Also, trees that get too big have roots that damage infrastructure and have to be cut down. I’m not saying I like the dirty fishtank look more, but I can see how this might be easier to maintain in urban spaces.
And you can’t grow trees on concrete. This one is particular is just the first one of it’s kind and it’s mostly in a spot to show off the technology. I’m not aware of any other ones that have been built yet.
That was my thought as well. I’ve seen what some homeless people are capable of. (Not trying to dump on unhoused people, here, but there are some seriously ill people left out on the streets). This glass needs to be nearly unbreakable for it to work
While it’s good to be skeptical, algae tanks like this are actually a good idea for the use-cases for which they are designed. Places where trees would be difficult and expensive to grow. The tanks more efficiently capture carbon, require less maintenance, produce fertilizer as a byproduct and the solar panels on the tank produce enough extra power for there to be a USB charger on the bench. The goal isn’t to replace trees with tanks but to use them where it makes sense to do so.
Too expensive to grow trees? Thank god capitalism is saving us so much money, we are all so rich now that we can simply buy oxygen tanks instead of having to deal with those money sucking trees and plants.
I think a lot of these are just cool experiments and projects grad students do for the sake of doing them. Then some hack writes an op ed about how we don’t need to worry about deforestation because we can plop algae tanks down instead.
Sadly, dealgaeation is quickly becoming a catastrophic problem. However, we are confident we can soon genetically modify human lungs to partially breathe the sulphur clouds that will engulf our planet!
I thought it was more of an experiment that, if proven successful, could eventually aid in the exploration of space since we would need to engineer ways of creating oxygen for prolonged travel.
We are in a parasitic relationship with capitalism. Capitalism constantly extracts from life and the environment. When life begin to limit captialism, capitalism will go to great ends to remove life. Capitalism is not sustainable, nor is it naturally occurring. Abolish this evil system.
How about we only have some capitalism. Let’s only allow less slavery and habitat destruction in exchange for us all to be subservient to billionaires.
I’d have to see how it is better than, worse than trees on a case-by-case basis. But generally speaking, I can think of a few reasons this is better:
Trees are messy. They take a long time to grow, they take constant maintenance while growing, then they eventually die. Tree roots fuck up pipes & concrete. If this installation is equivalent to 1 or more trees, it is doing the work in a fraction of the space.
At the same time, though, green space has shown to improve mental health. I would be curious (and very sceptically biased) if algae tanks have the same impact.
It’s been proven that humans didn’t actually get most of their fresh air from the rainforest, but actually from millions of these algea in the sea… Which is actually more logical, since trees do the opposite at night, kinda undoing any advantage they made during the day… Hence why it’s said you should never put a decorative small tree or even plants in the bedroom as they can take away oxygen levels in closed rooms at night. It’s even said not to sleep under trees outside at night cause it can cause respiratory problems.
They don’t use enough oxygen over night to negate the effect as they use the carbon to grow. It’s still bad to have a lot of plants in your bedroom, but it doesn’t really matter as long as they are relatively small.
That had me go and look it up and apparently you’re right that they use part of the carbon dioxide as energy storage, but as I understand this storage eventually gets released in full when the tree dies too…
Not sure if that would be so much to balance it out again, but it does still diminish their overall effect even more…
It is just how a tree works, it gets the matter to grow from the carbon dioxide. If they are burned or they die this carbon is slowly released again, same way as coal has carbon that is stored until burning
Nobody uses an urban tree that gets cut down. It just gets hauled off to the landfill.
It’s absolutely ludicrous that when the gigantic oak in my yard fell the arborist didn’t know of anybody who could cut it up into lumber for me – even in a city with so many urban trees that it’s called the “city in a forest” – but allegedly the economics of it don’t work out, or something. I dunno if that’s true, but it pisses me off enough that I’m half-tempted to go buy a damn portable sawmill and start a business doing it myself.
Say that to the table in my living room. (They removed a lot of old exotic trees that were lining some road some years back, those trees got sold to people making nice tables).
Selling the trees was only a side effect, and these weren’t your run of the mill trees either. But exceptions exist
I saw something like this, which piped exhaust from a generator thru a container of water and algae, with the idea to capture the co2, etc produced. Sure why not. I'll still prefer trees.
God, yes. Trees provide shade, transpirative cooling, homes for animals (birds, mammals, insects), and a particular natural beauty that tanks of algae do not.
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