Synergies among "My favorite things"

I enjoy research and learning about new things. I am an interdisciplinary systems scientist, and I take great joy in discovering how people and the things we find in nature and the inventions we develop work together. For the last decade, I've invested thousands of hours in research on topics related to the list of  "my favorite things" identified in my first blog post. These first few posts will be at the 60,000 foot level. In time, I intend to get down to earth with practical advice that people can use for decision-making. Hold me to that. 

The primary driver for some of my intellectual curiosity is the world's increasing demand for high quality protein for food and feed. A secondary driver is the realization that in nature and ecological systems, there is no such thing as waste. It's only in human and economic systems that we see the phenomena of accumulation of wastes.

I surmise that some of our inventions have gone awry because we did not strive to create closed loop or integrated systems that emulate nature. A careful review of the four system conditions articulated in The Natural Step provide the necessary grounding for a more sustainable design of human engineered systems in natural ecosystems. I'll post the four system conditions in a future blog and discuss TNS in more detail then. 

For now, to be brief, I only wish to focus on the synergies between soy, algae, aquaculture and anaerobic digestion and what I would characterize as a new conservation ethic. 

Soybeans have the wonderful ability to fix their own nitrogen from the atmosphere, thereby reducing reliance on commercial nitrogen from fossil fuel sources and reducing water quality issues associated with use of commercial N. Increased use of No-till is continuing to yield gains in soil conservation. Simplified, soy is nature's way of recycling nitrogen. There are some studies that report that soy is responsive to increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide, too. Further study is needed.

Algae has the capacity to fix carbon dioxide and to harvest nutrients from water. Algae occurs naturally in response to nutrients in the environment, and can be produced commercially on nutrient rich waters from agricultural runoff, or from more controlled settings such as the nutrient rich waters post-anaerobic digestion. Algae is nature's way of cleaning water. 

Aside from shellfish that are sometimes characterized as performing a water filtration function, most aquatic species like clean water. And, various aquaculture species would be quite happy to eat soy-based aqua feeds or algae-based aqua-feeds, either of which is preferable to use of the byproducts of commercial fishing, so-called "trash species" or "bycatch." Soy and algae are complementary and vital components of our nation's effort to be energy and food independent and carbon negative.

Both soy and algae yield wonderful proteins and oils for human or animal/aqua species consumption, as well as myriad substrates for industrial products like biodiesel, too. Some might see a landscape of competitors here and an inclination to argue which is best in terms of productivity, performance or profit. I see substances with a place in a diverse landscape and use that is appropriate to people and place.  Sustainability is not a monolithic panacea, but is instead, an optimization of variables over the long haul, sometimes, very specific to place.  

In future posts, I'll dwell a bit on topics like The Natural Step, and drill in on discussions of sustainable soy in weekly posts over the summer months. As time permits, I'll sprinkle in some further discussion on algae - fact based, no hyperbole - and try and find the bandwidth to share some insights on aquaculture, too. I'll try and appreciate short attention spans, and use Twitter to post incredibly brief 140 character notes on key developments, too. 

Enjoy summer. Until next time.

Doug