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
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.
Because they pick trees that have gender. They plant male trees, see dogwoods, the flower but not bare fruit. So you get allergies because of tree cum. And as far as I know plankton cum doesn’t come with side effects.
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.
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 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.
For real, the people on this site deserve the hell they create for each other. If Kbin had a functioning account delete button, I'd have been gone months ago.
To echo what some other people have said, these algae tanks absolutely should not be used instead of trees. If I see a tree get chopped down and replaced with one of these, I’ll be sad and angry. However, these can go in places where trees can’t go, like rooftops. And you don’t have to either wait for a tree to grow for a decade or take a tree from somewhere else to install one. It also serves as both a seating area and can mount a solar panel on top. These and trees both have their place and should both continue to be used.
If growing algae is effective at anything, why do it in a small sealed tank in the middle of a street? Most of the oxygen we breathe is produced in the ocean, regardless of where we personally are. Why would we need to stand vaguely near a rather sealed looking algae tank? If simply growing algae is effective for oxygen replenishment and carbon capture, surely we’d be better off simply growing massive ponds of it away from city centers? Like, out in the open?
It seems like green-washing bullshit to me.
Trees provide a lot more than oxygen. They provide shade, habitation for animals, and psychological well-being for humans. Dirty fish tanks don’t provide any of those things.
People are seriously in this thread complaining about roots like they’re a reason to replace trees with algae boxes. Getting some big plant-based NFT cryptobro carbon-credit nonsense vibes.
It’s actually hilariously ignorant that you people are pretending this is a cost effective idea for carbon capture. It will, in fact, just make a bunch of dirty fishtanks that are abandoned or thrown away almost immediately.
For the conversion of Carbon Dioxide into Oxygen? That was the main point of these, the algae does that and is actually even more efficient at it than a tree. Trees do have other benefits hence why they shouldn’t be replaced, but these should go in places where trees can’t.
All these people being like “why don’t we just use trees” as if the capitalists could profit from them like this. And not to say this is cost efficient, of course planting a tree would be better for everyone, but whoever installs these things will have a contract guaranteeing them money that taxpayers will be told is being put toward green initiatives and so will be eager to part with it I guess
Well of course, you can’t give working class people any money for working, you can only give them a slave-wage. That’s why all manufacturing was outsourced to very underdeveloped countries when NAFTA was first put into place.
You can easily get away with exploiting people who have no other choice but to work for a dollar per year, but it’s much more difficult to do that to someone’s neighbor in their community.
You really think those massive, experimental water tanks won’t require more maintenance, because you have to trim trees once ever few years? Or because their roots might grow too much?
And the oceans are incredibly vast, so they provide most of the world’s oxygen! Obviously it’s hard to get a precise number but 50-70% is the accepted range.
There are many reasons to plant trees in the city but local oxygen supply isn’t one of them. Mostly trees look nice, and make people feel better by their presence. They also have a significant cooling effect, something a steamy tank full of warm algae definitely won’t help with on a summer day.
Local oxygenation is important, conversion at the source pretty much always is.
Moreover it doesn’t at all imply in lue of trees and importantly oxygenate at the same rate day and night since they’re independently lit ideally 24/7/365.
You don’t need to put algae in cities. They can be basically anywhere to absorb CO2.
Trees in cities tend to be carefully chosen for the environment. Are we in a climate where we need to put salt on the road in the winter? Choose trees that can tolerate some salt in the ground.
As much as it sucks, until we reduce the need for cars, northern rural areas are going to need to use salt for roads to be usable. Of course, if global warming gets worse it won’t be an issue
Besides the already stated fact that global warming will only make winters worse, there are better ways like cleaning the snow (ok, that’s radical) or using abrasives like sand or gravel.
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