called the "bloom". Thus the biomass bloom forms in the tank, which has an optimum volume, but need not be “in the sunshine”. The algae culture tank is supported on the ground or placed below the ground, so that the weight of the tank is not a problem. The tank construction is easy to integrate with the space available in the CE Agri project because it is fundamentally different than a "pond" concept. A tower tank is preferred because it takes a small floor area but the tank has a height that reaches up to the roof level. Therefore there is almost no "lift" pressure for the circulation pump. This is a very good application of PV electric energy to grow the biomass and the load is perfectly balanced with no electrical battery storage requirement. The CE Agri process controls the overheating tendency of the circulating algae culture liquid it is possible to reject thermal heat gain by using the integral Cooling/Chiller process.

Other liquid to liquid thermal exchange is also easy to achieve and is very effective. The liquid flow path can be controlled and switched to obtain the proper control of the liquid temperature. It is important to note that a cool liquid results in maximum growth because the warm liquid will not absorb CO 2 and will therefore limit the growth and bloom of the algae. The circulation pump is a centrifugal type that can also harvest the algae from the flow - before it is sent to the UPSSS where the re-circulated “seed” culture is exposed to sunlight. The pump skims off the algae in a process similar to the separation of cream from milk. The algae contain about 50% veggie fat (lipid) and are therefore lighter, and like cream they can be separated from the nutrient solution in which they bloom. The lipids are separated and can be converted to a Bio Fuel.

In this system the biomass density is much higher than any pond system and the rate of biomass multiplication can be 10 to 100 times more rapid. Therefore the production of biomass can reach the theoretical limit of conversion of PAR, which is about 30% giving an overall efficiency of about 15% of total radiant energy being converted to biomass. This is higher than the best available PV technology. And it is much higher than other Biomass Crops can produce “in the field”. Additionally, the PAR that is not utilized transmits through the transparent roof cover and can be used to grow other plants located beneath – plants which have leaves. The PAR available for the algae culture can be balanced with the needs of the flotation crop. This is the proposed method to maximize production: - that beneath the Algae Mass Culture system there is a "flotation growing system" which supports an extensive leaf canopy that is the secondary absorption surface area for the PAR and for the total solar spectrum. This leaf canopy can handle the total solar spectrum, including the infrared solar thermal radiation due to the special capacity phytomechanism of the "higher plants" called transpiration, which is a natural cooling process. The leaf canopy will not overheat and remains cool. The CE Agri roof will not overheat and remains cool due to the liquid circulation. (This is our process for a solar biotechnology water production method as explained in the “Freshwater from Seawater” presentation. Also, see the section above on water production and conservation.)

The CE Agri projects can get bottled liquid CO 2 delivered as we do now with propane for example. The CO 2 can bleed off at normal pressure into the algae culture tanks. This assures that the enriched CO 2 environment is maintained for maximum photosynthesis and growth by the algae. Whether the project is a CEA project for biotechnology or a vast area greenhouse operations or the CE Agri process is ultimately integrated with urban living where it can be integrated with a single family homes or a large community projects (Eco Sphere is an example) one can get the liquid CO 2 delivered to any size of operation. Remember that this is a CO 2 disposal issue for the centralized power plants and other industrial process that produce CO 2 who must find a way of mitigating vast quantities of GHG. These producers of GHG will use the Carbon Credit Trading System to pay CE Agri renewable oil producers to take their quota for sequestration. In other words renewable oil production can offset fossil oil consumption because we offer CE Agri as a process for recycling the CO 2 waste product - a GHG.

It is a very important concept within our CO 2? solution that CO 2? neutral energy processes are allocated the same Credits as sequestration. This is only logical since sequestration in the conventional approach is truly a “waste” of natural resources and clearly if all fossil fuels were replaced with renewable hydrocarbon fuels there would be a stabilization of atmospheric CO 2? concentration and with such a powerful conversion system the process can produce excesses of liquid hydrocarbon, which can serve as a long term CO 2? sink where some of this resource can also be used for short or long term carbon sinks – such as the production of plastics.

The algae culture tanks are the primary unit of biomass production. These tanks have a certain practical size in association with a specific CE Agri roof area and will probably be scaled up by having farms of tanks. Each tank has a certain liquid volume and a biomass loading rate - which is the % by weight of the algae. A continuous process would be able to skim off the algae at a certain rate while the "bloom" is in progress. This harvest process would be continuous during the daylight hours. The rate of harvest is proportionate to the amount of sunlight. The liquid solar process pumps the seed culture to the transparent roof cavity of the building envelope to expose the optimum mass of algae to the sunlight every hour. This is the time line for cell division and multiplication following sunlight exposure. The cells store radiative energy that can be metabolized later and passed on to the daughter cells. Previous open pond culture use a thick layer of water containing algae, which will not assure adequate exposure because only algae very near the surface will get a sufficient exposure to the light. A thin faster moving water layer flowing over the inner skin of the CE Agri will do the job very well.

The liquid solar controlled environment process requires the circulation of cooling liquid during daylight hours for the purpose of providing climate control - where the thin, flowing liquid film prevents overheating by condensing the transpired moisture produced by the higher plants growing under the CE Agri envelope. The roof cover is already there and paid for as is the pumping energy. So the harvest of algae requires a small incremental investment for setting up the tank and culture/harvest equipment. Even the tank itself would otherwise still be needed and therefore is not an incremental cost against the total capital cost of the algae system. The Pilot Plant will determine what size tank and flow rate is required to produce at an optimum rate of harvest and therefore a proportionate yield of oil as the principle product. From this investigation we will determine in what time period to circulate the entire volume of that tank to the roof (say for example, every hour) then we would experimentally determine the area of CE Agri system needed for an optimum flow rate per area (and get the optimum water film thickness). This will be researched by empirical studies until we get the best productivity out of one tank. Then, to expand to a farm of tanks would know the area of building envelope required - establishing a modular design system. Or a roof of a certain area would be set up with a certain number of algae culture tanks.

Sutainable Economy: Plants for Sustainable Growth

The future that we envision is a growing and prosperous world where needs for food, water and energy for all the population are met from renewable resources that are produced within the bounds our rural and urban land use regions; a new lifestyle called Eco Living. In this economy there is no problem obtaining enough CO 2 to run a CO 2 enhanced CE Agri process since there will be a healthy, expanding hydrocarbon economy. In this economy hydrocarbons are the energy storage medium and the use of the renewable hydrocarbon products are clean and capture the CO 2? as “food” for algae to produce renewable oil to off set fossil fuel combustion. As we convert to the hydrocarbon economy there will be very little difficulty with establishing the infrastructure that will optimize the benefits of a system, which is easy to access and non polluting. The transition stage challenges relate to the vast scale of the implementation of this new paradigm – since CO 2 generation is now so large that CE Agri plants can immediately be built on an enormous scale. The CE Agri development is cooperative, where our industry will use the waste of another and new construction to cater to new growth can benefit from the quick adoption of the CE Agri process.

We envision new industrial parks with a dynamic biotechnology component that would enable building new clusters of self sustaining biotech and other hightech industries. In the future we will also integrate the CE Agri process into all kinds of urban roofs to build Eco Living communities – and we will call this our Eco Synthesys? product line - but our idea of a small community is several thousand families, and tens of thousands of individuals living in communities that establish a new synthesis of architecture and ecology. The Eco Synthesys? program would start small (for example building Eco Sphere projects) and demonstrate that it works well before we commit to the design of a larger community. Life Synthesis technology then can be implemented as distributed, community integrated systems comprising both CE Agri projects for CEA and the urban Eco Synthesys? integrated projects; “for a new urbanism” that is sustainable and humane. Sustainable village patterns of a couple hundred people would be developed and each of the village units would have their own Micro Turbine or Fuel Cell combined heat and power (electrical generator) systems that are producing CO 2?. As well as this, there would also be the CO 2? from aerobic composting of garden wastes and perhaps some chickens and other livestock - all of which are sources of CO 2? that can be segregated and directed into the algae and plant production systems.

Additionally, the large producers of CO 2? are going to be required by the Carbon Credits program to capture and liquefy their CO 2? and these large scale produces will pay others to take the CO 2? off their hands and sequester it back into the biosphere. Currently there is more practical progress and knowledge of how to separate and collect the CO 2? than there is about practical solutions to sequester it again. The biosphere of forests etc cannot be isolated to uptake the CO 2? without large losses and in any case the rates of sequestration by the photosynthesis of the higher plants in nature, including trees (even so call fast growing tree plantations) are no where near to being able to metabolize the CO 2? that is coming down the pipe so to speak. Only pure intensive algae culture can keep pace, with the benefit that the closed, enriched atmosphere CE Agri cultivation achieves a greatly enhanced rate of growth and conversion that could match step with our growth of population and growth in prosperity.

Shelter Crisis: Plants to the Rescue – Prosperity for Everyone

As mentioned above in reference to sustainable economy, Life Synthesis will support a revival of the "village" pattern of community development using the Blue Green solution, which calls for: distributed power systems; district heating and cooling (using ambient solar and ambient Cold Water Resources for climate control in buildings); and a mix of alternate energy technologies that would supplement primary energy from a “clean hydrocarbon cycle” based on photosynthesis. If we look at the roof area of our homes and communities we can see that a very large potential exists to establish closed cycle ECOLOGICAL Bio Fuel? systems as our primary energy source. It is projected that more homes will be built in the next 20 years than have been built since the beginning of history – therefore it will be a great advantage if the bulk of these new homes incorporate our Eco Living solutions. Even if a fraction of this growth could be in the form of sustainable communities then we would provide a “soft landing” for the world economy as we move through the transition from a state of fossil fuel depletion crisis to long term Bio Fuel? supply security.

Our concern is not only with the prosperous and expanding (western and northern) economies but also with communities and populations that have been left behind and who live in abject poverty. The industrialized nations will transition through a contraction of the non sustainable segments of their economies, while both the urbanized and rural populations in all countries will expand and grow their sustainable sectors so that world economic development will show a trend to convergence on a universally successful and diverse Eco Living lifestyles and livelihoods. The poorest of communities, who are excluded and marginalized in the present non sustainable economic system, will show a dramatic forward movement that, will unalterably “Make Poverty History” because the root causes of poverty and hunger will be eliminated.

Chief among the causes of poverty is homelessness. There are now 400 million homeless in the world and the rate of homelessness is growing – such that the number people suffering in this condition is projected to double to 800 million in the next 20 years – and so, just to stand still we need to build 100 million homes or 10 million per year to eliminate this problem. This is the largest market in the world and requires production of some 30,000 units per day. What would make it feasible to begin to supply human habitat on such a vast scale will be the very low cost but high value of the CE Agri methods when they are adapted to use as an Eco Shelter system. The accessibility, affordability and adaptability of our structures and processes for comfortable controlled environment living, working and recreational space will release the vast human potential and allow the recovery of health and vitality in the poor communities. Food, water and energy security will enable poor communities to regain confidence and self reliance and build a foundation for growth of prosperity since each family can sell and use the CE Agri products and develop Eco Village industries. Ecotourism is also an important component of the development plan for expanding the Eco Synthesys? enterprise.

In the tropical regions and in the developing world we can use the CE Agri construction. A Poly Fabric? skin costs about one Euro per square meter and the structure framing is a high efficiency design, which is an almost flat, extensive roof areas built with light, Wide Span, open web joists. These efficient structure concepts can be built with many types of materials. We can build "tree-free" from recycled metal framing or use bamboo or modern high tech composite fiber materials. Therefore our program will collaborate with many community development and urban renewal projects because it will be the lowest cost and highest value and can show a new pattern of Open Source design that is the foundation for a realistic opportunity for communities to rise up out of their poverty. It would be shameful if the wealthy communities are not motivated to build the pioneering projects that would become patterns for Eco Villages, which are equally accessible to rich and poor communities and that will close the gap between communities through a convergence on the Eco Living lifestyle.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT MILESTONES

Full-scale Proof of Concept Project

This is a small scale CE Agri that will prove the concept of the Under Pressure? technology for producing a stressed skin. This step in our product development program should include construction of a full-scale canopy at the Life Synthesis Manufacturing, Kuching, Malaysia, which will investigate how the building environment can be cooled using the Bubble Tech? and Liquid Solar process so that the sheltered space below has a cool and comfortable environment even on bright hot days. The goal is to complete this study by the summer of 2010

Full-scale Field Test Project

Sample lengths of CE Agri integral with the joining flanges and structural attachment system will be produced with the appropriate edging details. An array of three modular roof panels and two “manifold panels” will cover a structure of 0.5 Hectares. This field test structure will include a bubble generator and liquid cooling/chiller system. A structural frame and footing providing adequate wind resistance system should also be implemented in order to test a complete designed solution for a portable structure. This Field Test will be installed in the autumn 2010 by Life Synthesis at the Norway Farm and tested over the next years with various studies by students as well as staff of the University partners.

Full-scale Pilot Project

Phase I

This Phase will cover the development of a proposal for EU funding of a full scale Pilot Project, which will be proposed for construction in winter 2011 at an appropriate high solar energy potential site, possibly in a Mediterranean, North African or Gulf State location. This phase will include the search for an appropriate strategic partner with suitable assets and ability to collaborate with the Life Synthesis Consortia. Data and projections based on investigations and operations of the Field Test Project will be of some considerable benefit and so the start up of:

Phase II,

A Feasibility Study will likely be the spring of 2011. It is recognized that the cost per square foot of the CE Agri system for Protected Agriculture is estimated to be €15 to €20 per square meter. Such economic analysis will form part of the design studies that will evaluate the projected commercial viability of the Pilot Project, and with positive result we would precede to:

Phase III

In the autumn of 2011 we anticipate proceeding to the implementation phase of the Pilot Project at two sites: in the UK and in Almeria.

MANAGEMENT PLAN

Life Synthesis will supply management services throughout the development program described above. We propose that Life Synthesis Manufacturing will fabricate material for the modular covering components including conversion of the materials into the prefabricated roof panels. Life Synthesis will provide design and construction services with SINTEF Raufoss Manufacturing providing engineering services for structural and mechanical systems, and the Sola Roof Foundation will coordinate relationships with possible Gulf State joint venture partners for the Pilot Project Phase. Other foundations and NG Os? will participate in the Consortium or in association with some of our activities. Foundations and NG Os? that have expressed an interest include: Schumacher College, One Village? Foundation, Shell Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Make Poverty History initiative. Our business consortia will provide team members to manage site construction and commissioning support, while Schumacher College provides services, site, utilities and university staff and student program support. We will jointly seek grants or fees for contract research as may be required to evaluate product.

RATIONALE AND SIGNIFICANCE

Communities in the tropics and especially the arid lands have been underserved by the lack of technology developed to maximize the benefits of the high level of solar resources available in these regions. Our project will unite major universities and colleges, who together with innovative private sector enterprise will form a Development Consortium to investigate, develop and commercially exploit the new biotechnology approach to sustainable resources that has been proposed by the Life Synthesis leadership team. The large numbers of potential end users of the new technology have inspired our collaborative group to extend our model of business cooperation to the vision of implementing a global cooperative network that will provide unlimited accessibility and the practical means to deliver our technology through certification and training programs and make them available through our associated educational institutions.

The Eco Center? program is a proposal for future vocational training centers that will teach and certify new standards for an Eco Living lifestyle - however, this project will follow up the results of present proposal and is especially intended to take our sustainable construction methods and apply them to the rural village renascence throughout the world. There will be a new urbanism program as well and both of these non profit educational initiatives will be further enhanced by designing and promoting an inexpensive, interactive, state-of-the-art ICT for “distance learning”. Furthermore, this vocational rural/urban Network will prove to be self-supporting even with limited student enrollments at each participating site.

The impact of this project will prove significant support and resources to other rural sites desiring educational opportunities, which have been too distant or support was too expensive to allow participation in higher education. Through the Life Synthesis initiative the educational opportunity gap between urban and rural communities can be closed and a model program established for consideration by other regions. In addition, our vocational training activities are intended to become self-sustaining programs offered into the future by the Eco Centers in tropical climate countries and adapted (as a model system) to programs in other climate zones.